5 reasons that public speaking blows if you don't like being the center of attention.

1.  You have to talk IN FRONT OF PEOPLE and you are being judged by EVERYONE.

2.  Fear of said judgment invariably results in a marked decrease in the ability to sound intelligent and/or articulate, which is counterproductive since that is the very thing for which you're being judged.

3. You just want it to be over once you've stopped talking, but if that happens - i.e. if no one has any questions - that generally means you were either so boring that no one can find it in themselves to care, or people can smell the fear wafting off your body and have taken pity.  Neither is really a desirable outcome.

4.  When you're standing up there, in front of everybody, there doesn't seem to be any happy medium in terms of speaking speed.  You're either too fast, or you're too slow.  It seems like there should be a middle ground but, tragically, this is not the case.  There is no correct speed.

5.  Finally, the more you think about not using fillers such as like or um, the more often they seem to burst out of your mouth with no conscious control on your part.  The more you hear yourself saying them, the more you want to stop and the more nervous you get, and the nerves cause an increase in the frequency of fillers, rinse and repeat.  It's, like, this terrible positive feedback cycle of ... um... doom.  Gah!



I've never read all the way through the Divine Comedy, but I'm fairly certain that there was no circle of hell devoted to forcing denizens of the inferno to spend their time speaking in public.  This was a major omission on Dante's part.  Screw those silly, ironic punishments like fortune tellers having to always walk backwards.  I think that a healthy fear of criticism and the need for external validation along with being forced to talk in front of a group of people who are sitting there judging you would be an excellent form of torture.  Possibly one suitable for petty larceny or being one of those parking enforcement people who give you a ticket for being an inch too close to someone's driveway.  Not quite bad enough for pedophiles and murderers, but definitely too severe for folk that cheat on their taxes or rip the tags off pillows.

Now, back to work on my powerpoint...