Fear of other people

[JonnyMaddox]

Hi. I'am 36 years old and want to start approaching girls again. I did it a few years ago, got a few dates out of it over the years (nothing really came out of it, I kissed one, but she was religious or something and didn’t want sex).

Then I gave up, because of a huge problem that I don't seem to can get rid off: Fear of what other people think, when they see me approaching a girl or when they hear my opener or similar. Because of this I could always only approach a girl if she would walk alone somewhere. Sometimes it took me 6 hours to approach like 2 girls on a saturday. Catastrophy.

When it comes to my looks: I often get compliments, even from strange women on the street. Sometimes even a woman says Hi to me. There have been three cases in my life where a girl literally saw me from a distance away and walked directly in front of me and tried to get me to talk to her (the last one was two days ago, and these were always exactly the women I always wanted and they were even like in their beginning 20s or even 18 or something). Also cases where a girl walked through the whole train to ask me if I could help her with a train app or something, it was nothing. Also at work was this girl that always greeted me with a huge smile. But I ruined all of this because of shyness and stupidity and late realization. I have to do something. But this fear of other people kills my life. Also I know where this comes from. All my life my dad wanted me to do what he wants. Everyday, day in and day out I was constantly (verbally) beaten down because I was doing something wrong in his view. This didn’t even stop when my parents made a divors. He called almost every day and every time I was told what I was doing wrong for like half an hour because of this and that. Because of that I developed a huge fear of pressure from whatever happens to put pressure on me, women, work, friends, family, and so on.

I made some good progress in the years because of talking to random women on the street. Also my job at a political poll center (where I talk to people on the phone in front of all other employees in a room) helped me. But I still have problems. I get all these signals from women, but can't do much about it. Sometimes I ask a girl that I know from social events or so for a date. A few years ago I dated one. I even kissed her, BUT she had literally no lips. I really didn’t know what to do. The kiss was awekward and I never heard from her againanyway. Also I changed my style into a more badboy look. I got very low body fat, so my muscles show without the need to do much training. Mostly in summer I wear tank-tops, and almost once a week I get compliments from random women on the street. BUT STILL, I can't do much, because of this irrational fear. Also my logics are bad, because I live in a small town with like 45.000 people. When I try to approach girls I always have to go to the next bigger city which is 20 minutes away by train. So no pulls or something.

I NEED TO ERADICATE THIS FEAR OF OTHER PEOPLE ONCE AND FOR ALL IN MY FREAKKING LIFE. I WANT TO DESTROY IT. But I can't do it alone. So if you all can give me some advice. I don't know what to do.

 

[gameboy]

Try the newbie challenge! I started out more or less like you. I felt like I'm "not allowed to" talk to women, even if they gave me obvious IOIs I couldn't approach for the life of me. Doing a lot better now.

 

[bgwh]

A couple of tips:

1) A positive feedback loop is the best hack you can imagine. When you approach girls and see their eyes light up, and they try to prolong the conversation, that really helps

2) Sounds like a catch-22 doesn't it? Well not really if you have an excuse to approach, like directions or another angle. For me it's easy because I genuinelly need to approach people for a business/project. So I would approach them, and many of them would end up prolonging the conversation, and then some would even hit on me.

3) Another trick is to focus on the response. So you say hey, wait for reaction, then give your excuse (directions or whatever), then watch how they respond. So focus on THEM (it super speeds up calibration training), don't focus on you.

So to summarize, you start off approaching with no goal except to open with your excuse, and just register their responses. If they just tell you the answer and you say thanks bye, you've succeeded. What is however going to happen (if you focus on their reactions), is that many of them will show obvious signs they want to turn this into something more, see eyes light up, girls prolonging the conversation, and a few even start flirting first.

There's a ton of other different hacks and tricks I've gathered (I literally bought and studied a dozen programs, plus hundreds of videos), but the above 3 have been the most helpful and why I got over AA in just 3-4 outtings. I now have literally zero AA.

