Confused, at some times outwardly shy (5)

I believe the answer is:

messy

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'confused' is the definition.
(thesaurus)

'at some times outwardly shy' is the wordplay.
'at' says to put letters next to each other.
'some' means to look at the middle letters.
'outwardly shy' becomes 'essy' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
The middle of 'times' is 'm'.
'm' next to 'essy' is 'MESSY'.

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for messy that I've seen before include "Untidy, dirty" , "Disorganised" , "Dirty and disorderly" .)

I've seen this clue in the Evening Standard.

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