YO! - Ok, so in the last 3 years i have become a recluse, I live a very sociable great city called Brighton on the southcoast of the UK, its a great place to meet people and women, but since my last LTR broke I have been getting more and more anxious when I see a girl i like and less and less confident to approach her.

I'm bored of not taking these opportunities, and even more bored of waking up the next day thinking, damn i should have done something!

Any advice is welcome!

Boy Robot

Personally I had the exact same problem a few months back when me and a friend (Ego) first found the community. For the most part I've gotten over it and Ego from everything I've seen of him has fully tackled the issue. We each used a different method.

I myself found that the easiest way to get over AA was to play the "Crash and Burn Game." Basically all You do is every time you notice a set you open and TRY to crash and burn. Every set the you burn in gives you one point and you can try this with a friend or try to beat previous day's records if you're alone. The effectiveness that I found in this is that you aren't trying to get anything from them and thus there is nothing to be nervous about and by, what some might call 'failing' in a set you are actually winning in what you set out to do.

Ego used a different tactic that he read somewhere. He holds the belief that AA is a form of excitement, not anxiety, the difference being that while they may feel similar they mean very different things. Anxiety is essentially a fear, in this case a fear of approaching and for most of us rejection. By rationalizing that what you are feeling is excitement instead, you are in actuality getting yourself ready to do something that can be a throughly enjoyable experience for everyone and something that you really subconsciously wish to do. By harnessing the energy that you feel from the excitement, your body is setting you up to enter the set with a higher energy level than you were previously at. By completely internalizing this mentality, Ego has managed to harness the energy gained from 'AA' to be used towards more constructive ends.

Hope these ideas help you and anyone else reading this
-Eon

that's great advice to gain confidence Eon, especially since you can partially eliminate the disappointment of being shot down...

Id also suggest that you tried talking to girls online first, this is really useful because it gives you the oppertunity to find out just how interesting you are as a person. If you can hold a conversation with someone online who your not even seeing, then you can easily do it in person using all the techniques that are out there.

Your spoilt for choice living in brighton aswell boy robot, so just go for it. Whats the worst that can happen...

Always remember, if you do get rejected by a girl, she isnt rejecting you as a person, because she doesnt know what your actually like as a person. She is thinking your the same as every other AFC out there, but im sure your not So go out there and prove it

Orthodox