Inside The Mind Of Guys Who Are Shy And Inexperienced With Women

I'm a guy so this site is written from that perspective. It's not that I don't think some of the information is applicable to women as well, it's just that I can only write what I know. I'd be full of it if I implied I understood what it was like to be a girl socializing with other girls.

So I'm wary about giving direct advice when I don't think I know what I'm talking about. A few women have told me though that reading this site has helped them understand what's going through the heads of shy guys they know, or who they want to get to know. So with that in mind I'm going to talk about some of the thoughts and issues I had as a shy, inexperienced guy with the opposite sex. Except for stating what I think are the most obvious lessons at the end, I'll let you draw your own conclusions about how you can use what I have to say.

One thing, I was very inhibited and socially awkward around women, so not every shy guy you run into is necessarily going to be as messed up as I was. Oh, and of course any guys reading may get some insight into their own situations:

I was really nervous around girls

I'll break this down further, but it all comes back to the fact that I was just really anxious, scared, and inhibited around women. Most guys get somewhat nervous when they have to ask a girl out, or kiss her, or even talk to her for the first time, but my nervousness was of a strength where it often prevented me from doing any of those things. It was strong, like I couldn't 'just go and talk to her!' strong. Sometimes this nervousness appeared as physical anxious symptoms. At other times it was more of a powerful, paralyzing hesitation.

I was nervous about talking to a girl I was interested in

In high-school I had a huge crush on this one girl for about four years and I never talked to her. Oh I stared at her in class when I could, and I'd take detours to my classes so that I could possibly see her in the hall, but I never got close to speaking a word to her. Well, that's not entirely true. In one science class we found ourselves at the same sink as we were cleaning up our lab equipment. She chatted to me for a minute or two in a friendly manner, but all I could do was stutter out some half-coherent answers. The same thing happened a few times in university as well. I'd be interested in a girl in one of my classes but I never talked to her.

Another thing started happening in university as well. At the time I called it 'being able to set them up but not knock them down'. What I'd do is be able to make an initial good impression on a girl, because she was new and there were no feelings attached to her yet. I'd walk away from the interaction feeling excited and optimistic. But now I had a reason to feel pressured and nervous around her the next time I saw her. And that's exactly what happened. I'd be a nervous, jittery mess and I'd either be too scared to talk to her again, or I'd be such an obvious wreck that she would lose interest. Or I'd be able to talk to her but I couldn't be myself and ended up acting like a weird goofball. Sometimes the nervousness was so bad I'd act rude or aloof towards the girl just to make her go away. At that immediate moment, escapting the anxiety took precedence over doing well with her.

This scenario happened in one of three ways. The first is that I'd see a girl around in class or at my job, and I'd make confident eye contact with her a few times. It was weird, even when I looked stereotypically nerdy there were always girls who seemed interested in me, and I'm hardly a male model. Maybe they saw my inner goodness, whatever. Anyways, so the girls seemed attracted and intrigued and were probably expecting me to talk to them. But I was too nervous to do it. I beat myself up mentally for my wimpiness, and tried to psych myself up into doing it, but the anxious physical feelings were just too strong to push through.

In the second scenario I'd find myself besides a cute girl in class or at work. I'd chat to her and come off as friendly and witty. She seemed interested. 'Maybe she's the one!' I thought to myself later in the day. Enter the pressure. Couldn't get up the nerve to talk to her again.

Scenario three: Just from seeing me around, a girl decided that she liked me. It was obvious, I could tell. Cue nervousness, never talked to her. And you know some girls are, they won't take the initiative to approach a guy themselves, so we never ended up meeting.

I was nervous about asking a girl to hang out

Hanging out, going on a date, the idea is the same. So despite my nervousness, I still managed to get beyond the 'talking to her' stage with a few girls. At first this was due to the circumstances forcing us together so the onus wasn't on me to have to approach them. I ended up sitting with one girl in class who seemed to like me. I was into her too, but I couldn't get up the guts to ask her out. Well, I finally did a class or two before the end of the semester, but by that time I was long into the Friend Zone.

I was nervous about making a move

As luck would have it I finally met a cool girl who I, a) didn't have to approach on my own, and b) didn't have to ask out (she asked me out). Getting nervous as hell before a date was another thing I struggled with, but I always managed to go through with that. We hit it off and it was obvious we were into each other. Remember how I said that some girls won't take the initiative to talk to a guy? Well this girl wouldn't take the initiative to kiss me, for whatever reason, though she dropped some pretty obvious hints that she wanted me to kiss her. I just couldn't do it though (I had never kissed a girl before). I wanted to, and knew I should, but I was just paralyzed by my nerves in those situations. I'd hesitate for a second then change the subject or start doing something else. This caused the girl to up her hints to comical proportions. Once we were alone in my apartment (her suggestion that we go back there) and she was sitting on my lap looking me in the eyes. Still pussed out. Eventually I worked up the courage to kiss her, and I got to do some other stuff with her too. Too bad it didn't last all that long. Back to the drawing board.