 

[JonnyMaddox]

A couple of tips:

1) A positive feedback loop is the best hack you can imagine. When you approach girls and see their eyes light up, and they try to prolong the conversation, that really helps

2) Sounds like a catch-22 doesn't it? Well not really if you have an excuse to approach, like directions or another angle. For me it's easy because I genuinelly need to approach people for a business/project. So I would approach them, and many of them would end up prolonging the conversation, and then some would even hit on me.

3) Another trick is to focus on the response. So you say hey, wait for reaction, then give your excuse (directions or whatever), then watch how they respond. So focus on THEM (it super speeds up calibration training), don't focus on you.

So to summarize, you start off approaching with no goal except to open with your excuse, and just register their responses. If they just tell you the answer and you say thanks bye, you've succeeded. What is however going to happen (if you focus on their reactions), is that many of them will show obvious signs they want to turn this into something more, see eyes light up, girls prolonging the conversation, and a few even start flirting first.

There's a ton of other different hacks and tricks I've gathered (I literally bought and studied a dozen programs, plus hundreds of videos), but the above 3 have been the most helpful and why I got over AA in just 3-4 outtings. I now have literally zero AA.

Thx good tipps.

 

[JonnyMaddox]

I sat in a train a few hours ago. A beautiful girl was on the other side of the train sideways to me. She was my favourite type. Beginning 20s very blonde hair, nice curves and awesome beautiful eyes. I wore my tanktop and i sometimes get compliments from strange women i see in my daily routines. Now I notices she was trying to look at me. She fastly turned her head in my direction (was sideways of her) and back. This was certainly to see me, no one else was around. I wanted to say something like: "Damn, you got beautiful eyes, exactly like the sky today". But I couldn't do it. I don't know why. I was think about it, but I can't figure it out. It's just irrational fear and I know it's irrational, but still a freakking blockade. But anyway, i'll try to work on it.

 

[Chase]

@JonnyMaddox,

I sat in a train a few hours ago. A beautiful girl was on the other side of the train sideways to me. She was my favourite type. Beginning 20s very blonde hair, nice curves and awesome beautiful eyes. I wore my tanktop and i sometimes get compliments from strange women i see in my daily routines. Now I notices she was trying to look at me. She fastly turned her head in my direction (was sideways of her) and back. This was certainly to see me, no one else was around.

Hey, you're aware of these signals. That's great. So you're not starting totally blind! (some guys do)

I wanted to say something like: "Damn, you got beautiful eyes, exactly like the sky today". But I couldn't do it. I don't know why. I was think about it, but I can't figure it out. It's just irrational fear and I know it's irrational, but still a freakking blockade. But anyway, i'll try to work on it.

It's not irrational.

Direct approaches are the highest pressure approaches you can make.

From this old article of mine on when to use direct vs. indirect openers:

Conversely, imagine you’re sitting next to a girl on a bus for a few minutes, then turn to her and tell her she has the most incredible sense of style you’ve seen all day. Wow… awkward, right?

Why is that?

Both of these tie back to the Law of Least Effort. Basically, if you like a girl so much that you feel compelled to open her direct, you’ll be investing more effort; whereas if you are just sparking a casual conversation, you’ll put far less effort in. So, you wouldn’t chase a girl down on the street or walk across the bar to meet her just to spark a casual conversation; you’d do that with someone close by to you. Likewise, you wouldn’t sit there casually and wait two minutes to open a girl direct if you liked her so much you felt compelled to go open her direct; it feels weird if you do.

Therefore, the rules for direct opening versus situational opening end up looking like this:

• If you are opening a girl quickly whom you just walked up to and are just meeting, you should use direct. Especially if she knows you put a lot of effort into coming up to her to meet her; you must use direct or it feels strange and unnatural.
  
  
• If you are opening a girl slowly and casually whose proximity you’re already in, you should use situational. Otherwise, like that girl on the bus, she’s going to feel cornered (since she’s settled in) and it’s also going to be weird that you waited to open direct, and it ends up feeling calculated and not genuine.

I mean, there is an argument guys can make that "You should be able to approach any woman anywhere with anything." There's some merit to this, in terms of training up your approach balls. But in the long run ignoring social grace and barreling around with ballsy, risky openers in situations that call for general discretion isn't advised.

