Fear’s Goodness
Now yesterday, we were talking about my realization that my fear of approaching most women is valid; that the anxiety I feel when approaching women who don’t want me is a good thing. I don’t want to lose it. After all, if I would lose it, that I’d end up doing inappropriate things. E.g. talking to women who don’t really want to be approached, and in so doing, disregarding their body language. That’s what my anxiety constitutes. It’s my sense of their body language. It’s a pre verbal communication, if you will. So it’s a good thing even though it appeared at first glance to be keeping me away from the women I wanted, as it interfered with reaching out to them. I’ve come to understand that in virtually all those cases, it wouldn’t have made a difference whether I approached them or not. Sure, I might have gotten a conversation or two out of them. Maybe even a date or two. But eventually, the things that I feared about the woman prevailed. She would end up hurting me. She didn’t really like me. The fear accurately warns of a lady’s lacking attraction, before I even talk to her. I consider my anxiety now a blessing.
My strategy for finding a relationship therefore, is changing a little. My focus nowadays is not to battle this anxiety as though it’s a mountainous wall that I must break through, that’s keeping me from passing. I used to see the anxiety as this big wall that had windows in it, windows with bars perhaps, where I could look through and see all these beautiful women sunbathing on a beach or hanging out with guys who had managed to get through the wall.
I understand today that the anxiety is an exclusionary force in my life because it does prevent me from approaching many women. But, with good reason. That being that the vast majority of women just aren’t interested in me. In fact a lot of them go out of their way to avoid me, and get real irritated when I talk to them beyond the simple hello. When I go further, and ask them what they’re up to or what their interests are, they get bothered. They clearly don’t wish to have anything to do with me.
I’m reminded of Karen P. last summer. We grew up together. She came up to me and said, “You know, I used to defend you. I was your buddy.” And I said, “Yea, I know. Ah, by the way, here’s my card. How about giving me a call sometime if you’d like to talk or anything.”
She was like, “Oh… “ You know, like how would you think I’d want to talk to you? Of course, since then, I’ve not heard from her. And so is yet another similar chapter in the story of my life. People do reject me for whatever reason, and I can’t pretend that I’m just seeing things. This really happens, and while I can’t ignore someone’s wishes, I must accept the truth of the situation.
Experience shows that women wish I wasn’t around. But as disheartening as this is, I respect their rights to be free of me, and I leave them alone. Listening to my fear assures that I’ll do this well.
Sure, it’s real easy to get frustrated, and maybe even defiant when I’m in bad moods when a woman says no. In my days of drinking, I’d keep talking to her even though it was clear to any sober man that she wished me to get lost. Yet I’ve learned that ignoring her feelings is not any way to get into her heart. I must respect her wishes, even if I don’t agree or even if they’re going to cause me hardship. If they wish not to relate to me, even if I think their attitudes prejudiced or misinformed about the handicapped or whatever, I must adhere to them. After all, I wouldn’t want an unattractive woman approaching me relentlessly, when I asked her to leave me alone.
I must have faith that if I keep looking hard enough, one day, my woman will find me. She’ll hear my ad and identify with me. Then, we’ll have a nice relationship. In the meantime, I’m happy with my fear because it will steer me clear of bad matches. For decades, I felt that the fear was impeding my success with women. But I’ve since learned that that was not the case. Virtually always whenever I fear approaching a lady, it’s because she’s sending some signal that says, “stay away!” If I defy that, that’s when I get the frustration in her voice, the ridicule for approaching her when I should have known better, if I’d been more observant. So, I can’t ignore this fear anymore, because doing so makes me look dumb and defiant to the women. It makes women say to themselves, “How dare he approach me whenever I did everything I could short of beating him over the head, to let him know that I’m not interested in him.”
