Fear of success

[seeker84]

I found out that I have this fear of success when it comes to asking girls out.

The more the girl is attractive (and my type) seems to be

(at least somewhat) interested, the more I feel the urge to "go away voluntarily"

and "make it just a silly joke." Looks like I'm not very tolerant to excitement. But when

I do that, I always regret.

I've been used to not having a date for a long time and at some point of my life

it started to be comfortable. But I don't want to let this fear of success get in the way.

I can't count how many times I "gave up voluntarily."

 

Does anybody have this problem? How do you deal with it?

I need to give up giving up.

[fredrolin]

in other words, are you saying that girls that you like intimidate you and you lack the self esteem to ask them out?

 

I am a decent looking guy but I never could ask attractive women out.

 

I always just settled for the dogs; I never felt I was worthy of being with a hot chick and feared I wasn't good enough to date one.

 

I know now that people are people and everyone should be treated the same...too bad society doesn't see this.

[faux]

Whenever I express an interest in attractive women, I tend to have remarkable luck. Most guys never approach the women that they might consider extremely attractive, and if you have a lot of confidence and charm, they become interested quite quickly. Conversation, and quite a bit of stimulating conversation, goes a long way in these situations.

 

If you start something, why give it up so easily? Wait for them to decide. When you show an interest in someone, they either will reciprocate or they will not. Those are not such bad odds, if you ask me.

[Goldmund2004]

I hear you man if you are talking about fear of success. I see beautiful, and generally friendly women at Starbucks, in the store, at the lunch-eating area in my large multi-tenant office building--everywhere. (Friendly is a very important complement to hotness--hot women who are icy or closed off in public are likely the same way at home and in the bedroom) . But I generally just walk away or talk to them casually and then take off without escalating the conversation to a point where I can gauge whether or not they are available and/or interested in going out with me. I'm thinking about it the whole time, and walking away thinking, "you just passed up a very good opportunity."

 

There's this one girl at the gym that I saw quite a few times, started saying hi, smiling, etc. when her face became familiar. Then, one day, I was on the treadmill and she pulled up beside me and started talking, gave me lots of cues and "ins" to ask her out and I declined, closed off the conversation and went to lift weights...Ran away--fear of success. I think she felt bad because we don't really say hi to each other much at all anymore. Lost opportunity.

 

I don't know if it's because the fear of having to go into a relationship (even after the 1st date you are in a relationship, just a very early stage one, a very precarious stage I might add), or going on a date and really liking her and she doesn't feel the same way, or what. What I have realized though is just to let it all go--we have pressure as guys to have hot women, or to at least have a woman in general, not the least of which is the pressure "down below" that builds up, but lots of social pressure as well. We train ourselves to get a piece of our self worth from the quality of women we are seen with and that prefer to be with us, and this is a bunch of b.s. I still can't bring myself to even have casual conversations with fat chicks but this is a good predictor of fertility so I give myself a break on that one.

 

I'm divorced, and so part of the pain of going through that was my feeling that I failed as a man, and to some extent I did, but everyone fails and this doesn't mean you aren't a valuable person and have a lot to add even if you aren't with a woman. It doesn't mean you are a fag, it just means you're single. Instead of fearing success, or failure, just be...and be the best man that you can. You can't derive your confidence or sense of self-worth from externalities. When you get that, everything else will follow...including the ladies.