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@kai003

Hi Kai
This is such a really great question - you may not have realised that anxiety about online chatting is really widespread, because alot of people (like me) have to pay for every text, so are really still not used to making short messages, and so even in chats are still in "letter mode", and also because a lot of the world grew up without any sms at all, and therefore it's a "new thing".

Everything that's new gives someone every right to naturally feel a bit scared until they get comfortable with what they are trying or beginning to do, and same definitely goes for this issue - not just with you, but with thousands and thousands of people. Being a bit anxious about trying something new is a perfectly natural human evolutionary reaction, as well as being a part of most personality types. I say evolutionary, because in cave-man times, trying new things was often how people often ended up dead, so the people with fear of trying new things naturally were the ones more likely to live long enough to produce descendants - there's a really funny movie called "The Croods", starring the voice of Nicholas Cage, that really illustrates this well.
So on that subject, good on you for being brave and reaching out to post on a forum, and for sharing something personal that already has a fair bit of potential to end up helping a lot of people.

At 7 Cups, please maybe try "suspending" this as the sort of issue that will discourage you from pressing a "chat now" button . . . what I mean is maybe consider trying the notion that at 7 Cups you are entitled to leave the obligation to keep you chatting in the listeners' court - Cattastic is 100% right of course: silences amongst friends and amongst friendly people are perfectly healthy, in fact in at least some cultures, they are customary.

However, given that you can expect because of that they are going to be patient, 7 Cups listeners are trained to think of and to ask questions which are supposed to motivate you to keep chatting, and the longer that listeners volunteer here at 7 Cups - and also the more training they do - the better they get at doing just that. . . you can check out the experience of a listener that you get from the "chat now" button as soon as a chat begins, by right clicking on their icon and opening their profile in another window or tab. Of course some people are already very talented listeners before they volunteer here, so don't "judge the book by it's cover" and let the fact that a listener is a newbie put you off - after all, beginners tend to try harder, too.

Also, if a question seems difficult to answer, or if you don't feel like talking about a subject any more, never forget you are also perfectly entitled to say "I'm sorry, I don't know how to answer that question at the moment, could you ask me a different question instead?", or "I'm sorry - I'm getting uncomfortable: can we please change the subject?"

As for outside 7 Cups, how about the idea of using 7 Cups as a practise ground for "the real world?"

What would be really helpful, of course is that if at the start of a "practise" chat, you tell the 7 Cups listener something like "I'm here today to practise online chatting, in order to build up my experience and confidence at doing that". That way, the listener has a good reason to loosen up, and won't be worried in case there's some difficult emotion, situation or event that the member they are talking to really wants them to help with and is a bit shy to mention at the start.

Listeners are from all over the world here at 7 Cups, and we all need to open member accounts, in case we ever want to get help from another listener (called a peer supporter) after a difficult chat. When I started my member account, I needed 5 chats with listeners to access the chat rooms (in case I ever wanted to access group therapy for myself, without letting anyone know that I'm a listener). When I explained to the listeners that the reason for the chat was merely so I could qualify to access chat rooms, some of them really relaxed, and we had really great chats - just like old friends, even though none of us had never met.

I really want to make sure that you know that here at 7 Cups, it's really okay if the first listener you try and you don't happen to "click" straight away - "It takes all types to make a world" is a really true old English saying from the 1600s, and there's an even older idiom that was taught thousands of years ago in Ancient Rome called "Di Gustibus non es disputadem," which means "There's no accounting for taste". Some members are going to like some listeners better than other listeners, however skilled or talented the listener can get. With over 300 000 listeners since 2013, we certainly do have listeners of all types for you to choose from. Logically, for you and every other member, some listeners are definitely going to be easier to talk to than others, because everyone is different. At 7 Cups, you, the member, are the one who gets to call the shots - If a chat is not working for you and even the request "Please can you help me think of something to chat about" doesn't seem to work for you, it's certainly alright for you to say "Thanks very much for volunteering, I need to go soon, and then the listener will end the chat . . After that, you are certainly entitled to decide to get straight back into the queue and to meet another different listener. . .(- 7 Cups policy encourages you, and even gives you badges for it). Listeners training points out to listeners that this sort of thing happens, and in the long run it's better for the listener as well, if the members that they eventually end up with turn out to be a natural fit for them, as well.

One other thing to try at 7 Cups, and even later at other places, might be to start with really short chats and then build up the amount of time you spend chatting - there's nothing wrong with deciding that you're going to spend only 5 - 10 minutes in a chat (even though listeners are likely to offer you an hour at a time), and then you can build up your chats by a few minutes at a time. . . after all the best sort chat is one that gets so interesting that you can even lose track of the time.

There is nothing wrong with having a few questions ready, and even already typed (or pasted) on a notepad document, to ask a listener - listeners are not allowed to tell you our private contact details, but we're allowed to decide to tell you what country we're from, what languages we speak, what subjects we're studying, whether we live with a family or by ourselves, what our hobbies are, and what our favourite colours, places, foods, sports and movies are, and even what we think about what's been on the news lately (although that last one, we're going to be obliged to ask you what you think first). Once you start a chat and read someone's profile, you can also find out about a listener's lived experience from a scroll-down list, and if that's an issue you have now, or an issue that you have deal with in the past too, it's okay to ask a listener if they'd like to talk a bit or answer a few questions about lived experience that you both have in common. Between all those topics, you should be able to fill up whatever time limit you've decided you want to achieve.

I really hope that some of this is helpful for you, Kai. You're welcome to let me know, if you like. Have a great day.