Maybe James Bond will assume attraction and lean in toward that hot girl on the train who is obviously eying him up and hit her with a playful direct opener right out of the gates. But even James Bond doesn't usually do that. Usually it is some sort of implied direct, like looking toward her but also out of the window next to her and saying, "Beautiful scenery," in a sensual voice.

Anyway, for getting your approach nerves up, I recommend you start with lower pressure openers.

Situationally relevant, for instance, or indirect direct.

You can start doing direct once you feel more confident walking up to strange women and saying hello.

Chase

 

[JonnyMaddox]

@JonnyMaddox,



Hey, you're aware of these signals. That's great. So you're not starting totally blind! (some guys do)



It's not irrational.

Direct approaches are the highest pressure approaches you can make.

From this old article of mine on when to use direct vs. indirect openers:



I mean, there is an argument guys can make that "You should be able to approach any woman anywhere with anything." There's some merit to this, in terms of training up your approach balls. But in the long run ignoring social grace and barreling around with ballsy, risky openers in situations that call for general discretion isn't advised.

Maybe James Bond will assume attraction and lean in toward that hot girl on the train who is obviously eying him up and hit her with a playful direct opener right out of the gates. But even James Bond doesn't usually do that. Usually it is some sort of implied direct, like looking toward her but also out of the window next to her and saying, "Beautiful scenery," in a sensual voice.

Anyway, for getting your approach nerves up, I recommend you start with lower pressure openers.

Situationally relevant, for instance, or indirect direct.

You can start doing direct once you feel more confident walking up to strange women and saying hello.

Chase

Thank you i will report advances here, when they happen

 

[JonnyMaddox]

I registered at this meetup app. I got two events, saturday and sunday. The one on sunday is about "leaving your comfort zone". We make, it says it in the description, "challenges" like telling a joke to 5 strangers, and similar things that have to do with interaction with random people. I hope that this forces me to overcome (a bit) my fear of people judging me when I talk to women on the street in general I think I will not have any problems with it when I'am kind of like "forced" to do it.

 

[JonnyMaddox]

Two weeks ago I was at work. A bit early as always I was waiting for the entrance to open. I noticed a group of guys talking to each other. One talked about approaching women on the street and then fastly did an approach, but he noticed the girl he wanted to talk to was somehow gone and went in a different direction. Now what he looked like: He wore like baggy-pants with grey tshirt his big belly was very visible under his tshirt. He had shoulder long hair and it looked like he just woke up. But he seemed to have no problem approaching women from the side. I'm not hating on him, but why does someone who doesn't care about his looks has the freakking confidence to approach women, while I at least get compliments from women for my looks (i'am not arrogant or something, just saying what women tell me), I get nothing done.

 

[gameboy]

why does someone who doesn't care about his looks has the freakking confidence to approach women, while I at least get compliments from women for my looks (i'am not arrogant or something, just saying what women tell me), I get nothing done.

Probably the guy knows he can get girls no matter what he looks like. That's why he has the confidence.

He may be less effective than someone who is good looking AND confident, but certainly more effective than someone who looks good but can't approach.

Oh and BTW shoulder long hair is very sexy for girls... talking from experience

 

[JonnyMaddox]

Probably the guy knows he can get girls no matter what he looks like. That's why he has the confidence.

He may be less effective than someone who is good looking AND confident, but certainly more effective than someone who looks good but can't approach.

Oh and BTW shoulder long hair is very sexy for girls... talking from experience

He looked like a bum! I don't think he get any woman that he approached to a date, maybe through social circle or something. I think he mostly did this because he's trying to look cool in front of his friends or something, which also look like geeks/bums. (no offence here, but I'am fed up with respecting everything and everyone. My whole life I played this super friendly guy who offends no one and licks everyone's ass and in the end I get fooled, because people think I'am weak. I got value too, and it's time to behave, at least a little bit, like an asshole. Sounds sad, but it seems this is how our freakking society is).

But OK. I get your point. It's propably a huge advantage to have the balls to approach women on the street, even if you look ugly. The other way around is more useless. Looking good while having no skills. But you get more women approaching you actually, but it also doesn't help because no skills

But anyway. I got another problem on which I need help. It's the way I go out for the purpose to talk to women.

