DR. WALLACE: I'm a female college student and some of my classes require public speaking, which is the last thing I ever want to be involved in!

I've struggled mightily in this department and have embarrassed myself more than once trying to get through an oral report. I've had friends of mine work with me to try to get me to improve in so many ways. We've tried role-playing, having me rehearse and prepare a speech over and over and over again, and even one friend of mine told me to study the subject matter, but to just go up and speak "cold" without any notes or anything! The idea was to just simply start talking about the subject matter in a way that highlights the important points.

But none of this worked, and nothing I know of can get me past the overwhelming feeling of being self-conscious the whole time. This really crimps my style, and I know my presentations are painfully awkward. Since I've run out of friends to ask for advice, do you have any suggestions that I might try since nothing else I've done so far has worked? — Dread Public Speaking in Class, via email

DREAD PUBLIC SPEAKING IN CLASS: This is going to sound entirely counterintuitive, but I highly recommend you use a healthy sprinkling of humor in your future reports. In my estimation, what you need is a way to break the ice and feel more comfortable in your own skin so that you can deliver the information in a way that flows to your audience more smoothly than you are typically used to up through this point.

Talk to your friends, family members and anyone you can come into contact with to come up with some funny ideas, stories or situations that you can weave into your future oral reports. It may sound like this would be a bigger challenge than what you're already going through, but think about it. You're already feeling highly self-conscious and you've mentioned that your oral reports are sometimes painfully awkward. Even if an occasional joke falls flat, it's not going to be much different than what you've experienced in the past! But I do feel that if you have a handful of — say four or five — brief funny segments to weave into your speech, you will actually garner some laughs, and that will help you relax immensely. An audience loosens up and simultaneously bonds subconsciously with a speaker who uses even mild humor here and there.

One thing to mention is to please contact your professors in advance, and mention that you're going to intentionally use some mild humor in your speech to help you overcome the awkwardness. Assure them you will be tasteful in all of your storytelling and humor, and that you'll keep it brief and tie it into the subject matter in a way that will make sense to the overall class. Clearing this in advance will also help to keep you calm and even a bit confident. Knowing that you have this new tool in your repertoire can hopefully have you leaning into your next presentation with mild anticipation that it will go better than your previous ones have. I'm rooting for your improvement, which I trust is about to be revealed very soon!

I HAVE A WHOLE NEW PERSPECTIVE ON MY FRIEND'S COMPLAINTS!

DR. WALLACE: My best friend gripes about everything! We've been best friends since we were girls at intermediate school, and now we're seniors in high school. She has so much going for her, and most things in her life are going really well, so for months I've been wondering why there's such a disconnect between the way I look at her life and how much she gripes about it.

I finally got the nerve to bring the subject up to her carefully last week and instead of denying it, she really surprised me in a couple of ways. First, she acknowledged and admitted that she intentionally gripes about a lot of things! Then she hit me with what I wasn't expecting. She told me that she uses her griping as a coping mechanism to deal with all the stress and pressure she feels all this time. We're both trying to get our best grades and get into our preferred college and of course we both have busy social lives and so forth.

Now I feel foolish for having brought this subject up to her as if I was complaining about having to hear her constant griping! I did actually apologize to her, but she kind of brushed it off and told me it was no big deal. I appreciated that, but I'm still feeling really self-conscious about this matter. Is there any way for me to make things up to her, or at the very least for me to feel better about myself after having pointed out what I initially felt was one of her big flaws? — I Now Feel Foolish, via email

I NOW FEEL FOOLISH: Perhaps the two of you could make it into a "game" that you play with each other back and forth, kind of like a tennis match. She comes up with something to complain about, you throw a complaint into the air from your perspective, and hopefully the two of you can enjoy a few laughs back-and-forth with each other between the things you come up with.

But I would also advise you to take it a step further, and introduce the idea of "balancing the books" by alternating gripes with things you're each grateful for. The idea is to blow off some steam by grousing with a gripe, but then after a few laughs and a discussion about it, pause and think about all the things that are good in your lives and that you are each grateful for. Go on to tell each other things you are grateful for too. Maybe call these sessions "gripes and grates"? I know I'm reaching here, but you get the idea.

I think that if you two can alternate both of these concepts back-and-forth between the two of you, you'll not only increase your mutual bonding, but you will both enjoy the camaraderie of discussing these things in a balanced way that will keep both of you from getting too high or too low at any given point in time.

Dr. Robert Wallace welcomes questions from readers. Although he is unable to reply to all of them individually, he will answer as many as possible in this column. Email him at [email protected]. To find out more about Dr. Robert Wallace and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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