Too shy to face a woman

If this were a date, it would be the most uncomfortable date in history. John is sobbing, his shoulders heaving, his chin wobbling like a child’s. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I won’t be able to eat my lamb burger.” He looks up with big, sad eyes. “Sorry.” John is 24, and I am the rst female he’s ever been to lunch with. He is cripplingly, tongue- parchingly nervous, and it’s distressing to watch.

I reach across the table, intending a reassuring squeeze of his forearm. He recoils and begins a sort of shallow panting. I don’t wish to frighten him, I say, horried. “I know, you can’t help it. I’ll be all right.” He takes a deep breath. Then, blinkingly, stutteringly, he tells me his story. By the end of our two-hour meeting, I hold the record for the longest conversation John has ever had with a female other than his mum. He has never kissed a girl nor even made friends with one. He wants to, desperately, but he can’t — because he’s terried.

John believes he suffers from “love shyness”, a controversial, little-known term for a specic type of chronic shyness in men coined by the American professor Brian Gilmartin. Love shyness is not an ofcially recognised condition; it is not in the American DSM-1V — the clinicians’ bible for psychiatric diagnoses.

But the men who claim to suffer from love shyness (LS) all have in common the complete inability to initiate or to engage in romantic interplay. This renders them terminally, heartbrokenly, virginally lonely. They hold down jobs, they have some friends — these men are not antisocial, unattractive losers. They are normal, unassuming men in whom the condence to approach women is missing.

Shyness

Gillian Butler, a clinical psychologist and the author of Overcoming Social Anxiety and Shyness says: “There’s lots of advice for women about how to get over shyness, but shyness can be much harder for men to deal with because it’s seen as a feminine trait.”

John lives in a small village near Exeter. He is the second chef in a busy pub kitchen. Just feet away from the customers drinking and socialising out front, he works diligently, then goes home alone. Similarly, Neil, an ofce clerk from Worthing, is regularly praised by his boss for his efciency and dedication. He is well-mannered and funny, with many interests, from photography to politics. He just can’t talk to girls.

The problem, says Gilmartin, is that, according to all social rules, men are supposed to approach women, so love-shy heterosexual men fare badly. In women, shyness is seen as an attractive quality, but if a man is too shy to initiate a conversation with a woman, his chances of a love life are slim. I found John online. This is the rst time he has spoken to anyone about his LS in person.

Jumpy and defensive

Like hundreds of others like him, he visits Love-Shy.com, an online discussion forum. In this remote cyber wasteland of broken hearts and bitterness, some regular members with pseudonyms such as Cold Heart, EmptyInside, LonelyVirgin and ShyGuy, post hundreds of times a day. Many are jumpy and defensive. Through the forum, I corresponded with men from Poland, Spain, Brazil, the USA, Australia, the UK, France, India, Ukraine, Canada, Ecuador and Italy.

They unanimously believed LS should be recognised as a psychological disorder. John describes how last Halloween, some workmates invited him to a party at a pub. He knew a young waitress to whom he felt attracted would be there.

He grew more and more anxious until, on the night, he found himself rooted to the spot in his living room, unable to go. Afterwards, he began to research online and came across Gilmartin’s Shyness and Love, which he read cover to cover. “It was a relief to know there was a name for what I was going through.”

Discussion topics in the Love-Shy.com forum range from “What’s the most you’ve ever done with a woman?” (“I shook hands with one once for a job interview. I am 40”) to “Can other stm09022.indd 4-5 guys smell LS on you?” (“Virgins tend to have awkward quirks and mannerisms. This is what people sense”).

John has been in love. “Probably just the once. When I was 10, there was this girl I really liked. She was younger than me, so when I went to secondary school I lost contact with her and never saw her again.” He has an enduring memory of playing outside with the girl, and of the sun slowly going down, and never feeling happier. In fantasy, he often takes the memory further and, imagining himself as a child again, he kisses her.

One of Gilmartin’s observations is the very early age at which LS men develop attractions to the opposite sex. John says: “I cannot remember a time when to get a girlfriend was not my deepest ambition. There are other things I want, but if I can’t have that, it’s pointless.” Yet he feels unable to seek company. “That’s what I’m missing the most — the close friendship a relationship would offer.” Sex? “That’s pretty far down my list. It would be nice, but I’d rather nd love.”

Nothing to offer

John would not be photographed for this magazine. For most love-shys, the idea of a photographer knowing about their LS was too shaming — trusting me with their stories was difcult enough when most haven’t even told their families. John is essentially good-humoured and never fatalistic. He hopes he can get better. I ask him if he ever feels depressed or suicidal because of his loneliness. He replies: “There are days when I feel really bad. But I get through it.”

He has a gentle manner and is not unattractive, yet he feels that he has no qualities that appeal to a woman. “I’ve got absolutely nothing to offer.” John shares a room in the family home with his two younger brothers. A very nuclear, isolated family that doesn’t tend to interact is common among LS men. An unhappy childhood is also characteristic. Some describe beatings and put-downs.

Some describe smothering parents. A regular refrain is: “I’d feel embarrassed to tell my parents if I had a girlfriend.” Yet John describes a good relationship with his parents. His mother inuenced his career. “Every day she’d make cakes — she still does. And I learnt with her.” But he can’t talk to her about his love shyness. “I don’t know how to bring it up in conversation.”

The only time John was asked out by a girl, he was 14. He replied: “What if I said yes?” In front of peers, the girl laughed and said: “You’d be dumped.” To this day, he says, if a girl asked him out, he wouldn’t believe she was genuine.

