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Edit The Nightmare Scenario
Ask yourself: what would your life be like if you weren’t letting your fear hold you back from approaching the people you were attracted to? How would you live if you knew that you didn’t run the risk of failure? If you weren’t always approaching every encounter with the feeling that you’ve been rejected in advance?
It would be pretty damn awesome, wouldn’t it? You wouldn’t be spending so much time living in fear, building these worst-case scenarios in your brain and spending more time meeting new and awesome people.
So while you’re working on the physical aspects of your anxiety, let’s take time to neuter that nightmare you build for yourself when you imagine approaching that hottie you’ve had your eye on.
I want you to think of the last time you saw someone you were attracted to. I want you to imagine going up to them and initiating a conversation… and it goes exactly as badly as you always thought it would. She gives you the death stare or worse, starts pointing and laughing at you. Her friends come over and spread the word and now everybody knows that you hit on somebody out of your league. She lets you know in no uncertain terms that she finds you repulsive and beneath her.
Now… you’re probably feeling pretty bad right about now and wondering why the fuck Dr. NerdLove is putting you through this.
“Yeah, thanks Doc. I really needed to relive high-school all over again.”
Stick with me here, I have a point to make and this will be on the test later.
You see, this nightmare scenario you’re picturing? It only hurts you because you let it. You have given it the power to harm you… and you can take it away again. Now that you’ve played through that scenario in your head, I want you to play through your head again. Only this time, I want you to picture it in black and white, like an old film from the 30s. A little less immediate, isn’t it? It doesn’t seem as real, so it doesn’t have the same power to hurt or scare you. Now, I want you to play it again… only this time, everybody sounds like they’ve sucked down several tanks worth of helium. Then play it through again at double speed like a Benny Hill sketch, complete with Yakkity Sax in the background. Then imagine it, only this time when she’s trying to reject you her head starts inflating like a parade float. Or imagine it upside down and backwards.
The more you play with that scenario, the more absurd you can make it, the more you’re reducing it’s power over you. You’re taking something that feels real and bit by bit, making it something that’s just too ridiculous to be afraid of.
I realize this sounds very woo-woo new-agey-crystals-and-patchouli pop psychology bullshit, but it works. By changing how you picture the scenario from something you dread to something you laugh at, you’re breaking the associations you’ve formed between the desire (meet new hot person) and the assumed result (rejection and humiliation). Negativity is a self-fulfilling prophecy and when you go into an encounter assuming the worst… you’re going to subconsciously sabotage yourself.
Now, having played out the worst case scenario, imagine it going well. She’s happy to meet you, even more than a little charmed. Not only does she give you her number, but she’s eager to see you again.
It feels a little more real than the nightmare scenario does now, doesn’t it?
Fake It Until You Make It
Many of the responses over at the Facebook page were ultimately about the individual’s self-esteem and self-confidence as much as it was about the fear of rejection. Now, I’ve talked before about how to build your self-confidence but this is a process that takes time… time you may not have when you’re at Barnes and Noble and there’s a hottie over by the Mystery section who just smiled at you.
You want to get her number, but you’re also convinced that there’s no way in hell that she would think you’re worth her time, so what do you do?
You lie to yourself.
Remember how I said that the brain responds to the body? That applies to your sense of confidence just as much as it does to controlling your approach anxiety. Just the act of pulling the muscles at the corners of your mouth up and back makes people happier. Acting more confident – straightening up your posture, squaring your shoulders, moving with slow, deliberate movements, making strong eye contact and speaking with measured clarity - will actually make you feel more confident.
It’s hard to hear that voice in your head telling you that you’re a lazy fat slob who nobody would stop to piss on if you happened to be on fire when you’re busy channelling your inner George Clooney.
The First 1000 Rejections Don’t Count
There’s a saying in PUA culture that I actually really like: the first thousand rejections don’t count.
Nobody starts out perfect. Nobody got to be good at dating, at meeting and charming new people, without practice. And part of practice means being willing to accept that you’re going to get rejected while you’re busy learning.
And you know what? It doesn’t matter. Because the whole point of those rejections is to experiment and learn what works and what doesn’t. You’re not being rejected because you’re a worthless human being who nobody would ever love, you’re busy practicing how to get better at dating. Getting rejected while you’re busy improving yourself has just as much real-world impact as getting struck out during baseball practice: none. It may be annoying. It may be frustrating as all hell… but it doesn’t mean a damn thing in the real world. It’s just part of how you refine your technique.
Just as with that voice in your head and all those worst-case scenarios you imagined, you have the power to decide how being rejected feels. You can see it as failure… or you can reframe it as another step on your path to success.
Remember: They’re Nervous Too.
After I asked about what fears held people back from approaching the people they were attracted to, I asked everybody to reverse the scenario: how many of them had seen someone they liked and wanted that person to come over and say hi.
Spoiler alert: almost everybody did, men and women.
Why?
