I'm not gonna choke her, cos I'm a NICE GUY

The BBQ Pit
61

Payne You and the other guys are confusing “Confidence” with acting/being “smooth, cool, chickworthy etc”.

Again, read spooje’s, Giraffe’s, and my responses.

Confidence (or pretend confidence) does NOT = act like someone you aren’t or put on and act.

And…

And FTR, pretty girls aren’t exactly thrilled to always be “bad boy” magnets EITHER.

Neither does simply being pretty mean we are automatically embued with some sort of “hot chick” super power that enables us to be magically “non-shy”.

You have no idea how many times I’d be out dancing and hope a NICE GUY would ask me, but only the overly boisterous bad boys would (and I’m reasonably intelligent, it took me about 1.5 relationships with one of THOSE to stay clear).

I have no earthly idea why the “bad boy/asshole” seems to have no fear of these things, but I DO know why pretty young girls will talk to or dance with them.

They’re often the ONLY ones ASKING!!! It’s that, or sit on the sidelines (of course nowadays, I’m generally brave enough to ask, after all I’m a frumpy old lady now!!!).

I’m 44 now, but in my late teens, twenties and early thirties, I was a “hot girl”. (I’m only reasonably cute now, MEAN ole Mr. Gravity!!!). But I’ve also been overweight in my life, so I’ve seen “both sides” of the getting ignored thing. It’s not fun, but believe me, you are probably more down on yourself than others are. Once I got past my shyness, even when I was overweight men would dance with me, when I asked.

No, it’s not fun. But the “oh, I’m a poor shy nice guy who can’t POSSIBLY do anything” attitude isn’t going to get you anywhere.

Payne, you seem nice, and you seem intelligent. If I met you out somewhere, I’d would be interested in at LEAST getting to know you. (and NO, my boyfriend isn’t some Adonis bad boy either, he’s smart, and is a total GEEK, a big lovable one). So, you DO have what it takes to interest girls. You just need to have the confidence to be that person when meeting them.

One last thing.

People give other people WAY too much power over them when meeting them.

In other words, don’t allow that person to have so much power, that their rejection (or their acceptance for that matter), is going to mean SO damn MUCH to you. It’s just a “hello” or asking someone for coffee.

If you’re that shy, start out with the socially accepted and patented “friendly nod”. Progress to a “hey, how are you doing”. As you get comfortable with each stage, move on til you get to the “hey, how bout that damn weather” stage.

Also, as I said before, talk about the OTHER person, that’s usually guaranteed to make YOU the fascinating conversationalist.

62

Yes. It’s the recently opened spooje’s mail order school of suavity!! sign up now.

Seriously, here’s where you’re going wrong.

See, this is the opposite of confidence. Be yourself and be OK with that. This may surprise you, but suave, confident guys get shot down too. They just don’t take it personally. As in “she rejected me, I must be a complete loser” personally. I suspect they think “hey, she must be into something else”.

You’re a shy, decent guy? Great. So am I. There are gals out there that dig that. (God bless 'em!) Someone once posted on this very board that whatever type you are, there’s someone that finds that attractive. Your job is to find one and not to take each failure as confirmation of your loserhood.

63

The last few posts sum it up exactly - you need to talk with someone as if they’re just another human being like yourself and probably a decent person who’s feeling sort of shy and awkward at meeting someone new but not making a big deal out of that. You also need to realize that being turned down on asking for a date does not equal the end of the world, nor does it mean that you’re a complete loser, failure, hideous, and doomed to a lifetime alone.

I had a friend in high school who, when we were first getting to know each other, complained about the lack of guys interested in her. At first I empathized - she was talented, somewhat overweight but could look very attractive when she fixed herself up, witty, and intelligent. Then I saw how she dealt with attempts at dating - she would fixate on one guy and really overwhelm him with attention, to the point of near-obsessiveness. If the guy turned her down, she would flip out and bad-mouth him constantly, holding the grudge for years in some cases - pointing out “hey, he just didn’t want to date you, it’s not like he kicked your dog and let the air out of your car’s tires” had no effect. She would also interfere in relationships that friends had, passing on statements that had been said to her in confidence, and so on.

Now no wonder guys didn’t want to date her - she projected an aura of desperation and clinginess, and if you saw her after some guy turned her down, you saw a bitter, even hateful side that would scare any other interested guy away.

Don’t attempt to be someone you aren’t. What you have to do is calm down and be friendly, not stressed.

