Cmon Malti, what a great opportunity to extract some nectar from life...It is very exciting to be up there. You love excitement! The only things that have truly made me feel happy and alive...were my own accomplishments. Getting past this particular stumbling block would be a major accomplishment for you, and you WILL feel good about it, no matter what happens. You just fearlessly put yourself out there, in all your imperfect humanness. That gets a ton of respect all by itself. If you mess up, you just keep going like nothing happened. There's no time for embarassment, it's detrimental anyway, who needs it?
Self consciousness is close enough to embarrasment in my book, they're both fears dealing with what others think of you. And I always got the impression you were past the stage where you are worried about what others may think of you.
(a post a while back where you implied that you don't wear underwear comes to mind)
This proves how important drumming is to you, because you are more sensitive to it.
I dare say that you probably would sooner flash your bare chest than play a tune with other musicians, am I right?
Like I said, everything will be fine. Everybody is too concerned with themselves and don't know anything about your self consciousness. They can't hear your inner dialouge. So suck that up, replace that tape in your head with the one where you are the undisputed Queen of your World, tell yourself that you're gonna do this, take a deep breath, and just say, "Sure, I'll play..." Nothing to it. The Dopamine will be flowing hard at that point, you'll stride up to the drums (looking fantastic) take your place, and off you go on the ride of your life!
The guys will be thinking, "Damn she's hot... And she is well grounded too because she's playing the drums". Good, bad, doesn't matter.
The women will be thinking, "Damn she's hot, I wish I had the guts and talent to do what she's doing...How can I keep my man from wanting her more than me".
What you do almost doesn't matter, because you were born with great looks, and you are just as humble as can be, at least when it comes to playing the drums, so I don't see how you can lose. Just being honest.
Have some fun!
Just another reminder...
YOU'RE MALTI! YOU ROCK!
You have super powers! You're fail-safe!
Hey Malti, the songs that you are likely to be playing, are you comfortable with them?
Maybe a smart thing to do is to get with whoever will be asking you to play ahead of time and agree on a few songs to do with them so you don't go up there totally cold, and just learn them front to back. Then, when it's time to rock, just go up there and act like you're doing this off the cuff. Project the illusion ha ha.
I really have no idea what your skillset is on the drums because you've never posted your playing. So it's either post some playing here first and get some critique first, or just go for it. Not going for it is not an option, you do know that, right?