DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I just got a quick question for you: How do I get over my fear of success with woman?
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I (male 27 years old) used to be the stereotypical introverted nerd, you get it yadda yadda. I hit the gym, buried my tailor under my wardrobe for a custom fit, got out more and I started doing warm and cold approaches.
I got over my fear of failure pretty quickly actually. For all my fears, it turns out most woman are just flat out bored when being hit on/asked out on a date.
A few gave me a beaming smile (and sometimes compliments) while rejecting me, feeling quite obviously flattered. A rare few just told me to f--k off, so I did. But the vast majority of woman I approached more or less just shrugged and told me “not interested dude”.
So I said “okay”, and walked away.
Hell, I never knew handling rejection would be that easy.
I fully expected them to pepper spray me, or call their two meter tall bodybuilder boyfriend to beat me up, or pull out a knife to gut me with.
I asked a couple of my female friends that I was always attracted to out on a date. (separately and with time in between) they said “no”. I said “okay” and we were back to being friends, easily and without more than a minute of awkwardness.
Now comes the problem. Since I have improved, I started to notice woman, who do seem to be attracted to me. Such as staring me down at a party, while smiling 4 times in a row. Or that one other attractive female friend, that I made genuinely blush (and chuckle) with a joke that was actually meant to be comedic not flirting.
I know it’s ridiculous but if I notice that a woman actually might be attracted to me I get incredibly scared. For example: when I got hit on by a hot woman in a club, at first I froze, then I sprinted out of there as fast as my legs could carry me.
I don’t even know what exactly I am afraid off! There is no scenario or fantasy in my head.
And yet I am scared of hot woman liking me! The horror! It makes absolutely no sense at all!
The thing is, if I approach a woman, and I have no idea how my chances are, I can approach rather easily. After all why worry about it if I got no idea anyway.
Never tell me the odds. Indeed.
I feel like the DM of life just decided: “this guy, this guy right there? I am gonna roll on 1D10 table for phobias and slap him with the funniest one.”
So any tips on how to beat that fear? I mean I will beat it eventually, but some advice would be appreciated. On that note, thanks for your awesome site and advice, it helped me out a ton!
Best Regards
The Cowardly Lion
DEAR COWARDLY LION: First off, CL, congratulations on all the positive changes you’ve made. You should be proud of what you’ve achieved so far, and I’m glad to see that they’ve been paying off for you.
Now let’s see if we can keep that winning streak going.
So, believe it or not, this is actually a common experience that people have. The fear of success is very real, and it ends up causing folks a lot of both anxiety but also headaches. After all, as you said: you’re afraid… of hot women being into you? That’s the most absurd thing in the world! This is what most people in your position dream of.
Well, the issue isn’t really that you’re afraid of hot women liking you or that you might actually start dating someone incredible. It’s not the success that you’re afraid of so much as what success might mean.
Here’s what’s going on: you’re used to being single and having little real luck with love. Failure and singledom are well known to you; you’ve functionally mapped every corner of it and you know it like the back of your hand. It isn’t pleasant, but it’s an area you know well. Success, in this case, is very much the unknown country for you. If you were to approach someone and they were into you as much as you were into them and then you ended up with their number or plans for a date, then you’d be venturing into the unknown – without any sense of where you’re going, what you’re doing and without the supports and guide rails that you’ve developed over time.
To be sure, it seems weird when you write it out or say it out loud but success would mean getting forced out of your comfort zone and having to take risks that you’ve never experienced before. The known isn’t what you want, but the familiarity of it brings a certain sense of safety. At the very least, you know what to expect and how to handle it. In this new world, where you have a date – a date that might even turn into a relationship? Well, suddenly s--t has gotten very real.
But why would success be scary? Isn’t this what you’ve been working towards, dreaming of, imagining all this time? Well, yeah, of course. But it’s what you’ve been imagining. What you imagine is entirely under your control. The dates and relationships you can imagine after achieving your goals all play out in your head the exact way you want them to. Even if you don’t picture it all going perfectly smoothly or you allow for conflicts or mistakes, it’s still unfolding according to the script you are writing. You, quite literally, can’t fail.
Reality doesn’t work that way. Success in reality means that now you’re responsible for every choice you make, without the comfort of knowing your choices are inherently correct and will result in the outcomes you want. Before, the stakes were manageable. If you failed, nothing materially changes. Yeah, you may feel down for a bit, but you know that territory well. Now, you feel like you’re walking a tightrope that seems to have no end in sight and it feels like if you put so much as a toe wrong, you’re going to fall into the pit. Failure before meant a perverse form of safety. Now you’re in a place where the thing that you’ve wanted is within your grasp and you can f--k it all up and lose everything.
This is why hope can be a motherf--ker; there’re few things more devastating than when you have hope and it gets snatched away. But, as the man said: the reason why we fall is to learn how to get back up again. And hope is part of how we muster the will and the courage to get back to our feet.
Of course, just understanding this intellectually doesn’t change how things feel. I know that planes are actually much safer means of travel and that plane crashes are rare and turbulence doesn’t bring planes down. That doesn’t stop me from trying to hold the plane up through sheer willpower when my flight hits a bumpy patch. So it is with the fear of success and what success would mean – you may recognize it for what it is, but that doesn’t stop you from feeling it.
But while you may not be able to stop yourself from feeling that fear, knowing that you’re feeling it and knowing what it is allows you to change your behavior. As the litany goes:
“Fear is the little death. Fear is the mind-killer that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
Or to put it another way: “be afraid and do it anyway”.
Rather than letting your fear drive you away when you face success, take a deep breath, let yourself feel what you’re feeling and then just keep going. Even if your voice is a little shaky, even if you’re trembling a bit, just breathe and keep at it. The women you are into will understand nerves, they’ll likely even be a bit flattered that you’re nervous. But this is just the fear of the unknown and the risks that come with it. The more you face the fear and push through it, the less you’ll experience it, because the unknown will increasingly be just the known. One of the formulas for confidence is fear + survival. Because you’ll have gone through it and come through the other side, you’ll have a much better understanding of what you’re doing, what you’re in for and what to expect.
While there’s always going to be elements of risk and the unknown in any relationship, what feels like a tightrope soon becomes a 2×4, which soon becomes a bridge – still potentially precarious, but far steadier, more stable and less risky.
Getting used to feeling fear but not letting it stop you will serve you well in other parts of your life – both dating related and otherwise – when you’re having to take risks and facing potentially unknown consequences. Fear is just your brain trying to keep you safe; that doesn’t mean that it’s right. Recognize it, acknowledge it, and keep going, and you’ll come out the other side. And when you look back to see, there’ll be nothing. Only you will remain.
Good luck.
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Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com