Shyness is generally misinterpreted in two ways. One, that the shy person is lacking in confidence, and two, that the shy person is cold, unfriendly, or too self righteous to make conversation. Shyness is not a negative characteristic in and of itself but I think we can agree that low confidence, unfriendliness, and self-righteousness are. The thing is that most people that lack confidence are also shy (probably like many of us on here). People that lack confidence are always looked down upon, which I think is unfortunate. But I don't think its the shyness that people look down on, its either the perception that the person is either lacking in confidence or just plain cold.