Because they’re just as nervous about being approached as you are about approaching them. That hottie who keeps looking your way and playing with her hair? The guy with the gorgeous eyes who smiles at you whenever you look over at him? They’re thinking about how much they wish you would just come over and talk to them because they’re not entirely sure you are interested in them. They’re not sitting there thinking “If anyone talks to me today, I’m going to just destroy their egos with my withering contempt,” they’re thinking “Wait, is he looking at me? No, wait, they couldn’t possibly be looking at me. I must have something on my face. Or they’re looking at somebody behind me. There’s no way they’d be interested in me anyway.”
When you’re getting those signs of interest – those furtive glances, the look-look away-look back and smile, the twirling hair, the shy smile – they’re trying as hard as they can to develop telepathy so they could scream “WOULD YOU PLEASE COME OVER HERE AND INTRODUCE YOURSELF ALREADY!” into your brain.
And then you have two choices: you can continue to let your fear hold you back.
Or you can conquer your fear…
… and go meet the most incredible person in the world.
Your choice.
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There is this classic scene from the movie "Matrix" that I remind myself of whenever I start feeling nervous or scared of approaching someone. It's the scene where Morpheus takes neo to the "jump training" program and tells him the following words:
"You got to let it all go, Neo. Fear, doubt and disbelief. Free Your Mind."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXv3SSijPFc
This sentence pretty much sums up how I try and shake the fear away from me whenever it shows up.
Plus, the way the scene rolls out is also pretty similar to message in this post: When neo trys to jump for the first time, he may of failed – but instead of smashing to bits on the ground like he imagined that will happen, he falls, but instead of smashing he is bounced back and lands with little damage done in the end. The scene ends with cypher (one of the characters) saying "Everybody falls the first time" – meaning it takes time to get good at the jump, just like it takes time at getting better at dating.
While the article is written with a slant towards debilitating fear, and you might think to yourself "I'm not THAT afraid," keep in mind this same advice still works on the "it makes me slightly uncomfortable" set of reactions as well.
And yes, it does work.
"Repeat after me: it isn’t going to happen."
I have a serious question. What if it has happened? Or rather, you've actually had experiences that make this a realistic outcome?
For example, when I was in middle school, I was the tomboy nerd. Obviously, no one wanted to date me, and at the time, I wasn't interested either. But girls would continuously drag me away from my books to a group of boys, and then play a game of "He likes you! You want to go out with him!" where the boy would be trapped and feverishly saying, "No, no!"
Imagine how humiliating that is– people throwing you at someone else, because they know you're going to be rejected as though you're a slimy thing that they want to wipe off of themselves. And then, at school dances, you ask someone for a simple dance, and because of the previous experience with the girls pushing you at them, they outright reject you. That sort of thing. I wasn't ugly by any means, and I'm much more feminine now, it's just that this experience has colored and given me realistic expectation that YES, this could happen again.
So what now?
Middle School, or high school for that matter, is not the meter stick by which you judge adult life. Just, just trust me on this.
Middle school is the fourth circle of hell.
I'm making a list of what hell is comprised of, didn't even think of middle school (might have blocked it out of there), it sooo belongs there, thank you for helping me to add to my list.
I got a lot of that too. There were girls I had crushes on where news of my interest became fodder for gossip and mockery in seconds.
I was also 13. Life changed rather drastically after school.
Middle school is not the real world. Neither is high-school, for that matter. It's a specialized environment – rather like prison, honestly – where the social rules are different. Especially when you're dealing with a bunch of children in the middle of the whirling hormonal maelstrom that is puberty who are busy trying to sort out that whole "who am I really?" aspect of things and generally act like a bunch of cocks.
TL;DR: middle school blows and bears no resemblance to actual life.
not unless you're a fat girl.
Hey Cathy,
You might be interested in the Fat Acceptance movement. It's pretty spectacular and you can find a community of non-judgmental people.
still ain't gonna get them laid.
i'd have no problem dating a fat girl. Personality and confidence have a lot more to do with attraction than people are willing to admit.
Cathy, look for guys who like fat girls. I spent a great year with a fat girl (had to move to Germany, she had family and a mortgage) and we went at it like deranged lagomorphs. Ask your male friends, and your female ones too; they'll know of someone. Trust me, we're not all closet pedos who like the bodies of 10-year-old boys ( to quote a famous phrase)
What everyone is saying is 100% true. You can't judge real-world interactions and relationships based on stuff that happened in middle school or high school (particularly middle school, which is a ridiculously vicious environment).
It's understandable that the experiences would make you a little gun-shy, but you need to remind yourself that you're in a different situation, and the outcomes will be different.
And I know exactly how you feel. I have a very similar instance, which happened in the 6th grade, burned into my memory. Those sorts of things happened to me over, and over, and over again until about 10th grade, when I made the conscious decision to let other people play their little games, but not allow myself to be drawn into them.
I still had my fair share of rejection and heartbreak, but it was in the context of me asking the guy out or to dance or whatever, and him turning me down (and it was like in the article, a polite "I think of you just as a friend" sort of thing).
