Woofkitty.co.uk: "It is no worse for the woman than for the man...[they must instead unite] against the common enemy, coercion."-Thomas Hardy, Jude The Obscure

THE EXTENT and SOURCES of the problem

Love-shyness can be found among people of all ages and of both sexes. However, research evidence indicates that the problem impacts far more severely upon males than it does upon females. Women who remain love-shy throughout lengthy periods of their lives usually adapt very well and often quite happily to their situations. Spinsters, for example, often become highly successful career women. The never-married woman typically goes through life with fewer mental and physical health problems than her married sister of the same age. In stark contrast, the never-married, heterosexually inactive man has long been known to be vulnerable to all manner of quite serious and often bizarre pathologies.

Data recently obtained by Stanford University researcher Paul Pilkonis strongly suggests that shy women are no more likely to be neurotic than non-shy women. This same study, on the other hand, found shy men to be far more likely than non-shy men to be suffering from very severe neurotic conditions. In society some degree of shyness is considered tolerable and even quite socially acceptable in females. In males of all ages from kindergarten through all the years of adulthood, in contrast, shyness is widely viewed as very deviant and highly undesirable. Moreover, shyness in males inspires bullying, disparaging labelling, discrimination, etc. In females shyness is often looked upon as being "pleasantly feminine" and "nice".

The biggest and most consequential difference in the way shyness impacts upon the two genders has to do with the strong social requirement prescribing that males must assume the assertive role in all manner of social situations. This same norm proscribes males from assuming the passive role. Today most women have the option of being either assertive or passive. And whereas the normally assertive woman has been found by researchers to stand a better chance at happiness and adjustment than the chronically passive one, the occasional display of passivity rarely causes a woman to suffer highly disparaging or punitive reactions from others.

Hence, shyness in women is very rarely found to cause love-shyness. In other words, extremely few shy women are also love-shy. The best available evidence clearly indicates that shy women are just/as likely as non-shy women to date, to get married, and to have children.

In short, shyness does not force women to remain against their wills in the "single, never married" category, as it often does with men. In essence, because love-shyness (not shyness itself) is very rare among women, this book and the research it incorporates will focus exclusively upon men.

In order to avoid misunderstanding I want to stress the fact that both sexes do suffer from general shyness about equally. Moreover, there are many different kinds of situations in which shyness is a real problem for some women. However, a young woman's shyness with the opposite sex is permitted by our cultural norms to dissipate and fade away. Because women are not required to initiate informal conversations with men, or even with members of their own sex, their future prospects and chances in terms of dating, courtship and marriage are in no way hampered by any psycho-emotional inability (shyness) on their part to initiate informal conversations with men. Further, the fact that a woman's success with her all-female peer group is far less dependent upon competitive effectiveness than is a young man's success with his all-male peer group, assures most women (including very passive ones) of meaningful friendships and of some opportunities for meeting eligible men through female friends.

Many studies have convincingly documented the point that men are far more susceptible than women to severe and intractable love-shyness. For example, in a 1983 study which incorporated a large sample of university students, sociologists David Knox and Kenneth Wilson obtained strong support for the view that love-shyness is primarily a male problem. Fully 20 percent of the male students surveyed complained of painful feelings of shyness with the opposite sex in informal social situations. Fewer than 5 % of the women students had a similar complaint. Very few of this small minority of women students suffered emotionally from their shyness with the opposite sex to the debilitating extent to which the male love-shys suffered from their shyness.

A seldom mentioned factor which I believe serves to increase the shyness (and diminish the self-confidence) of young men as compared to that of young women is the fact that women do the lion's share of the rejecting in male/female relationships. Within marriage, 90 percent of all divorces are sought by wives and not by husbands. And among courting couples at least two-thirds of all of the break-ups which occur are precipitated by the female partner, not by the male partner. In a well-known 1976 study by sociologists Charles Hill, Letitia Peplau, and Zick Rubin, most of the terminated "steady dating" relationships had been terminated by the girl, not by the boy.