It's always the same: Saturday and Sunday morning I go out for a few hours. But it always goes like this: I get something to drink like one of these monster cans (at least without sugar), then I tell me: OK. Walk around and drink this thing, then after you are done, go look for women. Then I walk a specific route that I always walk through the city (it's mostly around rivers and beautiful landscapes, that I like). Then I DON'T APPROACH ANYONE and go back to the train station home. Then I tell myself: OK, next time you will do it. And I imagine how I easily approach overconfidently. It always freakking happens like that. The route is also more an the streets where less people are, not in the shopping street where most people are. I like automatically avoid it. I need a way to force or trick myself into the crowd and freakking stand still. This routine is like hammered into my head. Is there a way you can help me with that ? Like writing about it or something.


Another thing I want to tell:

A few times in a year, I get literally approached by women. I want to tell you what they did:

1. I was walking down the street. Girl walks in front in me in the opposite direction. Just as she passes me, she says: "Can I get your number?" I just walked by, making no comment.

This was the only time in my life a woman asked directly for my number on the street. Never happened directly like that.

2. Woman walks in the opposite direction, just as she passes me: Huge smile and saying: Hi.

3. Empty train with only me and a cute young girl. I go to the second floor of the train upstrains (yes trains in Europe have stairs). Then I see her walk up stairs and to me. She said if I could help her with something on her smartphone. It was nothing. She just had to put in the name of the city or something.

3. I was waiting for the train standing around. Cute young girl comes at me asking me if I got a cigarette, even I'am not smoking.

4. With group of friends at the bar. People we know enter with a new girl one of them knows, but we don't. She directly walks through a group of people in front of us next to me on the seat opens me with: "Hey how are you?" Nothing happened, because I was drunk and shy. After like 20 minutes she leaves and goes back to her friends.

5. At the shopping mall I was looking for tomatos. I was walking to the table where they are. I girl was in front of me. I passed by, she didn’t move, I almost crashed into her. At the tomatos she followed me, stood directly in my sightline in front of me. But I did nothing, taking my stupid tomatoes and left.

6. There's this older woman that I see regularly. She's always driving her bike. Everytime I see her she tells me how attractive I'am, or she mumbles something like "oh he must be doing a lot of sports". But that's more of a funny story. She must have been looking good in her younger years, but she's also a bit weird because she always weres this silly and big sunglasses.


And so on and so on. All these missed situations. Most of them weirdly happened in situations where I was angry at the world for some reasons and in a bad mood. Still stupid that nothing happened in these situations. And I get older and older, at some time I will get uglier and then nothing of this will ever happen again. It even is the point now, that my confidence depends on women noticing me. When I buy some clothes I always look if a woman smilies or notices me, only then I'am confident that the news clothes suit me.

OK. All this doesn't help, because I don't have any skills or at least not much pratice. But I have to work on it.



OK. I cried enough. Anyway. There's not that much going on here in the forum, but at least you have something to read (and to write, if you have your own thoughts about it)

 

[JonnyMaddox]

Ok. Of some of these approaches by women I don't know a 100% if these were approaches, but I assume they are and highly likely, at minimum I could have made something out of them.

 

[JonnyMaddox]

Btw: This happened again today (my walking route, where again I approached no one)

 

[gameboy]

Well I can just repeat myself. Do the newbie challenge. Start with saying hi.

If it helps read my journal, I started with that too... now I can approach at least sometimes!

 

[Higher]

why does someone who doesn't care about his looks has the freakking confidence to approach women, while I at least get compliments from women for my looks (i'am not arrogant or something, just saying what women tell me), I get nothing done.

Being attractive is not always a positive.

The less attractive dude has barely anything to lose. Hes aware hes far from what people consider "desirable". Hes horny tho, so he gets himself in all sorts of situations in which he gets rejected left and right, but with time he starts seeing patterns and ultimately gets the girl. Hes ego-less in that sense. Results-driven.

