Speechless!

All the world's a stage, and I have stage fright!!

Surprising as it may seem to some of you, I suffer from glossophobia (albeit a mild version, I think). For those of you who are scratching their heads or opening a new browser tab to check the meaning of the word, glossophobia is the fear of public speaking. I think that’s one of the reasons I have taken up writing – it gives me the sense of satisfaction that I am getting my thoughts across to more than a handful of people (though, ironically, that’s exactly how you could describe the number of readers I have, but that’s besides the point), with the comfort of doing so in privacy, and without the fear of soiling myself. In any case, I have proven once again that I am as common a person as one can be – in one of his stand up acts, Jerry Seinfeld mentions how in a survey, the fear of public speaking was voted the greatest fear, surpassing even death (which came in at number two).

At one point of time, I was required to do a speech on derivatives at college. It was at that time that I had to face my great fear. I looked up various suggested techniques to overcome the fear of public speaking. Among the regular, boring suggestions like rehearsing in front of a mirror, visualizing a standing ovation, and repeating your speech over and over again; I came across a hidden gem – imagine your audience in their underwear! The rationale behind this was logical enough – mostly the fear of public speaking is an extension of the underlying fear of being ridiculed. So if you were to imagine your target audience in a compromising situation, rather than them holding rotten eggs and tomatoes aimed at you, you would be more confident and less likely to mess up.

As some of you may have guessed by now, things didn’t work out too well. In hindsight, I am not really surprised. I mean, really, have you ever been terrified and aroused at the same time? Actually, no need to answer that. That’s how most horror and slasher movies work. Anyway, things got messed up pretty much the moment I got on stage and reached the podium. One look at the audience and I panicked. “Remember; just imagine the audience in their underwear.” As I looked up from my notes to the audience, my mind went blank. The crowded auditorium looked like the set of the biggest orgy. Given my only experience with women’s underwear were the innumerable porn movies I had seen, all I could see was lacy underwear, stockings and in some cases, really high heels. Of course, I was simultaneously grossed out by the sea of semi-nude dudes – it didn’t help that in most cases, girls tend to sit with their legs crossed while the guys spreads their legs wide while sitting. My mind was scrambled with all the conflicting emotions going on.

Needless to say, my speech was one to remember, for all the wrong reasons. I stammered and stuttered through the opening sentences, trying desperately to erase images from my head, and get through the notes I had prepared. I was way beyond the point of trying to maintain eye contact with the audience (I didn’t even dare to look anywhere in the general direction of straight), checking my voice modulation, or any of the other million things you need to be careful about during a speech. “Umm.. uhhh.. I… uhhh…” – I was so confused; I was making more noises than Kristen Stewart in the Twilight movie. And that was not even the worst part. Every time I got to the words “exotic derivatives”, I ended by saying “erotic derivatives”. After many more mistakes, including “securitization” becoming “screw-tization” and “organization” turning into “orgy-nization”, I got to the part of the speech where I thanked the audience for their patience. As I moved away from the podium, the audience, who were upto this point muttering their disapproval of my speech, or discussing the sorry state of affairs of our nation’s economy, suddenly stopped and let out a collective gasp. It took me the entire, slow walk away from the stage to realize what had happened – as I moved away from the podium, the audience got to see that I was pitching a tent.. in my pants.

I guess this could be called a life-changing event. I am still trying to break the code to become a confident orator. And there are many more equally innovative, infinitely less risky techniques out there. For example, the standup comedian late Mitch Hedberg used to wear sunglasses during his performances as he suffered from stage fright. Hopefully, some innovative technique like this one should help me out as well. Meanwhile, I am also doing the occasional search for how to hide a boner in public – just in case.