When should you handle social anxiety and when should you embrace it?

[compass]

For instance, approaching directly, after you say whatever, should you just hold and wait, or should you immediately go into conversation afterward?

Even while in normal conversation, when something gets quiet, should you be the one to re-initiate it or should you just hold, stare, and wait? Reinitiating to me feels both good and bad, good because you can handle yourself and don't need other people to start everything, but bad because you can't handle the pressure so you need something to get out of it.

[Jon]

You wanna give people enough room to take the initiative in conversation, so don't instantly fill a silence, but be ready to do so before things get awkward, especially early on in an interaction.