Well…there’s a huge difference between talking to people on the net, and in real life. I’m not sure I’d feel comfortable being so vulnerable and open with my feelings around a counsellor. I mean, I’d hate to have a break down or something infront of someone. 
And how would I explain to my roommate where I’m going?
Roomy : Where you going?
You : Out
Roomy : oh
You : bye.
Roomy : bye
Furthermore, why exactly would you have to tell your roommate where you are going? Just leave, jeez.
Soapbox, counselors are there to support you if you break down. Counseling is a protected space, where you can talk about and do things that you might not be able to do out among the general public. If you get a counselor and he or she does not support you, you need to get a different counselor.
Listen to Scuba_Ben: there are different kinds of counselors, and you need to find one who is appropriate to you and your needs. Some people may need to learn certain social skills (anything from learning formal dress to learning how to flirt), while others need to break through internal emotional barriers.
I had to do both these things, but I also had to ‘get out of my head’ and connect with my physical self. My counselors have done a lot of ‘bodywork’ with me, anbd they pushed me to start exercising.
I went to group counseling for a long time, to learn how to exist among people, how to handle the intensity of emotion among people around me, how to just get used to people.
I told people I was going to a study group. It’s true. We were studying–and experiencing, and learning–how to be human. And the counselors were always there to support us and help us through the difficult bits.
I repeat: you need the right counselor for you. If you find one who rubs you the wrong way, waste no time finding a new one.
And you don’t have to explain the details about where you’re going to anyone. It’s your business, not theirs.
Well, I met my girlfriend in sixth form. I sort-of-kind-of asked her out after knowing her for about a year, and nothing really happened, except I felt very silly, and we talked on the phone a few times. And then I asked her out again about eight or nine months later, expecting a “no, I don’t like you” response, and just really wanting to definitely know if she liked me or not, and we’ve been together for two years, five months. hooray! 
I punched the guy she was going out with in the jaw while at a very public place. Full details are in the OP in this thread.
To be perfectly honest I knew her before that, but I was way too afraid/shy/insecure to even think about asking her out or “hitting on her”. I have always been extremely shy around new people, especially women, and so I probably come off as a mute snob. Once I have been around the person long enough, or enough times to feel comfortable then I come out of my shell. I know I should trust in myself and have the confidence to be who I am from the begining, but the damn fear of rejection is just too big sometimes.
So since I knew her before punching her boyfriend, I guess I actually met her through a mutual friend. That is how I have met all of my SOs. Except my ex-wife. I met her by knocking on the wrong door. One of my friends had just moved and I was going to his new house for the first time. I rang the nieghbor’s doorbell by accident and met The Bitch[sup]TM[/sup].
Hampsters ate my post last night. :burp:
Ryle Dup has answered your question about your roomie. Roomie does not need to know. If it’ll help you, try to set your appointment for right after a class, so you’re already out of the room.
You’re quite right, Soapbox Monkey, about the issue of feeling comfortable enough with a counsellor to open up and express your feelings. It will take time to develop that trust; this will be the first big task you and your counsellor will address. Once you trust your counsellor enough to open up, then the real work will begin. (If you go to a few sessions without making progress towards opening up, ask for a different counsellor.)
The sooner you start, man, the sooner you will start to truly live. Will you give it that old college try?
It’s three days since the last post in this thread.
Soapbox Monkey, have you started your quest yet? How are things at your end?
She stalked me.
Okay, it was a little more complicated than that, but it did involve her contriving to get a copy of my class schedule so that she could “accidentally” bump into me in the hallway. I claim this is devious; she calls it “planning ahead”. We’ve been married 13 years now, all of them very happy.
In long hindsight, it is apparent that in fact there were various women during my single years who were extremely interested in me, but which I didn’t notice because 1) I was extremely clueless when it came to recognizing the signs, and 2) even when the signs were obvious, I assumed that I was misinterpreting them because, after all, who’d want to go out with me? Poor self-image is a terrible burden, and not so easily dismissed even with counseling (I speak from experience here).
My advice: if you can’t make the first move, at least put yourself in a situation where she can. Get involved in group activities, and just generally be a good person without trying to impress women. Odds are there’ll be someone there who notices you.
Well, I missed out on a wonderfully perfect woman who was rather blatantly clear for a long period of time that she was interested in me, very interested. The catch is that she was incredibly traditional and needed me to ultimately “be a man” as it were, and do something noble and romantic while asking her out formally to gain her consent. It felt like she was an old southern belle waiting for her gentleman.
At any rate, I was too shy, and kept waiting for her to ask me out formally, trying to drop hints and be sly and non-comittal. She lost interest and found someone else.
Fortunately, a couple years later, a second wonderfully perfect woman approached me in the same infuriatingly traditional manner. I had been in a serious depression over my previous lost opportunity and resolved never again to forsake such an opportunity that I would regret for the rest of my life.
So I did the bravest, most incredible act of courage and strength and selflessness I have ever done in my life, throwing all fear of shame and disgrace and embarrassment away, letting loose my barbaric “yalp!” to the universe that had scorned me in love before…
Me: “Uh…so…” (swirls toe in dirt) “I was…ummmm…thinking…” (looks up sheepishly) “…would you like to get together for a coffee?..” (remembers to breathe in as black tunnel-vision threatens to overwhelm)
Her: “YES!”
