Approach Anxiety

[greggsandler]

Ive had this approach anxiety with women for a while now. I am thinking of starting a 30 day trial to overcome this. I know if I practice and get past that initial fear I'll get better at it. I was wondering what people's thoughts, ideas, advice, words of encouragement would be. Thanks.

[LordSappington]

I have tried this with minimal success. In order to break the cycle of anxiety, you have to have positive experiences, or at least non-negative experiences. So approaching should be fun, like a game, where you don't really care about getting positive responses, numbers, or anything. The best way to do this is with a friend, where even if the girl is a complete bitch, you can go laugh about it with him. That way even a negative response is a positive experience.

Firstly, don't go to pick up women at first. Your goal is to improve your socialization skills. You absolutely cannot judge your success by how many numbers you get at first. Walk up to people, introduce yourself, chat for a bit, try to build some rapport, make them laugh. When you feel like the conversation is dying, smile, and say, "Well, it was nice talking to you. Maybe I'll see you around." Then walk away without a number. Once you get comfortable doing this, you can transition to getting numbers.

Secondly, don't start out solo. My problem is that I couldn't find a wingman to do this, so I tried to go solo, and I ended up crashing and burning and not being able to laugh at it when I was by myself. Some people can handle that type of thing and just shrug it off, but I couldn't. So, my advice: don't start out going solo. Once you get confident enough doing it with a friend, then go solo. The key is to understand that rejection is less about you and more about her... do you really think she can be an accurate judge of you based on a stupid, 10 minute conversation? I understand this in my logical mind, but it just won't sink into my subconscious.

Thirdly, arrive on time or early for an event. I've found this to be incredibly helpful in my approaches for several reasons. Firstly, there won't be as many people, which makes it much easier to talk to others since there are only a few people they can talk to as well. Secondly, the groups will be much smaller and easier to approach. Thirdly, it will be less crowded so you can move around easier. Fourthly, it won't be as noisy so you can actually hear what other people are saying. And finally, people will be relatively sober, and you will be as well, so you won't have to rely on liquid courage to socialize.

A good opener I discovered accidentally, which helps transition from going with a wingman to going solo. I was meeting up with a friend at this art show once, but she got stuck at work and ended up arriving about an hour late. So I was standing around alone without knowing anyone. So I went up to people and said, "I'm waiting for a friend who won't be here for an hour, and rather than sitting around for and waiting for her, I'd figure I'd talk to people." It worked pretty well, and it gave me an exit strategy when she arrived because I could say, "Well, she's here. Nice talking to you."

[Alexjstrandberg]

I think this is a great idea. It won't kill your approach anxiety all together but it will definitely help. No one thing will ever kill your approach anxiety, it's a combination of so many other things.

I didn't do the 30 day challenge, instead I challenged myself to talk with everyone when I went out. It was kinda rough at first but I eventually got it down.

The biggest challenge for me was approaching women that I didn't have the ability to walk away from. For example, talking to a girl in a long line that is next to you. On a street approach you can walk away but in a line you are forced to be around that girl for 5-10 minutes if it goes badly.

I disagree with Lord on it needing to be a positive experience. It could make you feel worse or better if you get rejected depending on how you frame it. You could take it personally and think your 'game' is horrible. Or you could be use the situation to getting over your attachment to the outcome.

This might help you to get over your attachment to women:

Going down in flames

[SupersecretIdentity]

One of the easier ways is to just be an all around social guy, not just towards women. If you only try to talk to women you are just driving the wedge between men and women deeper and reinforcing that they should be interacted with differently. A bad side effect of this is that you also become dependent on receiving some sort of positive reaction from them to make yourself feel good. Ultimately, this leads to you to seeking validation from attractive women. Even if you become good at getting positive validation, it still leaves you empty inside.

One of the simpler ways to break this barrier down is not to try to simply get good at talking to women, but get better to talking to people in general. Talk to everyone. Men, women, young, old, pretty, ugly, gay, straight, etc. Now, I'm not saying everyone is worthy of your time and conversation. If you run across someone who is particularly boring/snotty/or with other undesirable personality qualities, you are perfectly free to walk away. Talk to people that you would like to have conversation with regardless of their physical characteristics. You put less emphasis on what they look like and more importance on who they really are. That way you are better at being social and see people for who they really are. Eventually, once you are good with people in general, it doesn't phase you to talk to an attractive girl, because she is just another person.

I'm not saying that you become blind to attractiveness, rather you become desensitized to it. You are still just as capable of recognizing beauty but are no longer socially paralyzed because of it. If anything, you become better at recognizing real beauty because you can quickly tell the difference between someone who is pretty on the outside and hideous on the inside, and someone who is pretty throughout. It gives you freedom to decide who you really want in your life. Best of all, being a genuinely social person really helps with making friends since you get so much better at just kicking back and enjoying yourself around anyone.

Try a 30 day challenge where you strike up conversations with anyone. It seems a little creepy at first, but the key is to go into it without an agenda. Just strike up conversation however it suits your fancy. When I was doing this, I would chat with people in line at the DMV, introduce myself at parties, etc. If you can develop the skill of talking to a guy just for the sake socializing and without intent to get anything from him, you can learn to do the same thing with girls. Being able to talk to a girl without needing to get a reaction out of a girl gives you lots of success.

[Scorpio]

Try following the "plan" here:

A Systematic Plan To Get Yourself More Comfortable Talking To Strange Girls

I was going to recommend it anyways just from looking at the post's title, but it also coincidentally will work really well as a 30-day trial.

[ZHereford]

Originally Posted by greggsandler

Ive had this approach anxiety with women for a while now. I am thinking of starting a 30 day trial to overcome this. I know if I practice and get past that initial fear I'll get better at it. I was wondering what people's thoughts, ideas, advice, words of encouragement would be. Thanks.

I think your best bet is to practice being natural and being yourself. Everyone enjoys interesting people who have something to say and contribute.

We're all human and have the same fears and doubts about ourselves. If you build your self-confidence, approaching anyone will be easier.

Keep in mind that if you approach someone feeling inadequate or unprepared to say something interesting or relevant, you will appear ill at ease. You could always approach with a question such as - "So what do you think about so and so?" If all goes well, an interesting conversation should follow. Also, be a good listener. There is nothing as charismatic as a good listener.

[stcardsfan]

A great site for this is Hundreds of Free Articles on Meeting, Attracting, and Dating Women - Tips and Advice. Do a little searching in the forums and you will find guys who have participated in 'DJ Boot Camp' -- it involves gradually overcoming approach anxiety. You will have to sift through some crap to find the good stuff, but it is there.

Also, read the DJ Bible @ The Don Juan Bible: Hints, tips and articles on the art of seduction, romance, dating and courting (DJB, DJ).

p.s. I am not affiliated with sosuave.com in any way, just recommend the site as it has helped me a lot.