system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
I fucked up a conference talk. I love what I'm doing at the lab but I hate presenting my work. Can I avoid it?

Title. 

This isn't the first talk I've messed up, even my bachelor's​ thesis defense presentation was pretty awful. I have my master's thesis coming up soon. 

My boss (ScD, about 12 years older than me) says to think of it like theater, with only one actor - me. And, well, rehearse a lot. 

I know I can't avoid stuff like the defenses, but can I avoid everything else? If not, what can I do?

Preferably not involving mind-altering substances. But I'm open to any suggestions.
gpt
I think that the first thing to remember is that there are many (beginning and well-renowned) academics who quite literary read their paper as a way of presenting it. So while conferences are great for getting feedback on your work and networking, it's definitely not necessary that you must be a great public speaker in order to get these things out of them. So while it may not be the best thing for your career to avoid conferences completely, simply try not to be so hard on yourself or to take the actual presentation too seriously. In the end it's about the content.


However, if you want to be better at presenting, there are public speaking courses available at many universities, and acting lessons indeed can't hurt. It's better to try and not hate the thing you hate (by being less hard on yourself or becoming better at it) than to just avoid what many perceive as a crucial aspect of academia.