I Suffer From Shyness Induced Snobbery When Approaching A Girl

[Paul]

I have a question (or nearly a question, it's so vague I can hardly get a handle on the concept I'm trying to articulate!) about the value of intuitive judgments when selecting a woman to approach.

I have a tendency to acknowledge attraction to a woman but then talk myself out of it because "she's probably...x,y or z" where x,y or z could be anything from too stupid to has poor taste in...whatever.

However, on occasions that I have been in contact with such people that I would have from a distance judged harshly, I've found them to be, in some cases, very fine people.

So I'm wondering what your take on this is?

I have a notion that it may be a form of limiting belief (i.e. it's more of an EXCUSE not to approach than a VALID REASON not to approach).

Is there anything that deals with this specifically? In a way I already have my answer, but I just want to bounce it off someone.

[Dennis]

How's it going, Paul? Good to hear from you.

At the heart of your question is a phenomenon that I find fascinating.

Assuming I get the gist of the matter, what you're saying is that you almost feel as if you seek to justify failure to deploy when it comes to approaching women with snobbery, for lack of a better word.

In other words, even though you're attracted to a particular woman, you do your best to shovel dirt on the whole idea of meeting her for whatever reason that sounds good in the moment.

Even though she's beautiful to you, you tell yourself there's got to be some "deal breaker" going on there...even though in truth you have no concrete idea yet whether that would be the case or not.

If that's ringing a bell here, believe me, I GET IT. I used to do this ALL THE TIME, man.

The process runs sort of like this:


1) See woman, PRE-QUALIFY HER instantly in your mind as amazing.


2) Consider woman, let your mind go into analysis mode...leading to negative visualizations of potential "rejection", etc.


3) Rationalize away the situation by PRE-DISQUALIFYING her as having some presumed "deal breaker" going on that makes it not such a good idea to meet her. That way, she never has any chance to cause you any pain by "rejecting" you.


4) Fail to deploy. Yet, you retain what you perceive to be the upper hand: You've "rejected" her as sort of a pre-emptive strike.


Notice that the second point above is VERY key. That's the psychological linchpin to the whole weird mental process we cycle through.

In my case, the "pre-disqualification" would very often play out something like this:


"I'm not going to give her the satisfaction of knowing I'm interested in her, because she'd probably embarrass me if she had 'one up' on me like that."


Yep...and that statement would be closely followed by this one:


"Besides, she's probably completely wrong for me because of [insert lame-o, fictional reason here]."


So to essentially camouflage my fear, I'd tell myself that I was the STRONG one in such a scenario--keeping my 'one up' position on the woman.

The end result, though? Women thought I was a TOTAL SNOB.

After all, I was a pretty outgoing guy with my friends and was almost always good at making people have fun.

That is UNLESS there was a girl I had the hots for. Then she didn't so much as get eye contact from me. I totally gave her the "cold shoulder".

But it really wasn't that I was a snob. Rather, I was, simply put, deathly afraid of rejection. So I 'pre-rejected' them.

I may have told myself that I was the STRONG one, but deep down I knew my mindset was pretty WEAK.

Essentially, I was the "outgoing shy guy". I was able to shine in just about every social situation, unless a woman I found attractive was involved. Then I'd CLAM UP.

Crazy, huh?

Yet I think a lot of guys can relate.

So for the good of the cause, what was GOING ON there?

It all comes down to our tendency to run through all the BAD possibilities in our minds before anything REAL ever has a chance to play out.

We visualize disaster, and of course we run the other way. Stimulus, response.

But blaming the woman for being "wrong" is just a crutch. In fact, that's as much of a fantasy at that stage as your attraction for her is.

(Think about that one for a sec.)

So what's the CURE?

Well, first of all, the day I stopped seeing simple conversations with attractive women as CONTESTS, everything changed.

If you're just TALKING to a woman, then there's no more an issue of "acceptance vs. rejection" than there is when you talk to anyone else you meet. It's simply socializing when you think about it like that.

I'm not sure exactly where it all clicked for me, but I'll readily admit that I waited long enough in life to get over it that I'm kicking myself.

Maybe I had finally been on enough dates where I was initially excited yet grew less and less interested as the evening wore on. That's always a practical way to learn how counter-productive, if not flat out silly it is to pre-qualify women.

Or maybe I had successfully conversed with enough women while in a relationship with someone else (i.e. when I wasn't really looking to act on attraction) that I finally GOT IT: a confident, carefree style works like a charm with women.

You know what I mean, right? It's ye olde "Why do women like me more when I have a girlfriend?" quandary.

Well, the answer is, of course, a delicate combination of women "buying on the approval of others" AND what I'm talking about here.

When you LEAD with an attitude that is free of any angst over potential loss, then the woman feels more comfortable with you and you fare WAY BETTER with her overall.

At this point I have to tell you that one of the BIGGEST reasons why I go out of my way nowadays to be approachable as opposed to hiding in an "ivory tower" is because of my life experience in this area.

Believe me, I know as well as anyone what a TRAGIC LOSS it is to insulate myself from terrific people because of "shyness-induced snobbery". (Maybe that acronym, "SIS" is significant, huh?)

It's truly a joy to get to know people and let them make their own first impressions on you.

I personally realized over time how deep the influence of "shyness-induced snobbery" ran in my life. In many ways it showed up when confronted with any situation with anyone I was sort of in awe of, for any reason.

Really, it's all just a "front" for not facing up to what a man's got to do whenever something's perceived to be "at stake", right?

You can imagine how such a mindset can prohibit someone from meeting almost anyone who could prove significant to him or her.

So these days, I've learned to enjoy meeting every single person I can and not wad myself up in pre-conceived notions of ANY type, actually.

And I suspect that if you intentionalize that same concept of seeing conversations with women as simple social events rather than "do or die" situations, you'll soon develop a very "big four" habit of ENJOYING interaction and opening yourself to the natural results of where it leads.

That is to say, pretty women who knock your socks off initially may end up disappointing you, even as other women you meet by happenstance impress the heck out of you. You'll go with that flow, and ENJOY IT.

No "fear of loss" involved.

By the way, just to add another dimension to this (as I tend to enjoy doing), keep your eyes open to the fact that every shred of what we're talking about here is a HUMAN TENDENCY, not just a "guy thing".

That's right, if YOU think we as men get hit by "SIS" you should know that this mindset is PANDEMIC among women.

The girl in high school who went out of her way to IGNORE YOU just may have had a major crush on you. And for some women, being affected by "SIS" never changes.

You even see that theme played out in the movies A LOT...especially those "chick flicks" we rarely watch.

Well, there's a reason for that. Women can RELATE also.

We sure weave a tangled web for ourselves in life, don't we?

Ultimately, you just never know what's really going on with people until you meet them and get to know them. And that takes leadership.

Just like "following" someone on Twitter is actually REALLY "leading" as far as social interaction goes, the same holds true in real life. The "Big Four" guy makes the friends, meets the women, and ends up being the key influencer in his entire social circle.

Great, great question, Paul. Thanks for the inspiration to address what really is a HUGE topic for many people.

By the way, was that in line with what you already suspected?

[Paul]

Thank you for your answer.