Even normally self-confident men have been found to suffer far more than women when courtship relationships are terminated. Yet most young men are forced to suffer far more such relationship break-ups than women. Such broken relationships very often take a severe emotional toll upon many of the men who suffer them. It is often forgotten that males are human beings with feelings too, every bit as much as females. Yet the relationship terminations which men are forced to endure often create large-scale and often dangerous emotional upheavals; and some victims of such persistent rejection eventually become so emotionally scarred and calloused that they become incapable of expressing their feelings, even to themselves. Women often complain that men cannot express their feelings in a meaningful way; yet the steady stream of rejections which some men suffer at the hands of women often creates a trained incapacity for the expression of inner feelings.

It is also important to note that even normally adjusted young men experience significantly fewer serious man/woman relationships before marriage than (even very average) young women do. And I think this too bespeaks some of the serious shortcomings in contemporary courtship norms. Human beings do not like to be rejected. It can be extremely painful when a person is rejected by an opposite-sexed stranger upon asking for a date, and it can be profoundly devastating to the emotions when a man is rejected by a woman with whom he has maintained a relationship over several months or longer. Why does culture persist in requiring the male (not the female) to withstand the lion's share of such emotional devastation?! I would suggest that the severe emotional scars endemic in severe and intractable love-shyness very often reflect a history of such rejection. In essence, the risk-taking involved in starting new relationships must be shared equally by women and men alike.

In all western societies there are unwritten rules governing how early in a heterosexual love relationship each party may reveal himself/herself to the other. Early in a relationship a person (if he/she is to ultimately be successful in winning the partner) must be both willing and able to wear a mask, metaphorically speaking--to play act, and to assiduously try to "be" something other than what he/she truly is. Both partners will try to impress the other. The man will try to present himself with his girl as a masculine "he-man" who is a "regular guy", into sports, athletics, body-building, and the other endeavors which accompany the prototypical masculine stereotype. The girl partner will similarly often try to present herself as a prototypical female with all the "normal" attributes of the "ideal" female stereotype.

It requires quite a bit of "work" and effort in order to be able to do this. Moreover, since it involves play acting (of a sort towards which the participants are scarcely even aware), it is less than honest. The person is not presenting his/her real self with the partner. The norms prevent this completely honest and open presentation of self until the relationship has reached a certain point of maturity. Among college/university aged young people, it usually requires around six months of "steady dating" of the love-partner before this point is reached. Among high school students more than a year would be required; among junior high-schoolers the amount of time required could well be over two years. Divorcees in their thirties have an advantage here inasmuch as these very strong and demanding (unwritten rules/norms) permit older daters to "remove their masks" and to present their real selves with each other as early as the second, third, or fourth date.

Now, love-shy men are extremely romantic and sentimental. This sort of play-acting (which is absolutely required by our courtship system) represents an abomination to them. They want to find someone who will accept and love them as they are. And when they spot someone with the appropriate (and much desired) long hair and pretty face, they strongly desire to intimate their very strong interest in marriage with that person as early in the relationship as possible. In short, they don't want to beat around the bush. Dating and courtship for love-shy men hold no special allure. Most love-shy men would love to completely bypass the "game" of dating and courtship, and get right into a permanent, binding relationship with their romantic image of the girl with the "long hair and pretty face".

Needless to say, such outright candour early in a relationship enormously scares and frightens away most women--particularly the attractive ones who are likely to be very much used to the "game" of dating. The love-shy man is thus viewed as "weird" for verbalizing himself and his true desires and fantasies too early in a relationship. (And usually he does this through letter- or e-mail-writing rather than through talk or instant messaging (anything which requires instant confrontation). Again, letter- or e-mail-writing is far easier for the love-shy man to handle. But this too is likely to be regarded by the woman as "weird"--especially if she is but a local telephone call away from the love-shy man.)

