A Man’s Guide To Overcoming Shyness
Mar 18th, 2009 by Joseph Matthews
One of the hardest emotions for a man to deal with isn’t anger, sadness, or depression. It’s SHYNESS.
Shyness is a gateway of sorts - it leads to the other emotions listed above. It does this by impeding our ability to achieve what we want to do.
When a man gives into his shyness, he doesn’t talk to the women he likes. He doesn’t take a chance on making a new friend. He doesn’t do ANYTHING. He just sits by himself, wallowing in self-pity and fear.
And before he knows it, his feelings of loneliness and inadequacy become overwhelming, and he becomes depressed.
All because he is shy.
So why does this happen? Why are some men so prone to give into their shyness?
First, realize that shyness is a behavior that stems from what MIGHT happen.
Let’s say you see a girl you like, and want to talk to. But before you can, all sorts of scenereos flash through your mind…
You can see her rejecting you.
You can see her laughing at you.
You can see yourself being upset after saying the wrong thing to her.
As I said - ANY NUMBER of possibilities exist. And even if we’re aware of it or not, these possibilities run through our minds when we feel the need to take action regarding a girl.
Shyness is a mental construct that is designed to protect us from bad outcomes. Ironically, it leads to us experiencing worse outcomes at times!.
But the problem is that if we don’t risk the bad outcomes, we’ll never get any GOOD outcomes either!
At it’s core, shyness is the fear of being judged harshly. Someone who’s shy doesn’t want to be subjected to the opinions of others, typically because:
1. They believe those opinions will always be negative
and
2. They do not have a strong sense of self esteem, and feel vulnerable.
And it’s even worse when dealing with a beautiful girl because there’s the element of “sexual validation” at play. If a beautiful girl rejects us, not only is it a harsh judgement, but we must also be UGLY too, right?
And to make matters worse, shyness in men is far more crippling than shyness in women.
A shy woman will still have men approaching and persuing her. However, because of the dynamics of the dating game, shy men will rarely, if EVER, be persued by a woman - even if the woman LIKES him and is attracted to him!
Shy guys often fantasize about having a woman come up to them and ask them out. But this is just a way to rationalize their shyness. In their mind, they’re hoping to be the one that is persued because then they don’t have to risk anything by being the persuer.
However, this is never the case. 99% of women wait for the men to come after THEM.
Essentially, you have shy guys isolating themselves from success in love, not only due to their inability to act, but also due to their contentness to continue being shy.
So what’s the solution?
The only way to break through shyness is to adopt different behaviors and thought patterns that promote a better outcome.
One must learn to gain confidence in himself, so that he is not vulnerable to the judgement of others for his self esteem.
One must learn to take action when necessary, and seize opportunities as they present themselves.
Learn to see the positive as well as the negative in your day to day life, and work towards maintaining the positive.
It can take awhile, but believe me it’s worth it. In the end, you’ll have overcome your shyness and have possibly found the woman of your dreams. What’s not to love?