64

spooje, I see the importance of being myself. The problem is that myself isn’t good enough–I must be like somebody else in order to succeed. And it is a viscious cycle–the more I try to act (and it is an act, at least the first few times) like Mr. Confident P. Suave, the more stressed I become, and the more likely it is that my nervousness will shine through, thus killing the illusion of confidence. Which of course makes me even more nervous the next time. If I try to just be friendly ol’ me, I get lots of friends, at least until something better comes along, but no lovers. That old “like a brother” thing. But, hey, I already got a sister.

65

There is a world of difference between faking confidence and coming off like a loser and actually becoming genuinely confident, which is what these guys are suggesting.

You can’t fake confidence like you can fake a suntan, you just have to learn to become comfortable in your own skin. Once you are comfortable just being you then you are a wlking definition of confidence. It may not be Wild, raucus life and soul of the party style confidence, it may not be suave, seductive lothario style confidence, but it will be your own individual brand of confidence all the same.

66

Payne, as you said, trying to be something you’re not will not help you. And it’s a sad fact of life that some people have a much easier time meeting women than others – if you’re not one of those people, meeting someone is simply a more difficult task. Even if you do everything perfectly, it may still take a while.

The reason everyone constantly focuses on projecting confidence is that lack of confidence is the number one reason many guys have a hard time meeting and attracting women. And since it’s all attitude, it’s the easiest thing to change. This is not to say that once you become confident, you can have any woman you want. But for most guys, your chances will skyrocket. Maybe they’ll only skyrocket from a 0.01% to a 2% chance of attracting any given woman, but that’s still hundreds of times better. And once you feel confident with who you are and what you’re trying to do, rejection becomes much less important and it’s easier to ask out more and more people, further increasing your overall chance of success.

If you want to boost that 2% to 50%, you may need to focus on improving your appearance or your wardrobe or find better places to meet women who are likely to be interested in dating you. Or you may need to learn how not to get trapped in the friend zone when you do start getting to know someone. But for most people, simply gaining confidence in themselves is by far the most important first step.

67

Ben: The problem I have with this is–how does one become genuinely confident in one’s ability to attract members of the opposite sex? By successfully attracting members of the opposite sex. And how does one attract MOS? By being confident. I think you see the point. This circular reasoning is like a rapidly spinning merry-go-round, and every time I have tried to jump on I got flipped off.

Giraffe: How does one not get trapped in the friend zone? How bastard-like do I have to be in order to not risk being thought of as a Nice Guy? And all around me on this campus I see greasy-haired skateboarders, cowboys, punks, and clean-cut Christian-looking people, all with SOs. Which appearance do I upgrade to?

Ah, hell, it’s easier to just stay lonely–at least it doesn’t give me a headache thinking about it.

68

Payne, the friend zone is avoided by making a move early on. Once you’ve gotten to know someone a little bit and chatted a few times, ask them to get coffee with you. After coffee, ask them to dinner. Don’t be evasive – you are interested in dating them, and you don’t have to hide it. Being a bastard has nothing to do with it, you just have to be direct.

If they haven’t told you flat out that they aren’t interested in dating you and would prefer to just be friends, you haven’t been direct enough. And don’t wait too long – you don’t have to really know them, just know them well enough to be interested. As a general rule, dating is designed to get to know someone you might be interested in romantically, not to be romantic with someone you already know well. (Standard disclaimer about how yes, sometimes friends start dating, blah blah blah.)

69

And I forgot to mention: the fact that greasy-haired skateboarders are able to date girls is support for the original thesis: confidence often trumps appearance, when it comes to attracting women.

How to be confident about attracting women, before you’ve successfully attracted women? Start with the basics. Make yourself chat with random people, especially attractive women. You don’t have to ask them out, just talk to them. Once you get good at talking to them, asking them out will be easy. Most women like to be flirted with, even if they’re not available. It’s flattering and fun.

70

Other thoughts.

  • Treat people you’re potentially attracted to as people, not objects of attraction. One of the failure conditions I’ve seen on some people’s mating algorithms has been that any member of their preferred sex is seen as a potential target, and if the target doesn’t respond, the person backs off and starts after another target.

  • Show enthusiasm for the things that interest you. This works best if you also spend time with groups of people that have people who share that interest. Enthusiasm combined with competence is a pretty potent draw, sometimes (though not always) even for people who don’t really care about the specific subject.

  • But on the subject of people who don’t really care, learn to recognise when people are just nodding and making listening faces to be polite.

  • If someone turns you down, it doesn’t mean that you’ve landed in some mythological “Friend Zone”, it means that that person is either not interested in that sort of relationship with you, or is interested in playing you to see how much effort you’ll put into whingeing and grovelling to get them.

