quotes on shyness

I love reading sentences about shyness. I had a good example earlier in a book of poetry by Lyn Hejinian; but, unfortunately, I let someone borrow the book and the sentence is gone.

One I had recorded from Tolstoy's _Anna Karenina_ about the character Levin goes like this:

"Levin suddenly blushed, not as grown men blush, slightly, without being themselves aware of it, but as boys blush, feeling that they are ridiculous in their shyness, and consequently ashamed of it and blushing still more, almost to the point of tears..."

The kind of shyness that strikes adults beyond childhood interests me a great deal. Thinking about it is also how I have chosen to procrastinate on homework... probably not such a great idea.

Oh, I think I found the Hejinian passage I was talking about in a journal of mine:

"One of the forms of shyness is characterized by the fear of making someone else feel awkward or embarrassed, a kind of hightened sensitivity or extreme empathy" (_My Life_, p. 62).

I later wrote that "I think I am a different kind of shy [than that which] Hejinian spoke of..." Anyway, before I get too confessional on this thing, I'll leave it at that (at least for now). Anyone shy out there who thinks he/she pretends not to be? Does this feel a trap?