With experience and practice I eventually got over my fears of doing all these things. When you've talked to enough girls it loses its edge, when you've tried to kiss so many girls it's not that big a deal any more, but the anxiety I felt about doing all these things the first few times was probably a lot stronger than that felt by most people, and it kept me from doing the things I wanted to as early as other people got to do them.

I was insecure and hard on myself

The insecure thoughts flowed through my head in an effortless stream. I was a virgin. I was a loser. I wasn't good looking. There's no way she actually likes me. I totally screwed up my shot with her. I give up.

It was all quite self-sabotaging. First, a lack of confidence isn't all that attractive. Next, I was hyper alert for any sign of rejection and almost eager to conclude the worst. If I made eye contact with a girl I liked and she didn't look back at me with total adoration and warmth? Well that obviously meant she hated me and that I had no chance with her and that I should give up. Talking to a girl and the conversation isn't going perfectly? Proof for all time that I'm a boring loser and that no one will ever love me. A girl mentioning she likes blonde guys? Well I'm not blonde. I have no chance with her. I'm so lonely. I'm exaggerating a bit, but not as much as you'd think. I wonder how many chances I blew because I assumed the worst and stopped trying over something trivial and meaningless?

I was really naive about what real relationships and interactions between the sexes were like

As you can garner from the paragraphs above, I was hardly immersed in female company or the dating or hook-up scene. Personally, I was also quite the loner so I wasn't very socially experienced, period.

So my only ideas of dating and girlfriends and relationships came from television, the movies, or whatever I could peruse in magazines like Cosmo or Seventeen. This led me to develop a somewhat incomplete, romanticized view of relationships between the sexes. According to my 'education' the beautiful cheerleader always wanted a caring, sensitive guy who liked her for her. The female lead wanted a nice guy to save her from the all the jerks out there. Women were sweet, innocent creatures that needed to be nurtured.

That a girl might get drunk and make out with a hot guy just for the hell of it, or that they would want a fuck buddy, or that they would want to casually date a few guys at once, or that they could go home with a guy they met that night at a party, none of those things were on my radar. Looking back, it's not that movies didn't address these things but somehow this information went over my head and the sappy stuff stuck. And it's not like I had an actual outside life in which I would learn these things about women firsthand.

I was also a little clueless about dating protocol. How exactly did you ask a girl out? Are you really supposed to have that first kiss on her doorstep at the end of the night? Am I supposed to take her out for dinner and a movie?

Whenever I met a girl I liked my thoughts weren't, 'She seems cool, maybe we can hang out a few times and see where it goes.' No, it was more, 'She's the one. She's my dream girl. I just want to cuddle her by the ocean for hours as we watch the shooting stars. Then we'll make sweet loving love, blah blah blah.' Besides from being kind of lame and melodramatic, this thinking contributed to my nerves because I put too many expectations on things. Maybe I wouldn't have been so out of it if I just had a more casual attitude.

A few times a girl implied that she was mainly interested in me as a make-out buddy or as someone to casually have sex with once or twice. At the time I took it as a slight. Only a selfish, evil girl would want to fool around casually. A sweet pure girl would want a relationship. I only want a relationship because I only liked sweet pure girls. God I was naive.

I was intimidated by girls who I perceived as more being experienced than me

Okay, so I was shy, prone to nervousness, naive, inexperienced, and socially underdeveloped in general. I found more experienced girls intimidating. And when you've never kissed a girl in college that's a lot of people. Part of it was the idea that there's no way they'd want shy, virgin me if they'd already had a few boyfriends, another part was not wanting my own inexperience outed, and another part was general wimpiness.

This screwed me in two ways. First, I ruled out more experienced girls as prospects. Too scary. Only harmless, innocent seeming girls didn't arouse my fears. But there were only so many shy, innocent, just-as-inexperienced-as-me girls out there so I was really cutting on down my possibilities.

Second, if I was into a girl, or she was into me, and she said something that revealed that she was more experienced than I thought (it could be as simple as mentioning an ex-boyfriend or that he had once kissed another guy in the past), I'd get dejected and give up on her. She was scary now. And she's had a boyfriend before. Why would she want me? If she has some experience then she had to be sort of cool. Unlike me. I was a loser. Why would a cool girl want to date a loser like me? There's no way it could work out. I give up.