  • Remember that different people prefer different things from their partners or potential partners, and that you have no real way of knowing what those things are. Some people aren’t interested in getting involved with someone who isn’t already a friend. Some people will approach those that they find interesting, and so their interest in you as a potential partner can be determined by whether or not they’ve said “I’m attracted to you, you know.” Some people want to be pursued. Some people can find partners from personals ads and have it work for them, which never ceases to amaze me. Some people know pretty quickly whether or not they’d be willing or interested to try a relationship, others take a lot longer. Some people have no fucking clue what they want. You don’t know what this person wants, so it’s not your fault that you couldn’t provide it.

  • If certain ways of approaching people give you the screaming heebie-jeebies, you don’t have to do them to find someone, even if they’re among the most popular approaches. Their popularity may mean that it’s harder for you to find someone who prefers other means, but ‘harder’ doesn’t mean ‘impossible’. You might even have a better success rate with your preferred methods than other people have with the “popular” ones, both because of the interest value of uniqueness and because you’re not forcing yourself to do something that makes you uncomfortable (and thus, less attractive).

  • Keep putting yourself in places where you’re socially comfortable. If you don’t like hanging out in bars, don’t look for dates in bars; you won’t be comfortable, and your potential whatevers have been selected for liking hanging out in bars. If you don’t like dance clubs, don’t look for dates there. If you don’t have any hobbies, social outlets, or other avenues for meeting people, see if you have any interests (that you can actually be enthusiastic about, rather than as a cover to meet hot babes) that you can parlay into such an outlet. All sorts of things can work here; I met my husband in a gaming store. And my boyfriend on the USENET. Got politics you want to support? Build model rockets? Interested in the SCA? Considered joining a bowling league? Decided to take up a martial art to get in shape? You can probably find a thing or two to do.

  • If you’re someone who believes in the Friend Zone, don’t whine about it. Getting all wrung up about the thing creates an invisible partner-repelling aura out of your sense of angst and rejection; it’s like a sort of emotional body odor, and most people will be too polite to tell you that you stink.

  • Don’t worry about being attractive. Worry about enjoying yourself and being a source of enjoyment to others, and the attractiveness will follow from there.

  • And to repeat what many people have said, be yourself. Enjoy being yourself. Remember that if you fake up some image of what a potential partner would want you to be, even if someone falls for the schtick, you’ll need to spend the entire time you’re with that person living up to the fake. I think it’s much more energy-efficient to find people who are attracted to who I really am, so that they don’t get let down when I’m tired. :wink:

71

Other thoughts.

  • Treat people you’re potentially attracted to as people, not objects of attraction. One of the failure conditions I’ve seen on some people’s mating algorithms has been that any member of their preferred sex is seen as a potential target, and if the target doesn’t respond, the person backs off and starts after another target.

  • Show enthusiasm for the things that interest you. This works best if you also spend time with groups of people that have people who share that interest. Enthusiasm combined with competence is a pretty potent draw, sometimes (though not always) even for people who don’t really care about the specific subject.

  • But on the subject of people who don’t really care, learn to recognise when people are just nodding and making listening faces to be polite.

  • If someone turns you down, it doesn’t mean that you’ve landed in some mythological “Friend Zone”, it means that that person is either not interested in that sort of relationship with you, or is interested in playing you to see how much effort you’ll put into whingeing and grovelling to get them.

  • Remember that different people prefer different things from their partners or potential partners, and that you have no real way of knowing what those things are. Some people aren’t interested in getting involved with someone who isn’t already a friend. Some people will approach those that they find interesting, and so their interest in you as a potential partner can be determined by whether or not they’ve said “I’m attracted to you, you know.” Some people want to be pursued. Some people can find partners from personals ads and have it work for them, which never ceases to amaze me. Some people know pretty quickly whether or not they’d be willing or interested to try a relationship, others take a lot longer. Some people have no fucking clue what they want. You don’t know what this person wants, so it’s not your fault that you couldn’t provide it.

  • If certain ways of approaching people give you the screaming heebie-jeebies, you don’t have to do them to find someone, even if they’re among the most popular approaches. Their popularity may mean that it’s harder for you to find someone who prefers other means, but ‘harder’ doesn’t mean ‘impossible’. You might even have a better success rate with your preferred methods than other people have with the “popular” ones, both because of the interest value of uniqueness and because you’re not forcing yourself to do something that makes you uncomfortable (and thus, less attractive).