Further, love-shys usually renounce aspects of the masculine sex role stereotype. Love-shy men hate football, baseball, basketball, weight-lifting, beer-drinking, swearing and carousing with same-sexed associates, etc. They are far more likely to be interested in "settling down", and in the sorts of things women are likely to be interested in. Again, such honest and open self-revelation frightens women away when it occurs early on in a relationship. Moreover, expressed disinterest in and hostility towards prototypically "masculine" sex-role stereotypical activities and interests is also quite likely to be regarded by an attractive young woman as "weird" and strange. A less-than-attractive woman might be charmed by this approach--because she too hasn't got many same-sexed friends and thus similarly lacks a full awareness of what the rules of the dating "game" are. But as I have documented in chapter 12, love-shy men (because they are deeply and unshakably romantic) are extremely visual; they do not permit themselves to become involved in conversations with women who are less than very attractive and who do not possess the "long hair and pretty face".

Of course, awareness of the dating game rules and acceptance of same are two entirely different things. Many love-shys are aware of the rules, but their unadulterated romanticism disallows them from accepting such rules and acting upon them. Again, love-shy men value complete honesty. They want to remove the play-acting "mask" immediately, as soon as they find themselves engaged in a conversation with a pretty girl.

They crave and aspire to immediate acceptance and love as they are--no false "fronts" presented.
Most people regard open friendliness as the "natural" state of affairs. Indeed, seemingly unfriendly people are often viewed with suspicion, and they are typically seen as being hostile. At best they are avoided, and they are commonly labelled as "weird" or worse. This is particularly true as far as males are concerned. Unfriendly women are merely likely to be viewed as diffident and perhaps rightfully suspicious of people whom they don't know. In contrast, unfriendly or seemingly "weird" men tend to be viewed in a hostile fashion, and as a consequence they are ignored or shunned.

Important too is the very widespread tendency to equate behaviour with attitude. Simply put, if a person behaves in an unfriendly manner, we tend to view his attitude as being unfriendly--even when it is anything but unfriendly. People cannot react and respond to that which they cannot see. Similarly, if a young man is never observed interacting informally with women and if he is always seen alone, the natural tendency is to perceive him as being a homosexual, or perhaps as a "closet queen". And this is true irrespective of how thoroughly heterosexual in predilections that person might indeed be.

Of course, very few people are telepathic. The point that needs to be stressed, however, is that for the love-shy attitudes and overt behaviours seldom coincide. The love-shy person cannot command his performance in the direction of his wishes because he is not in the "driver's seat" of his own life. A love-shy man may sustain very liberal, humanitarian attitudes towards others. But due to the fact that he constantly avoids informal social interaction he is likely to be perceived by others as being anything but humanitarian, and anything but "warm and caring". Again, most People judge others by what they can see. Attitudes and values cannot be directly observed. And in fact they remain entirely hidden unless and until the person holding them opens up and shares them with others. And even then he may not be believed if his observable behaviour continues on in a highly asocial, socially avoidant fashion—or in a fashion that appears to contradict the substance of what he says. Consider the clichéd expression: "Your actions speak so loudly I cannot hear a word you are saying!"

Let's look at a few examples of these social avoidance tendencies. I asked each respondent to react to this statement: "It requires a tremendous amount of nerve to be friendly with people." And zero percent (nobody) of the non-shys said that they agreed. In contrast, fully 52 percent of the younger love-shys and 76 percent of the older love-shys indicated that they agreed with that statement. Focusing attention upon the opposite sex I asked for reactions to this statement: "It requires a tremendous amount of nerve to be friendly with the opposite sex." And here again, zero percent of the non-shy men agreed. In contrast, fully 100 percent of the older love-shy men together with 77 percent of the younger love-shys agreed.

Even more illustrative of the love-shys' behavioural and psycho-emotional thought style was the pattern of responses to this statement: "I would sooner avoid someone I know on the street than risk accidentally saying 'hello' to a stranger." Zero percent of the non-shy men endorsed this statement. In contrast, fully 87 percent of the older love-shys along with 68 percent of the younger love-shys indicated that the statement was true for them.

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