"You Became a Social Coward by Accident"

[ben2ong2]

I'll bet the following statement is true for any guy reading this
who doesn't do well with the ladies: You don't really understand
what it is you're doing WRONG that makes you so unattractive to
women... for the *exact same reason* that "Casanova" who
scores left and right with them doesn't understand what he's
doing RIGHT.

Huh? Read that again if you have to. Both YOU and
Casanova are essentially clueless as to why you ended up the
way that you are in terms of your skill levels (or lack there of)
when it comes to charming and seducing women. Of course,
Mr. Casanova isn't unhappy about his situation, right? But you
sure are.

Theory Time: I believe that both sets of behaviors which lie
at opposite ends of the spectrum are the result of accidents that
occurred when you were both just beginning to notice girls in a
different light (sexually)... sheer random incidents which involved
elements of good or bad luck, and nothing more.

It went like this: YOUR first trial and error experiences
occurred with a girl that simply DIDN'T LIKE YOU (probably
because of personal issues that had nothing to do with you, but
so what?) You thus ended up with a completely negative
reinforcement of your early efforts at seduction and socialization.
This awkward and possibly *shameful* first try at romance
robbed you of the critical early confidence you needed to keep on
experimenting and practicing your skills. It kicked off a
descending spiral of inaccurate behaviors that led to more and
more failures with women as time passed, further stunting your
social development.

More failure resulted in a complete loss of confidence,
growing social ineptitude and a withdrawal from the game of
flirting and even attempting to seduce women. Your behavioral
changes might've progressed to episodes of delusional
thinking, dark fantasies, etc. In other words, your *character*
changed to make it even less likely that you could successfully
interact with women, and voila'... a "nerd" was born.

Casanova, on the other hand -- due to simple GOOD fortune
and nothing else -- may've tried the exact same moves during
his adolescence just as you did, but HE happened to choose a
girl that LIKED him, and therefore responded to his fumbling first
efforts favorably. Get the picture?... a positive reaction to the
exact same inept moves that you made! Merely because of
random good luck, he happened to choose to work a girl who
responded to him in an emotionally reinforcing way.

This "big break" (that you didn't get) gave Casanova
confidence AND positive social feedback -- which further
provided a laboratory to fine tune his behaviors. Perhaps he
even grew up in an environment that supported or encouraged
those initial experimental behaviors -- a supportive older
sister or a female friend that he could talk to in confidence
whenever he needed advice? Someone to make the female
psyche seem less mysterious and intimidating? You, on the
other hand, may've grown up in an all-male environment where
women seemed remote and unfathomable. Possibly your every
move in this arena was met with scorn or ridicule whenever you
actually tried to act, making you even more gun shy.

You learned to associate fear and paralysis with the idea of
courting a woman.

Anyway, here's my point: Your downward turn could've just
as easily have been an upward turn had your luck been good
instead of bad with those first experiences. I believe that this
element of LUCK is more pivotal in our lives that most of us
realize. The timing of the luck is critical. It sets the stage for
the interplay of key events upon which your self-image is
manufactured in fits and starts. You see, there is really no
fundamental difference between the Social Casanova and the
Social Coward. Both are simply the end result of being turned in
different directions at a critical point in their lives.

Stated differently, your current status as a social coward is
all "nurture" (or in your case, lack of it...) and NOT "nature". You
out there reading this trying to find some edge with women are
no more genetically programmed to fail socially than the
Casanova is to succeed... you both simply LEARNED how to do
it as you traveled along divergent social-life paths.

Think about it... What if that first nervous reach for affection
had gone differently? What if that first girl you ever asked out
had said yes and became your "girlfriend" instead of laughing in
your face and running off to tell her friends what a loser you
were? Imagine how your social skills and confidence would've
improved over the subsequent months and years if that time had
been spent in social interaction (good, bad or ugly) with women
instead of social isolation? It would've given you a whole
different concept of yourself and made you an entirely different
person than you are today.

And to think that it all turned on that one damned UN-lucky
first break!

It's time to stop handing random chance the power to direct
your destiny. Time to make a course correction back into the
world of the living (and the socializing). There are techniques to
make it easier than you might think, but it all begins with a
decision not to let the faded echo of a long-ago negative event
continue to shape your life. And until you make that decision,
nothing will ever really change for you.