  • Keep putting yourself in places where you’re socially comfortable. If you don’t like hanging out in bars, don’t look for dates in bars; you won’t be comfortable, and your potential whatevers have been selected for liking hanging out in bars. If you don’t like dance clubs, don’t look for dates there. If you don’t have any hobbies, social outlets, or other avenues for meeting people, see if you have any interests (that you can actually be enthusiastic about, rather than as a cover to meet hot babes) that you can parlay into such an outlet. All sorts of things can work here; I met my husband in a gaming store. And my boyfriend on the USENET. Got politics you want to support? Build model rockets? Interested in the SCA? Considered joining a bowling league? Decided to take up a martial art to get in shape? You can probably find a thing or two to do.

  • If you’re someone who believes in the Friend Zone, don’t whine about it. Getting all wrung up about the thing creates an invisible partner-repelling aura out of your sense of angst and rejection; it’s like a sort of emotional body odor, and most people will be too polite to tell you that you stink.

  • Don’t worry about being attractive. Worry about enjoying yourself and being a source of enjoyment to others, and the attractiveness will follow from there.

  • And to repeat what many people have said, be yourself. Enjoy being yourself. Remember that if you fake up some image of what a potential partner would want you to be, even if someone falls for the schtick, you’ll need to spend the entire time you’re with that person living up to the fake. I think it’s much more energy-efficient to find people who are attracted to who I really am, so that they don’t get let down when I’m tired. :wink:

72

Such good advice you posted it twice!!

But seriously, folks, there are some pearls of wisdom in Lilairen’ post. I know that there are things I can do to improve the odds. Being depressed, poor, and shy are not among them. I have tried to be nice, as well as Nice, but it hasn’t worked. I’m not in an economic position to take up a bunch of new hobbies, and my old ones either don’t attract women or I can’t do them any more. <sigh> Whatever.

73

I hope you take this in the spirit I intend it, which is well-intentioned and speaking from at least similar experience.

If you’re actively depressed, you probably need to take care of yourself before you can seriously think of dating someone - or before making it a priority at least. I’m speaking from many years of dealing with serious depression. Reading over your posts in the thread, I noticed you essentially dismiss out of hand all of the responses given to you, or interpret them in such a way that it makes it “impossible” for you to do. (For instance: Not all interests require money to pursue, yet that becomes an excuse in your latest post.) Of course women don’t find that attractive. I suspect that if you weren’t depressed, at the very least the negativity would go away, and the shyness would be more on the “charming” than “painfully so” rating for women.

I know good AND cheap mental help can be hard to find, but there are probably resources out there - at the very least, hit Cecil’s Place (search on the board for that if you don’t have the link), a kind of support group for depressed Dopers.

74

FH, I am on 400 mg/day of wellbutrin, which sort of helps. I have only a limited number of visits to the Counseling Center, which I have already used up. My diatribe is based on past experience, and experiences I hope to avoid in the future. And I am not dating anybody. Although I have a penpal, she is about 1500 miles away, so very little of the above actually applies, especially the part about appearances, since we have never seen each other.

But I agree with you–how can anybody else like me, when I don’t even like me?

75

PS–I found Cecil’s Place–nobody but me has posted there in over a month.

76

PS–I found Cecil’s Place–nobody but me has posted there in over a month.

77

Payne, didn’t you just go through a heinous divorce? Or am I thinking of someone else?

If it was you, that right there is enough to keep you feeling depressed and as if you “don’t have a chance”. IIRC and If it was you, it’s been pretty recently too.

You need to give yourself a chance to heal from what’s been happening to you.

BTW, the “friend zone” is not the kiss of death folks!!! My boyfriend and I were good friend for TWO and a HALF years before he asked me out.

I don’t know what the percentage is (as in I don’t have a cite right now), but I have heard of many people go from friends to lovers. So don’t just shoot that idea down and fight to stay out of the 'dreaded" friend zone. Who knows?

At any rate Payne, you seem really nice, and I bet you’ve got a lot to offer, but if, as I think I remember, you are still recovering from a divorce, you might need to have some healing time first, before venturing back out into “dateland”.

78

I’m not actually divorced yet, but it looked for a while that I would be. Now she wants to come back and “work on our relationship”, which is shorthand for “being a single parent sucks hard.” So that’s enough to trigger depression right there.

To be honest, I didn’t grieve for more than a couple of hours–we have separated before, and probably will again. I missed my kids. So I don’t know how that all works into the rebound thing. All I know is that living alone isn’t so bad, it’s living in limbo, not being married enough to enjoy it, but being too married to enjoy being single, either, that sucks.

BTW in my experience, guy friends are the people you have jump your car, not your bones. YMMV.

79

Ain’t that odd. My previous post shows up on the queue of previous posts above, but not on the front page of this forum.

80

Choke her