Being shy, you probably regard an invitation to a party with about as much enthusiasm as the prospect of attending your own execution. Just think, you could be standing there in the shadows by the back wall, surrounded by clusters of babbling strangers, feeling everyone's eyes on you (is your fly open?), in one hand a slowly dripping warm soft drink that has long since gone flat, in the other a limp stalk of celery oozing what is allegedly cheddar cheese dip. Your feet ache, your stomach is painfully knotted and spasming, and rivulets of sweat have dried on your forehead. This just might not be your idea of a fun time.
A strong case can be made for avoiding parties altogether. For the shy person, parties may be the worst of all possible places for meeting people and making friends, much less connecting with women. Parties have a justifiably bad reputation for poor food, rowdy and drunken behavior, and mind numbing stupidity on a massive scale. Calling them a monumental waste of time and energy could be something of an understatement. All the same, before dismissing parties altogether as an option, consider them... as an opportunity to practice and flex your newly developed social skills, to use your imagination, to stretch and extend your confidence muscles. Parties are a challenge, a test of your resourcefulness and ingenuity, an exercise in risk taking in the social arena, a leap into the unknown, a roll of the dice in the grand game of people.
Shy man, you are certainly no one's idea of a "party animal". Party vegetable comes closer to the mark. So be it. "Grow" into the role, if you can, if you dare, for good things come at the oddest of times and in the unlikeliest of places, even, heaven forbid, at social gatherings.