How to sell yourself (not in a prostitutey way)

One area I have never excelled at is in selling myself (and no, I don't mean in a prostitutey way but I probably wouldn't be much good at that either). You know when someone who doesn't know you very well wants to know a bit more about you and the general idea is that you are supposed to high light all your good points so they can see how amazing you are or whatever. Yea, that's the part where I get distinctly uncomfortable.

Now this arises most often with men, either on a date or trying to make a date happen and I hover awkwardly between trying not to sound like I'm bragging and trying not to actively put myself down. Admittedly the latter is more within my comfort zone which is it's own kind of awful.

Now I know within Irish culture we have for the most part become a nation of people that don't really talk themselves up. It is the exception as opposed to the rule and I sort of like that, it backs me up and makes me not so much an extremely under-confident woman but just a victim of my own nationality. It allows me to make sweeping statements that imply I'd like to talk myself up but it's not really the Irish way to do so.

The truth of the matter is that is only half true. We all know of at least one person who has been described as 'up his own hole' that is guilty of the crime of self promotion and hell, no one wants to be that person. At the same time I know my comfort zone lies in sarcasm and self depreciation and If I can combine the two then so much the better. 

I'm even finding that after one or two compliments from someone else I start to squirm uncomfortably hoping they'd just say something jokingly mean to make the whole situation less uncomfortable. I like to say this is something I am working on and by that I mean I am ignoring it and hoping it will go away in time. I found based on my previous experience this is an awful way to deal with any underlying issue but it doesn't stop me clinging to the false hope that this time around it is just the solution that was called for.

Now if you decided to read this blog post thinking you might get some advice on how to talk yourself up then I humbly apologize because this blog is not the place for that sort of thing. And if this is not the first post of mine you've read then you should really know better by now. 

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