Inadvertently Anti-Social..

I can't do it.

I just can't. Everyone around me, however, seems to find it easy as pie.

But not me.

I mean, I grew up as a half-time small town Midwestern Girl. I SHOULD be able to do it. Everyone in the small town of Oxford, IA can do it and do it every time they step foot out of their front door. I go to visit my second mom, and people are waving at me and smiling, saying hi and trying to start conversation. (People I don't recognize or remember in the slightest, remember me and want to catch up..)

I mean, I try every day, EVERY DAY, to make eye contact and smile at people around me.

I fail at (almost) every attempt to smile and say hi to complete strangers, or people that I haven't talked to very often. I mean, I'm thinking 99% failure here...It's apparently not in my programming.

You know how hard that makes my job in public retail? The customers smile and me, and expect small talk to come pouring out of my mouth. Not so easy, sorry.

It's not that I don't try. I mean, most of the time I see someone walking my direction and think, 'Smile at them, say hi...something! Quit being so anti-social!!' . Then the person walks by, I look the other way and failure. I can't get myself to do it.

Why????

(It's always been this way, just been getting worse lately. When I was growing up, it took me a few months to get used to my classmates, another month or two to actually start talking to them, and then another month or two to start sitting with them in the lunch room and in class. Think about it.. that's most of the school year gone in that time. Summer would come around before you knew it, and then I would have to start all over again with most of my classmates the next year...)

Do you know anyone like this? Are you like this?

Do you have any clues to this annoying phenomen, dear reader? Do you have any suggestions for me?

Help!!!!!