So, in 2005, once again, the anxiety is good. It’s a part of me and what makes me smarter than the aggressive he-men when it comes to relating to people. Let me just look back at Kendra M. I mean, there was the perfect example. I felt anxious about approaching her. I desired her, but knew based on how she was treating me that she wasn’t interested romantically. I knew that! She was polite and cordial, and even today, she sends me emails now and then. But my gut feeling was (and is) that she will not be dating me. I had to validate my anxiety by discussing it with her, by telling her how I felt, and asking her for a date, even though I sensed that she’d say no. And, imagine this, she _did_ say no. While this didn’t damage our friendship, it did expose me to needless humiliation from a rejection that I could have avoided if I’d only listened to my conscience, if I’d only listened to my fear. I must trust my intuition more, and not second-guess it so much by pushing further than it wants me to go. That is to say: If I feel uncomfortable approaching a woman, then I shouldn’t. I should not have to start a conversation to find out what I should already know; when my sense is that she doesn’t want to talk to me. I don’t want to defy my intuition anymore.
Pop psyche rhetoric today says to push beyond the fear and do it anyway. A popular book was called: Feel The Fear and Do It Anyway. Well, when it comes to approaching new women, I can’t just _do it anyway_. Instead, when I feel the fear, I recognize that it’s there for good reasons. I have seen that when on the rare occasion that women do show interest, that fear disappears at their first instant their liking me becomes plain. It goes away. The fear is my built-in barometer, indicating just how interested in me she is. The greater the fear, the less she desires me. The less the fear, the more interested. There are all kinds of indicators and subtle cues that the subconscious mind reads which drive this approach anxiety. All right? So, yea. I do have this anxiety and recognize that it’s a useful gift for keeping me out of trouble and preserving my good reputation. It warns me off of approaching women who do not wish it.
And it’s almost always right. I’ve had enough experience defying it over the last five years and having every one of those experiments end up in rejection, that I see no good in further fighting it. There’s really nothing to gain. Almost every women I approached at Michael’s Café during 2000 and 2001 in Philly, asking them for a dance dispite my fear of doing so, turned me down flat. Some said no with a disgusted , irritated, put out tone. “Why are you approaching me? I didn’t look at you. I never flirted with you or smiled at you. “ So yes, this is good. Fear being my friend is a major revelation with which to start this new year.
This will change my behavior as follows: For one, whenever I do feel anxiety, I’ll listen to it. If I’m afraid to talk to a beautiful stranger, I won’t, and I’ll stop redressing myself for that choice.
Also, I’ll take smaller steps. I need not actually talk to them in most cases, to figure out their feelings toward me. I can smile at them and if they smile back, maybe I can start a chat. But they really have to be good smilers and they’ll have to reach out to me. I mean, with all the rejection I’ve weathered, I’ve become quite gun shy these days. So if a woman really likes me, she’ll have to beat me over the head with it before I open up.
Also I do not expect of myself anymore to be able to meet beautiful strangers in the street. That just hasn’t worked and I’ve attempted it many times. I even talked to that woman in March, 2003 in Rittenhouse Square when I went to Philadelphia. I said, “Would you care to meet me?” And she said abruptly, “No thanks!” and quickly got out of there. That hurt like crazy. So the idea is that with things like the web and telephone services like TP available, there’s little reason to do that sort of ‘cold calling’ because there are a lot of women on these that I find very desirable. It’s just a question of finding one who feels the same about me, and thinks that I’m desirable too. This seems to be a real needle in a haystack. But it’s what I have to look for. I’ve never felt good about approaching women in the street or even at parties. I think it’s good enough for me to say hey, I won’t start a conversation with a woman anymore. I’ll look at her. I’ll allow my eyes to linger on her for perhaps too long a period, just to let her know I’m interested. But from there, she’ll have to start talking to me. I understand this well now.
The DJ work offers some nice opportunities to meet women in a non-threatening way, kind of like Rich Pk’s party did in December, 2004 when I met Shirley again after twenty-five years. And I am going to take some action to let her know I’m interested. We’ll have to see how that goes.