The attractive dude has more than likely put a lot of stock and pride in his appearance, to the point that "theres no way she just rejected me", and when that happens, it feels like the little kingdom he built in his mind crumbles to pieces. "Girls are supposed to come to me, not vice versa!". This might cause him to stay away from similar situations in the future. Hes ego-driven.

One of the things this journey teaches u is humility. And sometimes u learn it without even realizing it. U just suddenly notice.

I think the right move is: forget about how attractive u are. Start from square one, be humble, and build ur way to the top like the unattractive dude does.

 

[AspiringStoic]

One of the things this journey teaches u is humility.

This!

@JonnyMaddox Not to sound rude. But from the way you write you seem to have a lot of ego about your looks and how you "deserve" more than that ugly guy you talk about that you saw. That is a bad frame to come from. That guy should motivate you. Seeing him approach should make you feel, if he can do it, I can do it too.

I am going to get there one day. That should be your line of thinking. And yeah all these things you describe about your looks and how women respond to you is exactly the stuff that will hold you back with cold approach.

Because if you approach and girls don't react the way you think, then your whole identity will be destroyed and you will quit cold approach. Its better to start with extreme humilty.

Give yourself permission to suck. To be rejected, to get into awkward, embarrassing and sometimes even humiliating scenarios. You are going to feel all these emotions if you are going to do cold approach. If you have the attitude of it must be easier for me because I look good, you will quit very soon. Everyone regardless of their looks needs to go through these emotional challenges to get good at cold approach.

It is the price of entry. If this is not acceptable and you feel you want to have it easier because you are good looking, you might want to try online dating, social circle, social media etc.

 

[FAB DRONES]

You’re lucky to get approached so much. All you have to do is force yourself to walk down the street near the girls. Don’t avoid their area. You can force yourself to walk down the correct street, and don’t approach anyone. Skip the monster drink. IMHO

 

[JonnyMaddox]

Today was one of my worst days in the last years. Got free time from work today and decided to go to the bigger city by train as I always do. Then again nothing happened, still trapped in my stupid routine. Angry at the world I went home. Then again went out and got to the other bigger city (i live in a small town between two bigger cities), thinking OK it will be better in this city, because here are more people. Again nothing done. It was a mix of being exhausted because of all the walking and being too lazy and having no energy left and don't know what to say.

Then I got extremly angry at the world and listened to new metal music, making me even more angry. In the train two girls after each other were sitting directly in front of me and like an idiot I starred at my phone reading some book, one had extremly sexy legs (crossed and naked, she wore short jeans), goddamn. Later at the supermarket I bought a few things I needed. There were these two hot women (i think mother and daughter) with a huge shopping cart in front of me. The daughter noticed me and said: "oh dont you want go first?". I, pretending to be annoyed, said "Yeaas, sounds like a good idea, one doesn't have to buy so much stuff just before the supermarket closes" (even thought it was one and a half hours left until closing time), no comment from them and silence. Now I'am angry at home writing this text. Still don't know what to do. But maybe this anger will help me to finally overcome this shit.


On the other side I notice at least some improvement. At earlier times I would be extremly nervous doing and saying the stuff at the supermarket, but I did it without being much nervous. At the checkout I even turned fully around to the people in the checkout line and looked at all of them while doing the checkout. Usually I would not be looking at anyone (with my eyes down). Tomorrow I will again be going out and try again. I finally have to overcome this fear. Otherwise I don't have much problems talking to women. Last week I talked to a sweet girl at work for the first time. She causually mentioned that she got a boyfriend (was part of a story she told me). But that's ok, I just wanted to get to know her, not much flirting or something. Now I got a new "friend" at work, we always talk and sit in the same room. How nice is that! Without me having pressure because i don't want to hit on her. She works as an actor in her other job, and I always wanted to know what they do all day and how they get ahead in this job.

Anyway. I'll report what happens tomorrow

 

[JonnyMaddox]

Why is there no edit button??

 

[JonnyMaddox]

What else I noticed was that I just get out without think about that I want to talk to women. It's not like a ritual. I think prepare it more as a goal (while not otherthinking it). Also I don't really look for women I could approach. I just float kind of. That has to stop too.