In the "mean girls playing games" scenario, the problem (aside from them being childish teens) is that other people have involved themselves in what is supposed to be an interaction between two individuals. Dating is not a group sport.
Oh, oh, horrible middle school stories! I'll share too: in my middle school, we had a group of cute boys who would go ask out the unattractive girls so they could laugh and reject them when they said yes. I turned them down, but a friend fell for it and cried the whole lunch period after. I remember how pathetic she was seen for "not knowing better" and that incident definitely influenced me for a while – there's more dignity in being paranoid than taking someone at face value and being mocked, right? …Umm, right?
Yeah, middle school is a vile place. Good thing full-grown adults aren't the ones attending it! ;D
I like the "three second rule" that you mentioned on a previous posting, because it doesn't give you time to let fear of weird mental scenarios build.
where is everyone getting this idea that south beach is home to these perfect beautiful people? when I went everyone was old and fat
When I was there two years ago, South Beach had two things at all times: incredibly beautiful and utterly stuck up people and criminally overpriced drinks.
When I ordered a well vodka tonic at one bar, I had to explain to the bartender that I wasn't offering to buy the building, I just wanted to pay for my drink.
In my very very limited experience, I've found that imagining how a favorite comic book character would approach the situation calms my fears and jitters. How would Batman approach the this? He'd come in without any fear, slow and methodical. Or Hal Jordan, fearless, relaxed, and sure of himself. Willpower can overcome a lot of things, especially our fabricated fears.
Anybody else do this?
I do, although never in a romantic situation so far. However, I remember trying to channel my inner Wonder Woman and/or Batgirl at my first real job interview (and I got the job, so I guess it worked.) Sometimes the only thing you really need is a little confidence.
I think if I tried that, I'd flub it and end up imagining how Spiderman would approach it…
I've just started reading the Walking Dead comics. Probably not the best source of day-to-day inspiration
I use Dr. Frank N. Furter from Rocky Horror. Anything that didn't go his way he'd just dismiss with a fey flick of the wrist, turn on his heel dramatically and then go have a frosty margarita served to him by Rocky who is wearing a Chippendale's dancer outfit.
Essentially, who gives a damn and let them eat cake.
I've got to say, that the bit about the first thousand rejections is giving me trouble. I've already mentioned I dabbled a bit in pick-up artist culture – one of the things I did is starting Neil Strauss' thirty day challenge. The first exercise seemed simple enough – talk to five people on the street – it didn't seem too creepy or manipulative, just give a friendly, neighbourly line about the weather or something – I could do this. First time I tried, I managed three. The second time, I'd managed four and said hello to an old couple at the bus stop as I passed – the woman reared back and looked at me with utmost suspicion, like I was about to pull a knife or something, and I realised I'd been using these eight strangers and felt like scum.
I don't really know anything about pick up culture but I've started to engage random people in conversation as well just to work on being more social. I don't think its necessarily using the other person moreso than just engaging in typical human behavior. Unless I'm mistaken, I believe the good doctor mentioned something along these lines in a previous post on how to talk to girls. Sometimes its awkward and sometimes you actually manage to connect to someone, however briefly.
It's okay to talk to people. It's not okay to push if they give you a back off. Next time, be aware that old women feel very vulnerable and some with be super defensive.
You're not using them, you're just saying hi.
Though next time, try to practice when you have a valid reason to have something to remark on. That usually makes people feel less threatened.
Relax. We don't have to live in a vacuum sealed bubble. We're social animals!
I just hate that we've been so poisoned with hurtful things that we can't trust one another anymore.
I have a serious question. What if it has happened? Or rather, you've actually had experiences that make this a realistic outcome?
The experience you relate is from middle school, presumably many years ago. Make no mistake, I carried around hang-ups from my youth for a long time, too. I found the best way around it was to screw up the courage to say something. Force yourself to do it, get shot down. Get used to the way things are now rather than the way they were when you were younger. Once you realize its not that bad, it gets easier every time.
The doc has been making one big assumption throughout this article: that the hottie you want to approach smiles at you when she catches you looking at her. In my 23 years, that has never happened. Never. NE. VER. And in fact, usually the girl looks scared or intimidated or something, I really don't know. I don't think I'm that intimidating, I'm dorky looking and wear glasses and everything. But somehow I've never gotten one girl to smile at me the first time our eyes meet. So I hope you can see why these nightmare scenarios go through my head.
Dr nerdlove is really a bene gesserit!
Slightly OT, but I really liked that little "faceless" comic strip, so I googled the last line to see if anyone was discussing it somewhere. One of the top hits was this feminist blog with a easily a couple of hundred comments from people who liked the strip… up until the last panel. They REALLY didn't like what they assumed was the implication that a guy should be able to talk to a strange girl on the train. I read a few dozen comments before I had to get out of there. It was completely undoing everything Doc's article here was trying to get me to think!
It also contradicts the Second Wave dogma of "a woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle."