Actually I don't have issues with public speaking. A couple of months ago I did a presentation in an international conference, and I think I was one of the best presenters in my session. As long as I am prepared and the setting is well organized, I do well enough. In my last job I was doing my job alone in a closed office. I wasn't interacting with anyone, and no one was interacting with me. Occasionally, I was seeing my supervisor, but that is about it.

I have issue in informal settings, though, where things aren't predictable and not organized. These small talks aren't my thing (weather, cloths, ... etc). I cannot do them. I am horrible in them. Being spontaneous is something I lack. I must thing everything through before talking, otherwise things become disastrous. But in informal settings you cannot prepare. So, I either keep silent, and speak nonsensical and stupid things. I remember once I went out with a postdoc, and all I was talking about was politics, science, and religion. He was polite enough to respond, but I felt he didn't like it, and he never went out with me again. One thing I forgot to mention is that from anxiety my face becomes so weird (I don't know how to describe this), which makes my anxiety appears to others plainly.

I don't know, I just feel no one understands what I am talking about. Shyness is not the correct term for it. I fear connecting with people, but this fear is just a dimension in a multi-dimensional issue. I mean, if I overcome my anxiety to talk with others, I will have to face the problem of how to connect with others.

I think even if someone came to me to initiate a conversation and to know me, I wouldn't do well. Someone at the university alluded to me that when he first saw me, he thought I am fun, interesting and a conversationalist, but when he really talked to me, he knew I was nothing. I feel this is a pattern in my life. As long as I am silent people think I am someone worth talking to and knowing. The moment I open my mouth all they find is disappointment.

I think I am just too damaged and irreparable at this age. I feel I am painfully giving up. I am not a fatalist in the strict sense, but I believe the random experiences I have been through have set me the way I am. I don't believe things will work out for me, ever. I don't see a glimpse of hope in my dark reality to encourage me. I know I am so negative and pessimist, but that is how I feel right now after all these failed years of trying. I need some hope to start over, but right now that hope isn't there and I don't know how and where to find it.

Anyway, thanks all for the replies. I appreciate them all.