dog eat dog

I have a confession to make. I'm terrible at meet and greet situations. I consider myself a fairly personable person and able to make conversation. I can even carry a conversation for more than 5 minutes if I try hard enough. But, for the life of me I still get that "I'm-about-to-perform-in-front-of-500-people" feeling when I have to introduce myself to someone. I play it out in my head:

I look at the stranger awkwardly. We both know that we don't each other and that a simple hello would quickly dissolve the sheet of anonymity. I think to myself, why doesn't someone introduce us? That would be too easy...

I try to get eye contact. Maybe I just need to muster up the courage and say, "hi, I don't know you, but my name is so-and-so." Substitute so-and-so with "Jamie" or maybe "world's shyest person." Either/or.

I don't think I'm shy. But get me in a situation as stated above and I'm 5 years old on the first day of school. I remember my first day of school. I got to bring a stuffed animal with me. He was a stuffed dog named Scruffy. Maybe that would help future situations...