Lovely Miss Gargoyle and I are getting married next year 
Don’t underestimate the power of simply asking somebody!
Okay, having reread this, I’m going to have to yell at you (but in a firm, well-meaning, avuncular way).
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Three weeks? I’d barely figured out where my classes were after three weeks, let alone begun forming romantic attachments (or, for that matter, getting laid). It’s way too early to write off your entire college career on the basis of your first three weeks.
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Going to parties is good. Drinking is a less reliable proposition, in that while it makes some people less inhibited it makes others more depressed, and it often makes both groups do and say stupid things which are regretted later.
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So you’re a comp sci major - so what? There’s no rule that says you’re only allowed to hook up with other comp sci majors. As I said before, go get involved in some extracurricular activity that involves a broader range of people; if nothing else, it’ll do you good to get out more.
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Odds are, the women you’re sitting there wishing would be attracted to you are the same pretty, popular ones that ignored you in high school. Word to the wise: these are often the most shallow, vain and high-maintenance people you could date. Take another look at the female equivalents of yourself – the quiet, scholarly types are often tremendously interesting people when you get to know them. And you’ll have more in common with them to boot.
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Speaking of high school: college is not high school. The dynamics are different, the setting is less rigid and so the social dynamics are a little more fluid. It’s a whole new ballgame, kid.
Umm…well, I did another soup kitchen thing on friday night with the club I’m now a member of (Circle K). There is this cliche of freshmen in the club, and I’ve talked to this one guy Mike a little bit. So at the soup kitchen, after we had served and cleaned up, Mike and 3 girls (Becky, Rose, and Stephanie) were talking right near me, while I’m just quietly thinking to myself.
All of a sudden, out of no where, Rose says, “Hey, sorry, we’ve been talking around you and we don’t even know your name.” So I tell them my name and what dorm building I’m in and I started talking with them. Then when we got back to campus Becky said that I should come over to their dorm building and hang out sometime.
Unfortunately I didn’t get her number so I have no way of contacting them to hang out. So I guess I have to wait for the next meeting next Sunday.
But I’m kind of clueless about socializing etiquette, so how should I go about this? Since I didn’t ask for a number the first time, do I have to wait for another hang out invite before I ask for a number? I don’t know what I should do.:o
See? Tolja. All will be well in the fullness of time.
Good start, man! If I knew how to code in an image, I’d give you a clapping-hands smiley! (This is a test:
Clappity!
)
Go to the next meeting, go up to Becky, and tell her you didn’t get her dorm & phone number, would she please tell you these so you can write them down.
You already have the invitation, and you’ve already started talking with these people. Next time go up to them and start talking. (Ex: “Hi, Rose. How have classes been this week?”)
In quest terms, I think you just encountered your threshold guardians. You still need your mentor / teacher / counsellor. You’ve already got the sidekicks / comic relief here on the boards.
My tale? Well I qualify as painfully shy, better now that at school/university but I was always the guy that went bright red for no reason when talking to people. Not necessarily girls, not necessarily girls that I fancied, pretty much anyone. Was a late starter, pretty much all the girls I went out with having made the first move. No make that all the girls.
Meanwhile all my mates are meeting their SO’s, getting married, having kids. Me, still single most of the time with occassional girlfriends but none lasting more than a year. Time passes.
Then with two other single male friends (one just out of the love-of-his-life 10 year relationship) having a few beers and we do a secret poll on the percentage chance of each of us settling down. Well the highest scores around a 20% average, I score zero. OK small sample but zero!?! Thinks. “Hell I have GOT to do something about this”.
And that is pretty much it - just decided to change, risk something. Don’t let life pass you by and keep your eyes and ears open and seize the moment. Don’t go to the other extream, but really all they can say is, “no”. Usually they say, “no thanks” but you have made someone’s day by asking them!!
Present girlfriend. Well, met her at a gig (she took a spare ticket as a friend of a work colleague of mine) we got on well over a pizza before, chatting, trying each others food. I didn’t think too much of it, but work colleague next day at work says, “Hey you two would be SO GOOD for each other. Why don’t you get together”. Me not interested as really interested in HER, despite being work colleagues - like working opposite each other - and that being one of my no no’s from experience if too closely working together. But it does force me to ask out said work colleague on basis that I couldn’t move on unless I had found out. She not interested (but totally cool and now we are best friends) but does allow me to notice what she did. Ask current girlfriend out, ask her out and get as far as making dates but always cancelled for some reason. Get discouraged (I can take a hint) and months later chatting to my work colleague (her friend) about it (she is still trying to get us together) and explain it seems like her friend just don’t have time/space in her life for a significant other. The three of us still meeting socially - and one day girlfriend calls me up and asks me out to dinner. It happens, and it great and I seize the moment and kiss her whilst walking her to her last train - on the pretty bridge in Green Park on the way to Victoria Station (London).
Been together since - a year almost now - and it’s the real thing. :). Talked about getting hitched eventually, babies and all that. Cool! OK, so here I am, expat-ing it in Africa and she doing likewise in Singapore but two years? That’s nothing compared to what we have both been going through looking for Mr/Ms Right. We both felt the need to get it out of our systems before settling down.
It going to be a real test of what we have but it seems stronger for it - and hey are we going to have a fantastic time when we next see each other!
Roll on Xmas…
Wish us luck please!