Hi all,

I am great at conversing with girls after we both get into the comfort/rapport zone - I have quite a few female friends and I've been told on a few occasions that I'm a good listener/talker. I also get an average of 7/8 on one of those photo rating sites (I know its just a fun thing but this simply implies I'm not unattractive - I used to get 7 before I made a slight change to my look and it went to

My problem is I cannot approach or even just smile at a girl in a public place. I can make eye contact but no more. It's like I'm needing 'approval' in the form of her making eye contact and smiling or just being open. If I make eye contact with a girl and she doesn't smile I can't do anything - yet in public people aren't out to meet or socialise so most women aren't going to smile at a random guy.

I just really need help on getting in to the right mind frame so that I can approach or even just be social to random girls without fear.

Same goes for when I do speak to a girl. If/when she doesn't give me a wide open juicy response I eject as I feel that a girl will automatically be friendly if she's interested - another form of 'approval'. And girls are generally not like that although I have met a couple that are and have a good conversation.

Even in pubs/clubs I find it hard to approach - sometimes I can smile at girls like the other night I smiled at about 4 or 5 girls on the dancefloor but didn't approach. I did talk to one girl becuase there was nobody else around to hear and she was on her own. We talked for a while but her bf was the big tattooed guitarist lol.

So any advice other than fighting through the fear? I've tried that, it doesn't work for me.

Share your problems dude. I'm thought of as an extrovert, confident person. I can address audiences, speak in public, talk to anyone anywhere about anything - but you throw in a girl I find attractive into the mix, and the fact that I have no reason to approach other than i fancy her and i go to pot.

you basically need to be in the right mindset. Dress well. dress until you think you look good. you're cool. you'll leave the house feeling sexy. walk like you think you're the shit, because you do that for long enough and you will genuinely feel like you're the shit.

I'm still working on this and it's taking me a lot longer than i thought it would, but the key really is getting other people to buy into YOUR reality. If in your reality, you have low value, then you will to other people. It's not nice to say it because we all want a quick "fix", a routine to make us not scared. but talking to strangers, because of the nature of modern society, is inherently scary. you just have to do it, and know that they WANT you to talk to them. they just don't know it yet.

I think that there is no such thing as approach anxiety, only rejection anxiety.

Lance Armstrong says "if you were afraid of falling off, you'd never get on the bike"

try approaching with a view to getting deliberately rejected.

deliberately go for a nasty or canned opener, get told to **** off, and come to the realisation that it simply doesn't matter at all if you get rejected by a set.

after about the 10th time you will have no fear of rejection whatsoever, and the sense that nothing can go wrong will give you a fresh wave of confidence.

you could do a Deliberate Rejection Exercise ("excuse me, I have a fear of rejection....and the only way I can get over it is to be rejected by a beautiful woman like you").

_________________
Back, starting over as of 2012.

Hey, I'm a first time poster. I can say, I totally feel what you're going through. I've had some small amount of success in the past, but it generally involved me very slowly building attraction with girls, except in one or two cases where I just felt like I was "on", or when the girl actually persisted and pushed through my shyness herself.
What you said described what I feel down to the last detail.

Thers only one way to overcome AA and thatis to do it so often you do not even think about it , we've all been through it at he start but after playing the game for a few weeks or months u will develope the 'i dont give a fuck' attitude . thers no easy way around it except by doing it but you can make it easier on yourself if you focus on approaching and opening ONLY ! . do not worry about getting a close or any routines at the start as this puts pressure on your approach . keep it simple .
ive been into this for a year now and had massive AA at the start which passed after 6-8 weeks even now when out i find it takes me 2-4 warm up approaches to get into the grove then it fows .

_________________
Buck on ! ! !