Most psychologists agree that around 20 per cent of us are born shy. In most cases, it doesn’t prevent a person from living a full life. But, says Robert Edelmann, professor of forensic and clinical psychology at the University of Roehampton, “If shyness is exacerbated by early experiences, the associated patterns of negative thinking — ‘I’m not worth speaking to’, or ‘I will say the wrong thing’ — are reinforced. This strengthens the ‘shyness’ neuropathways and can lead to extreme shyness or social anxiety in adulthood.”

Because love-shy men can’t be ofcially diagnosed, no statistics on the incidence of LS exist. Love-Shy.com has more than 500 registered members. Gilmartin studied 300 men aged 19-50 who conformed to the love-shy criteria, comparing them with 200 non-shy men, and concluded that LS affected 1.7m males living in the US — about 1.5 per cent of the male population, which seems incredibly high.

He noted the presence of other social disorders in his subjects: dysthymia (a chronic, free-oating but shallow depression, and lack of energy and enthusiasm for life) and anxiety disorders. “Love-shys enormously fear the experiencing of anxiety,” says Gilmartin. “They suffer from an overactive limbic system, which is the emotional brain.”

Dented credibility

Many of Gilmartin’s subjects — he claims 40 per cent — also had Asperger’s syndrome. His credibility is dented in some people’s eyes, however, by his belief in the paranormal. He relates love shyness to astrology, reincarnation and Kirlian auras (supposed energy elds around people). Other psychologists point to the dangers in creating a new label for what is essentially social-anxiety disorder, a recognised, treatable condition. “It’s natural for very shy people to have difculty approaching the opposite sex,” says Edelmann.

“Creating another term for social-interaction difculties is risky. Once people have a label for what they believe to be true of them, you risk reinforcing the negative thoughts they already have, so they’ll be even more inclined to think ‘Oh, I can’t approach that person, I’m love-shy.’” But some people are very specically shy only in the area of love. Neil, from Worthing, is a quiet, self-deprecating 27-year-old, whose hands trembled over lunch. He grew up on a farm in South Africa where his only company was his brother, and one girl who lived on the next farm, several miles away.

Neil and the girl began to kiss one day, aged about 10. Later, while watching TV, she laid her head on his lap, and his father joked that they looked like boyfriend and girlfriend. Neil felt so upset by this, as if he had behaved wrongly, that he cut ties with the girl, and soon after left for (an all-boys’) boarding school. That was the last time he touched a girl.

Neil has a group of male friends with whom he plays World of Warcraft. He enjoys singing in productions in the Pier Theatre. It is only when it comes to approaching women that he becomes sickeningly anxious. Edelmann says: “A simple rejection of your offer of a date is commonplace. It may happen to a non-shy person a hundred times and they won’t mind.

A very shy person is more likely to be devastated and to avoid being rejected in that way again.” Love-shy men are prone to developing quick and inappropriate attractions to women. After our meeting, Neil posted about it on the forum: “The rst half hour was difcult, then I calmed down and got used to it.

Then I annoyingly found that I was falling for her. This was where I found that it is actually possible to talk openly to someone who you’re attracted to.” Neil only discovered the term “love shyness” a few months ago when avoiding a pretty girl he’d noticed in the library.

He ducked into a neighbouring aisle and came across Shyness and Love. “It was a relief to feel there was a name for what I was feeling. It was as if Gilmartin was describing me personally.”

The Love-Shy.com forum also attracts men who are “Incel” (involuntarily celibate), who approach potential partners but are constantly rejected. Then there is “true forced loneliness” and “romantic anxiety disorder”.
Many talk about “PUA” techniques, a reference to online “seduction communities” where “pick-up artists” who consider themselves successful with women sell their advice. Aren’t they all just angry, frustrated geeks who need to get out more — or get help? Some of them, yes.

Graphic references

One eye-opening response to a request I posted for interviewees was from “ContentedMan”, 32. Among his more graphic references to experiences with “hookers” he boasts: “LS stopped bothering me when I realised I wasn’t missing much. Love is a euphemism for f***ing.”

Seb, an out-of-work accountant from Sydney, Australia, is a regular Incel poster. At 40, he has never had a girlfriend despite having asked many women out. He says that repeated, “often cruel” rejections have made him suicidal at times. “I have never been intimate with a woman.

“I have used the services of prostitutes, but that doesn’t count.” We talk on the phone. He is polite, nicely-spoken, engaging and funny. Then the bitterness comes through. “Personality means nothing to women, who only care about looks or money.” All women? “All the women I’ve met.”

Self-fulfilling prophecy

But if these men believe that love shyness has “denied” them the opportunity to nd love, is it not a self-fullling prophecy? Some of the posters on Love-Shy.com are as young as 18 or 19 — too young to have written off the chance of romance or to be worried about still being a virgin.

Surely pronouncing another name for what might be “wrong” with these men is just handing them another stick with which to beat themselves? Seb says the rst step to getting better is recognising that something is wrong and the label helps with that. “I believe LS can be overcome,” he says, “but it’s a long, hard road.”

There are drugs to treat shyness, mainstream antidepressants such as Paxil. But the many possible side-effects include sweating, nausea, lowered libido and suicidal tendencies — hardly conducive to romance.

Edelmann believes drugs are best taken in conjunction with cognitive behavioural therapy. “Otherwise you’re helping the symptoms but not addressing the problems of negative thinking patterns and avoidant behaviour.”

The saddest thing about many love-shys is their bitter resignation. “Perceptions are never going to change… this article won’t change people’s mentalities,” posted one. Maybe it won’t.

But spare a thought for the boy in your class or the man in your ofce who eats lunch alone, the uncle who never married, the brother who won’t go out. Abraham Lincoln once said: “Lonely men seek companionship. Lonely women sit at home and wait. They never meet.”