Stick out your tounge and lick that boot!
Vitty well, little brother, vitty well!
It could be worse… I’ve got no problem talking to women and becomming friends with them. It’s when I try to go from the ‘lets go out drinking with everyone’ to the ‘how about we have a nice meal someplace quiet’ relationships when things go to hell.
I don’t think there is hostility towards the OP here. In his post, he indicates that he is paralyzed by an apparent contradiction between his beliefs (in The One) and desires (to meet girls and date them). When people are paralyzed and beaten down by their own beliefs, soetimes you need to get them to reconsider their beliefs.
I have a friend who believes in both “The One” AND “if you really cared you’d know why I’m upset.” Talk about two seriously poisonous beliefs. I’m sorry to say she is one of the most unhappy people I have ever met, and has never been involved in any kind of relationship at the age of 27. Men flee from her, she is SO INTENSE about anything to do with relationships.
for the record, i called myself “young-and-stoopid” and talked about my own fantasizing and its consequences (or lack thereof), Davebear. but i will accept any charge of making prisoner sound like a “hopeless romantic”. in my book, romantic notions that have no basis in reality ARE pretty hopeless.
as for my analogy, i’ll grant you that he’s not in any physical danger. however, i do consider him to be greatly in danger of being run over by reality. the consequences to his heart and happiness may be just as crushing, in the long run. if you want to live in the real world, you have to learn to LIVE in the real world.
lachesis
prisoner6655321, I understand what you’re saying and I think it’s an interesting and new point of view.
My personal perspective is, even if we assume that I do believe in the theory of “the one for me,” which I may, I am not concerned about screwing up meeting her for the first time the way you outline.
Because any girl that is “the one for me” will not be turned off if I am nervous when I meet her. At least not to the extent that she’d stop talking to me. And that’s not because she’s the one I’m fated to be with, it’s because “the one for me” isn’t that judgemental.
Either you believe in fate or you don’t. If you do, then you can’t screw up the meeting with the person you’re supposed to be with. If you don’t, then you better get off your butt and start meeting people. As far as that goes everybody else in this thread has it covered.
prisoner, there may very well be “The One” out there (I used to think so, too) but how will you ever find her if you don’t look? It’s like almost everybody has said in this thread, you need to practice your search techniques, gain some self confidence, and go for it. If there is some divinely appointed One for you, trust in the fact that God isn’t going to send her to you until you’re ready. Go get ready.
This from someone who has done none of the above, and look where it got me.
I agree. But, wouldn’t it be nice to help them to their feet, bandage their wounds, and maybe get them a chair before lecturing them?
Dude, what White Lightning said. As a 25 year old woman, I can vouch for the fact that we’re also shy, nervous, lacking in self confidence, etc, etc. I’d actually be flattered by a guy who was a little nervous coming up to talk to me. OK, I’d be a LOT flattered. I really don’t know any women who are so vain that they expect Mr. Suave to come up and say all the right things, and wouldn’t give a guy who failed that a second look. Quite the opposite, the Mre. Too Smooth types usually come off as players. So, worst case scenario, you go up and say “Hi” to a girl you’ve got your eye on, get flustered, and sod off. Next time you see her, she’s just as likely to say high to you. So there you go, you’ve just increased your chances of finding your “One” even if your opening line didn’t come off as smooth and nonchalant as you’d have liked. 
My bad. I wasn’t clear enough, in my post. It does sort of look like I was saying you said all those things. Didn’t mean to imply that; it was a random sampling from a number of posts. You weren’t the only one to use the word “stoopid”, either. And, I was the one calling him a hopeless romantic, and I don’t consider that an insult.
Well, that’s what I said, with the exception that I think it’s already happened. That’s exactly the point I’ve been trying to make. I read the OP and hear pain screaming out of every line, and want to offer support and encouragement. You people (Not just you, lachesis, and not all of you, but you know who you are) seem to see it as an exercise in talkshow psychology, and offer cold analysis.
He doesn’t sound like he’s ready for that, to me. Maybe it is just me, but it seems pretty obvious, to me. I keep going back and re-reading the OP, and it always reads the same. A man who is in pain, and looking for some support, and who already knows everything you’re telling him! He said so.
My apologies if anything I’ve said has seemed like a personal attack on anyone. I’m not angry; I’m frustrated. We’ve got a man yelling that he’s on fire, to which you all respond by telling him to stop making a scene and stand up straight. And, I’m not getting the message across, either. Some of you seem concerned that he’s going to be hurt, but you don’t seem to care that he is hurt. I don’t get it.
No, thanks. That would mean accepting the world as it is, and I know it can be a better place than it is now.
To all the nice people saying that I should lighten up and not get too carried away with this idea of thinking that every random girl might be “the one,” well, I have this to say:
I know. You are absolutely right.
To all those nice people that tell me that she picks her nose one nostril at a time , poops and farts so she is as human and imperfect as I am:
I know. You are absolutely right.
To all those nice people that tell me I’ll never find anyone if I don’t try:
I know. You are absolutely right.
To all the (not so) nice people berating me for falling for such a stipid fantasy, I say this:
I know. You are absolutely right.
I want to make it clear that I’m really not so fatalistic as I advertised in the OP. I know I’ll say some stupid things at first, and often probably. Don’t all us males do that? 
I just wanted to point out that it’s not always fear of rejection that keeps people away from other people.
And I am well aware that no one wants to be with someone who actually thinks the way I advertized. This is really just one little thing that comes to mind when I am thinking about going up to a strange girl. Really I’m as normal as every other shy Joe. (Except I don’t go out with girls for sex. I go out with them because I want to get to know them better and to spend some time with them and eventually to find out if we might find some future together.) I don’t think that I’m the only one that deep down feels this way. A lot of us probably think this way, in some way. Just a little bit, if you are still looking for your mate you, at least ever so slightly, recognize the possibility of each person you come across as a potential, especially if you feel that first initial attraction.
