Michael Davidson | Tiny Buddha
“See the positive side, the potential, and make an effort.” ~Dalai Lama
Until fairly recently, I was somewhat afraid of talking to girls.
Well, that’s not exactly true. I was afraid of talking to girls if I had a romantic intent. If it was an innocuous conversation, I could be cool as a cucumber.
As you can imagine, this stifled my romantic life somewhat. If I met someone and things were going well, once I realized that she liked me a little and I could move things forward, I would freeze up. Self-sabotage.
This was very frustrating to me, and I know that I’m not the only one who has experienced this phenomenon. In some ways, it looks kind of like a classic case of “fear of success.” But in reality, it was more subtle than that. Consider the following situations:
Scenario #1: Imagine that you see someone who you are attracted to walking down the street. You’d like to go strike up a conversation with this person, but you feel some anxiety. What if they don’t like you? How embarrassing it could be! Your mind fills with all kinds of negative thoughts.
Scenario #2: Now imagine someone on their bike loses control and is barreling down the sidewalk toward them, but the object of your attention doesn’t notice. How much would you hesitate before yelling at them to move out of the way, or even to grab them and help move them out of harm’s way? I’ll bet you didn’t have to think twice.
In each of these situations, the action that you want to take is to talk to someone who you are attracted to. But the intent behind each is incredibly different.
I realized that when I wanted to talk to a girl in a romantic context, the intention behind my action centered on my wanting something from the girl. There was no malice or anything—it’s just that I felt as though I needed to “get” their romantic interest. It’s something I was “taking” from them.
In hindsight, this was such a silly thing to believe! I must have felt that somehow I wasn’t good enough, that she wasn’t going to receive some benefit from talking to me. She would be doing me a favor by giving me attention, and I was somehow imposing a burden upon her.
but I am …light years ahead on the Blue Lagoons
Thx for the reminder- your article came at the right time for me, and others I’m sure..
Michael Patrick Hanson