Love Shyness.

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Love Shyness is probably something that applies to those here. Not sure how "real" this thing is anymore than just a list of criteria...

* He is a virgin. He has not yet experienced sexual intercourse.
* He is a man who very rarely goes out socially with women.
* He is a person without a past history of any emotionally close, meaningful relationships of a romantic and/or sexual nature with any member of the opposite sex.
* He is a person who has suffered and is continuing to suffer emotionally because of a lack of meaningful female companionship. In short, he is a male who desperately wishes to have a relationship with a woman, but does not have one because of his shyness. In other words, he is not a man who consciously chooses not to have romantic or intimate relationships; rather, he wants such relationships but cannot establish them.
* He is a man who becomes extremely anxiety-ridden over so much as the mere thought of asserting himself vis-à-vis a woman in a casual, friendly way. This is the essence of "love-shyness".
* He is a man who is strictly heterosexual in his romantic and erotic orientations. Again, he is a male who is in no way a homosexual.
* He is a male. There were no women interviewed in the study.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_shy

It's something that nearly applies to me... though I think I'm not quite a lost cause... I can pull myself out of the quagmire. I've at least taken chances on love... barely little that anyone would describe as success...but at least have that adventuresome spirit to conquer love every once and a while.

There's a book by the guy who coined the phrase and what it's all about. Most of it's online as html.... but you can also download the pdf.

http://www.love-shy.com/Gilmartin/toc.html

Some of the specific life experiences described really hit home for me. Having crushes and infatuations with girls from a very young age. Not having any family or any one to push me in the direction to talking to a girl. Having a relatively cold and distant mother that frequently told me and others "he's just a late bloomer."

Which according to the book is some of the worst advice to give a kid based on love. Late bloomers are the ones who don't crave it until later, these guys described crave it but never find it from a very young age.

Seems FAR too limited, based
on these criteria.

I don't put much stock in Brian G. Gilmartin...

Yeah sort of... this guy seems to be talking about an even more debilitating mental problem than what some have here... going based on the description alone.

But reading some of the explanation in the book, it fits me more than the criteria. Some of the interviews of these guys brought up some eerily familiar memories.

The guy also makes claims that these guys can not basically to ever find any sort of relationships... which also seems limiting.

any reason?

It does seem like he's describing something that is just kind of obvious... but I found it interesting anyways...

Right, and in my case, at about your
age, 'twould have fit. Now, except for
having HAD a number of lasting and
loving relationships, I would still fit.

Thus, I just don't buy it.

Gilmartin's science seems quacky in context with research I've read from scholars I respect. Furthermore, many of his criteria are self-defining. I strongly suspect that his primary aim is to make a buck. This simply isn't good scholarship.

Whoa... and I wrote that before I got to the bottom of the article.

Pugly, you're way smarter than this dude. I doubt this man's work could offer you any insights that you're not already busily gleaning from superior sources and personal observations.

But, but, but... I don't have an article about me on Wikipedia...

You're right though, looks like straight up bunk...

Didn't read that pseudoscience stuff... get it off me... unclean, unclean...

Gilmartin's article seems to be on the path to deletion.

Edit wikipedia like Weird Al!



To be fair, (along the lines of what geek just posted) the article is flagged as containing incorrect information... so who knows which half of it was problematic.

7.75/8. Whatever that is I fit. On the fourth point I'm not sure if it's shyness that prevents me from getting a relationship.

I suck.

Sounds like contemporary pop psychology. Whatever....

I think my biggest problem with this summary (aside from 22 years without the "diagnosis" catching on, the references to astrology and auras, etc.) is that all of it *except* #1 applied to me until I was 21 or 22. Somehow, having various girls drag me into the bushes for flings from age 14 on had done nothing to cure my shyness, despite my no longer meeting the criteria. And it was almost like a phobia. I had faced a psychotic martial artist with steel nunchaku in his hands, who wanted to fight me, and who had put several people into the hospital, with MUCH less anxiety than trying to chat up a girl would have caused me.

It was about then that I noticed that various women I knew were getting married, either legally or functionally, and that if I continued doing as I had been, I was going to be picking from an ever-dwindling pool of the ones left over. (it was not nearly as tidy as all that, but it seemed so at the time.) And I was NOT having fun being unattached. So I dared ask a female friend about whether this friend of hers was available, and moved on to the unthinkable: I prepared to call two different women, hellbent on going out with whichever one first answered her phone and seemed agreeable. As luck would have it, Susan, who was probably the better match for me, was out, but her rival was home, accepted, and I ended up marrying her a few months later. That lasted for 15 years... but I digress.

I had made it to 22 years old without going on a date, because I couldn't bring myself to go through the social stuff that was required. I finally did force myself to do so, succeeded, and that was the end of that phobia. Asking someone out still seems scary to me, but it no longer seems so intimidating that failure is guaranteed. And that's the key, right there. Your determination has to overcome your anxiety, because if you let your anxiety have the upper hand, you're toast.

They won't all say yes, of course, but some will.