Frankly, I’m on the fence as to whether or not there’s only one for me. Well, actually, I KNOW there is one out there for me. There is one girl out there that is more compatible than all the other girls in the world. But she’s probably living in Ukraine or some other place and the chances of finding her are slim. That’s the reality. Sometimes it’s helpful to think about these things mathematically. Statistically each and every one of us have a close-to perfect match somewhere in the world but the chances of meeting him/her are so slight that we just have to resign ourselves to that fact and make do with what we find. After all, pretty much every single person you meet on the planet you can get along with, provided both of you are civilized enough. It just takes a bit of chemistry and commonality to turn that friendship into love. Then comes marriage, then comes kiddie in a baby carriage. But even though I think the chances of finding that one girl in the world that is my closest match are slim to none, and marrying a girlfriend I have grown to love despite our incompatibilities isn’t so bad (in fact it’s GREAT), I can’t help but to hope to find the one who is made for me. It’s only natural. Wouldn’t you be the happiest person in the world if you were 100% sure you found “the one?” Didn’t you convince yourself that the person you did end up marrying WAS the one because well, you did end up with him/her after all, right? But finding “the one” is the romantic notion we all hope we will find, while we know we won’t. A lot of the girls I’ve gone out with I might have been happy to be with forever so I see the truth in what you all are telling me. I’ll do my best to go up to that cute girl in the bookstore and say “hi.”
To welby, Barbarian, Ferret Herder, fizgig, Hello Again, Payne N. Diaz, DaveBear:
Thanks for the encouragement.
To all the rest (who aren’t joking around):
Thanks for the kick in the pants.
I don’t know much about lezbian dating rituals…you ARE a girl…right?
Just kidding:D
…no seriously…stop watching Sex in the City and reading Cosmo
Going out with girls is supposed to be fun. You’ll have plenty of time to find that “one” to bitch at you for watching TV all day and forgetting to take out the garbage.
I apologize.
Looking back, I can see how some of the replies to the OP, including my own, could have come across as hostility or criticism. I certainly did not intend to be hostile or critical toward prisoner or any other person. My criticism was aimed at the belief that there is exactly One Fated, Perfect Match for everyone out there somewhere, and my reaction to the OP was something along the lines of “Oh dear :(, another example of the harm this belief can do,” not “you’re dumb for believing it.”
I stand by the gist of what I said: I do not believe that there is One person out there somewhere whom you are Meant To Be With, that you are Made For Each Other or designed to be together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle or characters in a Hollywood romantic comedy. I consider this a superstition: an odd belief that people pick up somewhere that does not stand up to rational scrutiny or common sense.
I do believe in true love. In fact, that’s one reason I dislike the One In All The World That’s Meant For Me superstition: because it can be an obstacle to finding true love. I believe there are plenty of couples out there who are well matched, who are great for each other, and who enjoy happy, healthy, loving, life-long marriages, and so you could say that they found the right ones for each other. I hope some day fairly soon to find the right one (in this sense) for me; and I have known women who I knew were not really right for me, even though I could probably have loved them and had a reasonably happy marriage with them with things had gone that way. But in the case of people who are well-matched, I do not believe that there is no one else in the world they could have been equally happy with had they never met the person they’re with now. And in the case of those who are either unhappily married or still single, it’s not necessarily because they haven’t found the right person yet; it may be that they don’t (yet, at least) have what it takes to be in a good relationship. (Do Complete Jerks have their Destined Matches to live Happily Ever After with?)
And with that point made, I’ll say that I do sympathize quite a bit with the OP and think it has some validity. I too have trouble just going up and talking to people (especially, but not exclusively, cute girls). While I don’t believe there’s one girl out there somewhere with a big red check mark on her forehead that only God can see, it’s entirely possible that women who are (1) terrific people in general, (2) highly compatible with me, and (3) available, are few and far between, and I’d hate to blow any opportunity I might have of making a good impression on one of them. So maybe the kind of thinking prisoner6655321 describes is part of my problem too, consciously or not. Though in my case, I’m sure a lot of it is Not Knowing What To Say, less than ample social skills, and good old fashioned shyness.
And prisoner, if anything I said, earlier or now, feels like a kick in the pants, well… [turns around, bends over] take a free shot. Oh, but wait until that cute girl over there isn’t looking, okay?
I think finding the cutest looking hair stylist you can & then asking him/her to do your hair & you can talk with him/her then, when they are doing your hair (they are pretty used to this) is a great way to talk to them.
This idea isn’t for me cause sharp scissors & sign language dont go together.
prisoner6655321, just to add a bit to what everyone else (including yourself) has already said: talking to (and hence dating) girls does not just increase your odds of meeting the person who is perfect for you, it also increases the chances that you will be ready to forge a great relationship with that person when you do meet her.
If you met a girl who was perfect for you right now, you are far less likely to form a relationship which will make you both happy than if you meet and date other people first. Dating other people teaches you about yourself and how to be in relationships. It is invaluable knowledge which can only help you in the future.
Don’t force yourself to talk to girls because one of them might be your perfect match. Do it so that you’ll be ready when you do meet her.
**Prisoner, ** no problem on the encouragement. Looking back, I could probably have been nicer about what I said though. Mainly, I hope you find a way around your shyness, because the person you completely fall for will most likely be found when you least expect it.
I, for example, was a lot like you when I was younger. When I met the woman who is now my wife, I wasn’t looking for a girlfriend, certainly not for a future wife. I met her at a business meeting, met her for coffee to discuss some details about a business deal, and wound up married 9 months later, and still happy as a clam in a riverbed as we celebrate our fourth anniversary this week.
Good luck.