Trying to be friendly with a shy/socially passive woman

Post Reply New Topic

Over the past few weeks I've been trying to be friendly with a woman who's in most of my classes at college. I am 25 and she is about 20-24 (my best estimate). When I used the word friendly in the title, it wasn't a euphemism, just to be clear. Anyway, we'll call her 'Mary' for the sake of this post. The classes are for a Diploma in Web and Software development (she's doing everything except Java/C++). I'll describe some of her characteristics that will illustrate my difficulties.

1) She won't ever say anything without someone first saying something to her in the form of a question, or a comment that implies a response is appropriate. Conversations are driven by me and makes me feel unsure about what amount of conversation is appropriate. I've never seen her interacting with anyone else except when the teacher comes to see if she needs help.

2) Her body language is closed and reserved at all times that I've seen her. Her way of speaking is soft and somewhat diminutive.

3) She has a very protective mother who drives her to class most days even though Mary can drive by herself. (I added this as background info, not as a difficulty (yet))

4) When I do speak to her, she almost always appears pleased to have me speak to her. Unless she's really good at faking a genuine-looking smile, I can only assume she mostly likes my attempts at conversation. Earlier this week I asked if she'd like to join me for coffee (on-campus) during one of the lengthy breaks. She accepted. Then when the time came she cancelled at the last minute because "she had to feed her dog". I don't know what to think of that. I'm not going to theorize in this post.

Now, there are explanations for all of this behavior that does not necessarily mean AS. I'm not going to assume either way because I don't have enough information. It's hard to know what the right approach is. I suppose the purpose of this thread is to ask for some advice. I am very ambivalent about whether my efforts are ultimately in vain or if I should keep at it. It seems I'm getting mixed signals or I'm under a serious misapprehension.

That's the positive thing. And if she sometimes needs to cancel at the last minute, so be it. Just take it medium step by medium step. Also be open to reciprocating if later on she takes the initiative in an interaction, just be easy and matter-of-fact about it.

Her mother sounds overbearing and overprotective. She may have never had a romantic relationship before and the prospect scares and excites her. Her mom might not even allow her to date even though she is an adult. I say take things slowly and show that you genuinely care and are interested in her. From the sound of things, she does appreciate you giving her attention, and attention might be so rare for her since she is often hiding in the corner. I wish you the best of luck. At the very least, you will end up making a good friend.

If your gut tells you she responds positive then go with that. I think shy people generally have a harder time with keeping a social mask. They are often sensitive and it feels like they do not have a filter that keeps most interaction from directly affecting them. Due to my relationship difficulties i ended up forming a wall around me so nothing can harm me, this seems to be lacking in a shy person. So whatever they interaction they have goes to their core immediatly. The response is less filtered as well. whatever they Feel shines through immediately. This could be one of the reasons why they exhibit shy behavior, as a sort of way to cope around all the controlled faces from others. It seems like shy people are always trying to hide or run away. This is such a shame because in my opinion they have the greatest quality of all people. Being sensitive/kind and having a large dosis of empathy, i know im generalizing but this is just my experience. It seems like everything is turned up to high volume in the way they feel and experience interaction.

A couple of weeks ago I finally managed to have a chat with her for about 45 min during a lunch break. It was pleasant and she opened up a bit. We discussed our backgrounds and interests. Unfortunately, we don't seem to share anything substantial in common. When I asked her about her interests she downplayed them a lot (whether she's not very passionate about her interests or she's afraid of expressing herself or some other explanation is unknown to me).

I'm not good at the subtle aspects of getting to know someone. I'll be seeing her tomorrow (it's the middle of the 2 week holidays), I invited her out to coffee. Now I'm sort of stuck on what I'm going to say (since she seems averse to initiating conversation topics). I cringe inside when I have to do borderline-banal small talk. I wonder why I'm even going down this road when have so little in common, perhaps I'll discover there are things we can talk about the 2nd time around.

A poor reader of subtle body language/socials cues plus someone who's not very forthcoming = bewilderment. Fortunately, I'm a lot less anxious about this than I was a few weeks ago.

I think the reason she cancelled, is because "go out for coffee" usually means "I would like to bang you." Or at the very least, it has connotations in courtship in some way. Think about it, how many movies and whatever "So you wanna come over to my house for coffee" or "I'd like to get to know you over coffee." I think it's that, that got her worried. I mean if she's open for dating you, it's one thing, but obviously she's not. Your best bet imo, would just if you want to continue friendship (I still don't know if there's any context of dating in your question) would be to just keep talking to her. She probably, the reason she's so shy, has trust issues with people in one way or another, and you'll have to earn her trust if you wanna get to know her.

There's the rub. As far as I've seen, women usually approach conversation with a Daoist approach: "It is, therefore it is." Reflexive property, yadda yadda.

They love to talk for the sheer fun of it, whereas we men generally want to get something tangible out of everything we do, including talking to women. Just take it easy, enjoy time with her for what it is and don't advance; let her come to you. That's my advice.

Just keep talking to her and helping her out, all you can do.

OK, here goes an action plan. Take what resonates with you and discard the rest.

Find out if she learns by seeing, hearing, touching or taking things apart and putting them back together to see how they work. My guess is that she learns by touch. The easiest way to find this out is to bring something like an iPad or mp3 player with you that you can use as an item of interest. Ask her if she would be so kind as to fill you in on whether she thinks refined young ladies like herself would like or use this hardware/software/functionality, whatever. Get her attention to go to the item and she will forget about being shy as she gets involved. When she gets the message that you want to be more of a business partner than a lover, she will probably relax and open up.

Watch to see if she spends more time looking at it, listening to it, or picking it up and turning it around to see how it works. Whichever one she chooses is the clue for your next move.

Next time around choose something that is interesting to that mode of learning, like a fractal program for looking, a variety of mp3 songs for listening, or some exotic gismo (surely you can borrow one from someone for the purpose) that she can play with to see how it works. Emphasize the happiness of sharing the experience and she will come out of her shell.

You can assume that she has been severely hurt in some way in the past, either physically, emotionally, or spiritually. She may prove to have very poor skills at conversation. If this proves to be the case, taking some time to do some subtle coaching may be deeply appreciated. It's best not to inquire about why the shyness because she won't want to share the pain. Just share laughter and happy times and she will respond, maybe not immediately, but eventually. Patience, softly steadily applied patience is the prescription for pain, and she obviously has experienced more than her share.

Ma Hook, Life & Transition Coach