How can I stop being shy around girls?

[Oladeji123]

I seriously hate myself right now. I hate being shy when i meet girls. I just came back from a night out a friend and he met up with a female friend of his. She brought along a couple of her girlfriends also. My friend immediately clicked with her friends but i barely talked the whole night. I just looked awkward and weird standing around them not saying a word. My friend even asked me if i was ok as he knows I'm quite a talkative person. I went home early aand just felt like a complete loser. This is why I've never been able to have any female friends let alone, a girlfriend.

[Pete.Zah]

I had the same exact problem when I was young. I'm now 57 and I have had so much negative experience in my life that it just so calloused me and then something softened me to the point where now, I'll walk up casually to a pretty girl and tell her I think she's beautiful. I've got nothing to lose now. I've already lost it all. So, my point for you is......you need to either accept who you are and live with the anxiety and butterflies and nervousness, or..........put your shaking hand on the girls arm right away and confess your nervous silence because you don't know how to deal with her beauty.........and if you decide to bite the bullet you'll be so consumed with the high you get from it, it'll change you. Don't expect it to be easy, but you should get better with repetition. The only other thing that I can think of is maybe you have some physiological thing going on and need anxiety meds. ???

[normal person]

What in your head prevents you from talking to them?

[Oladeji123]

What in your head prevents you from talking to them?

 

 

 

I don't know.. i just can't start conversations with girls and would just freeze up. Im normally better if the girl takes the lead at first until I'm confident enough around her

[normal person]

I don't know.. i just can't start conversations with girls and would just freeze up.

 

What are you so afraid of?

 

Im normally better if the girl takes the lead at first until I'm confident enough around her

 

You gain confidence by doing difficult things and achieving goals, not by having things handed to you. You need to step out of your comfort zone and throw yourself to the metaphorical wolves to incite any sort of change. Also, women like confident men who are able to lead. If they have to assume that role for you, they view you as a child and not a man, and you're as good as dead. There's no way they'll respect a grown man who's afraid of women. You're handing them all this power totally unnecessarily, and it's about as unattractive as it gets. That alone should be enough to scare you out of this mindset for life and make you change for the better. If they aren't scared around men and can assume the confident, leader role, why can't you? Honest question. The only reason you haven't done it yet is because for some reason you just assumed they have some sort of power, and that made you afraid. So flip the script, project confidence, and assume the power. It isn't that complicated.

 

So what do you do? You have to start somewhere. Think about it logically. What do you really think is going to happen if you ask a woman something about herself? Do you think she's going to scream your head off or hurt you somehow? Probably not. The risk/reward is heavily in your favor. The worst that can happen is that she talks to you a bit but isn't entirely interested. Not so bad, right? And it's all up from there. Best of luck.

[bluefeather]

Maybe try not focusing on the girls, and instead focus on having fun. When you were out with your friend, you weren't there to entertain his girlfriends. You were there to have a good time.

[Oladeji123]

What are you so afraid of?

 

 

 

You gain confidence by doing difficult things and achieving goals, not by having things handed to you. You need to step out of your comfort zone and throw yourself to the metaphorical wolves to incite any sort of change. Also, women like confident men who are able to lead. If they have to assume that role for you, they view you as a child and not a man, and you're as good as dead. There's no way they'll respect a grown man who's afraid of women. You're handing them all this power totally unnecessarily, and it's about as unattractive as it gets. That alone should be enough to scare you out of this mindset for life and make you change for the better. If they aren't scared around men and can assume the confident, leader role, why can't you? Honest question. The only reason you haven't done it yet is because for some reason you just assumed they have some sort of power, and that made you afraid. So flip the script, project confidence, and assume the power. It isn't that complicated.

 

So what do you do? You have to start somewhere. Think about it logically. What do you really think is going to happen if you ask a woman something about herself? Do you think she's going to scream your head off or hurt you somehow? Probably not. The risk/reward is heavily in your favor. The worst that can happen is that she talks to you a bit but isn't entirely interested. Not so bad, right? And it's all up from there. Best of luck.

 

 

From past experiences, I've always noticed that when i do get comfortable with a girl, even if its just as friends, since I'm so used to having male friends that I've always had a way of approaching and talking to them and i then do the same thing to women which throws them off and normally weirds them out.

[normal person]

From past experiences, I've always noticed that when i do get comfortable with a girl, even if its just as friends, since I'm so used to having male friends that I've always had a way of approaching and talking to them and i then do the same thing to women which throws them off and normally weirds them out.

 

So if you think that's the problem, you need to do things differently until you find a method that generates better results. Don't you think?

[Bastile]

I had the same exact problem when I was young. I'm now 57 and I have had so much negative experience in my life that it just so calloused me and then something softened me to the point where now, I'll walk up casually to a pretty girl and tell her I think she's beautiful. I've got nothing to lose now. I've already lost it all. So, my point for you is......you need to either accept who you are and live with the anxiety and butterflies and nervousness, or..........put your shaking hand on the girls arm right away and confess your nervous silence because you don't know how to deal with her beauty.........and if you decide to bite the bullet you'll be so consumed with the high you get from it, it'll change you. Don't expect it to be easy, but you should get better with repetition. The only other thing that I can think of is maybe you have some physiological thing going on and need anxiety meds. ???

 

This was a very good post (sans the part about meds, which I completely disagree with).

 

I'll add that nervousness is a good thing. The lack of nerves simply comes across as a player vibe to a woman.

 

Accept your nerves. You'll be surprised at how much women appreciate and respect the vulnerability.

 

As for being less shy? Just a process of desensitization. But the nerves never really go away. You just learn how to manage them better.

 

Life would be boring, if we felt nothing anyway. Wouldn't it?

[preraph]

Depends how old you are. If you are still, say, 21 or under, being shy around the opposite sex is probably more normal than not, but then if you're still that way to the point of not being able to interact by 25 or so, time to see if you can get some help getting anxiety under control as was suggested above. If you are able to get comfortable once they break the ice, then you just need to make yourself come up with a couple of things to say to break the ice yourself. Like "Did you see that viral video about the hurricane dog who left home and took his bag of food with him?"

[d0nnivain]

There is an art to learning how to make small talk but it mostly just takes practice. Start with the knowledge that everybody is nervous so you are doing the other person a favor by carrying the conversation.

 

 

Ask Qs about current events -- did you see that play in the game? talk about the weather or something going on around you. Just talk. Even if you think you are babbling, if you are asking Qs, it's fine.