I had a mindset where I expected the universe to deliver a girl to me

Everything I've mentioned so far has hinted at this. It's hard to explain, but almost unconsciously I had the attitude that in order to get a girlfriend the world had to deliver one in such a way that I wouldn't get nervous or have to do anything. It seems absurd as I type it here, but that's how I thought. I was too shy and scared to go after a girl myself. I just had to find myself in a situation where I would meet a girl, could talk to her without being scared, wouldn't have to ask her out, we'd get along perfectly, and she'd have just the right combination of qualities where I wouldn't be nervous around her at all. She would be sweet and perfect for me and I wouldn't get anxious having to kiss her or do anything else with her.

The idea that if I wanted a girlfriend I'd have to actively work on getting one, or that I'd have to learn to cope with my nervousness wasn't on the map. Nope, I just had to meet the perfect girl under the perfect circumstances. The kind of circumstances where I would essentially be guided along by rails the whole way with no room to screw up. This attitude was reflected in my thinking with thoughts such as, 'Well I didn't meet any girls this semester. Maybe in next semester's classes I'll meet someone' or 'Maybe at work (a call center) the girl I like will be assigned to sit besides me today so I can talk to her' or 'Maybe if I this time when I go to the bar and just stand around all night a girl will walk up to me and seduce me.'

Sure, sometimes life did hand me something on a platter, but it was totally out of my control. Eventually it dawned on me that if I wanted something I had to go after it, and that the task wasn't always going to be pretty, but that was the only way to get what I wanted under my own power. It seems so basic, but it took me years of frustration and failed wishful thinking before this simple concept clicked in my mind.

I put too much focus on the girls that I ended up randomly meeting through my life circumstances

Since I never went out to create my own options or prospects, whenever a half-decent girl came into my life through work, class, or a mutual acquaintance, my mind always immediately jumped to, "Could this be the girl for me???" If I started a new job and one of my female coworkers chatted to me for a few minutes, I'd go home that night dreaming about dating her. If I started a new class and ended up sitting beside a girl, I'd automatically start wondering if we were going to hook up. I'd get somewhat infatuated and preoccupied with her, always thinking about if it was going to happen. Since I was a wimp, I couldn't just ask her and find out, or try to make her interested. I'd have to wait around and fret, hoping the universe would make it all work out.

What's weird is, objectively the girls often weren't even that appealing to me, or I obviously wasn't their type, but because I had so few options, any minimally friendly girl I met instantly became a possibility. I almost had to like these girls, what other options did I have? If it later seemed like it wouldn't work out (which was common, because I had really just invested a casual encounter with too much meaning), I'd get demoralized. But a new 'is she the one?' girl would come along soon enough to take her place in my mind.

I think girls should be aware that just by your being friendly, even in the most casual, offhanded way, to a shyer guy, he may start seeing you as a prospect. He may even get a somewhat obsessive crush on you. It's not that you sent him any signals, just that any girl he comes across offers a chance to end his loneliness and his mind reacts to this a little too excitedly and desperately.

The obvious lessons

Here's what I think they are, maybe you can figure out some other ones:

If you want to get to know a shy guy, it may be easier to talk to him yourself.
If he seems awkward be persistent and try talking to him again a few more times.
If you seemed to hit it off with a guy, but now he's seems awkward and hesitant to talk to you then he may just be shy (or it could be for another reason...)
If a guy is nervous or insecure around you for whatever reason, just cut him some slack, don't draw attention to it, and he'll calm down eventually.
Even though you may be sending obvious hints, and even if he does understand them, you can't necessarily count on him to ask you out or kiss you himself. It may be easier for all involved if you take the bull by the horns and make the first move yourself.
Don't expect a shyer guy to necessarily 'get' concepts like, 'we just hung out twice, and fooled around once, that doesn't mean we're a couple now.' He could be too naive or romantic to get it.
If you think a guy you like is inexperienced then do him a favor and do nothing whatsoever to draw attention to it. It doesn't exist, never mention it. Do nothing to let on that you know. Don't give him an opportunity to get all freaked out and insecure over what a loser virgin he is.
If you think a guy is inexperienced you may want to take the same approach to your own past experiences. Just don't bring them up and potentially give the guy something to worry about. Sure, after you've messed around a bit and he's more relaxed and comfortable with himself you can bring up your ex-boyfriends or what you like in bed, but before that it's probably better to take the 'If he doesn't know about it, it won't bother him' approach. Note that I'm only referring to run-of-the-mill experience that may freak out a very inexperienced guy. If you have herpes or something then you've got to bring that up.

And that's all I can remember. I hope this article helps you hook up with that cute, quiet, quirky guy you've got your eye on. And of course I hope this article indirectly makes life easier out there for all the shy dudes out there too.