I am really friendly with a girl I met over the internet...

[cLavain]

Why are you taking Quixote's words so personally? He already said that there are exceptions. It's great that you girls are different, but I don't think you can claim to be representative of the majority of girls, can you? The majority wants confident men, and the thread on this forum about what kind of partner we want revealed that many SA girls would prefer a non-SA guy. That makes you a minority of a minority!

I must admit, I also have the impression that what many girls mean by a "shy guy" is more like a Hugh Grant movie character, slightly awkward, but still lovable and charming, very much unlike a guy with severe SA who has a greater chance of winning the lottery than meeting a Meow or a Crazyfairyx or a LuckieCharm. Still, some people win the lottery, eh?

 

[Quixote]

Thank you cLavain. Dealing with the windmills everyday is hard enough, and I really don't deserve to be lynched by a mob of angry girls

Anyway, here is my attempt to a defence:

, not all girls are the same, not all men are the same, that's a fact.

True, but as all human beings share the vast majority of their genetic code, it is reasonable to assume that while not being the same they are at least similar in their deeper impulses (perhaps even more so in such an important field as that of reproduction)

Falcon, I think you're getting enough attacks today lol but you really are wrong about not giving any flowers or helping out or anything before you get into a relationship.

I agree but I think he just meant looking excessively needy can be counterproductive. He didn't advise to be rude or mean.

Ok, Quixote, you've just described me in the above quote. Does that mean that I am unloveable? That no-one would date me?

Sorry I was describing myself in fact, more or less. As for your question, no you are probably going to find someone in the end, because you are a girl. Of course SP will still interfere with your ability to enjoy life and social relations as it does to everybody, but as a SP girl you have more chances of finding a partner than a SP guy. This is both common sense and statistically proven.

Honestly Quixote, people measure and express themsleves in other ways invisible to those with less insight. Ever heard of late blooming???

Honestly I don't understand the meaning of your post, I would reply to you but you should explain it again. I might have a problem of insight, or perhaps my limited knowledge of english (it being a learned language for me) comes in the way. Sorry, again.

As for the song cited by meow, here a couple of lines that I find significant:

-So good looking you seem to be
-Most guys advertise By making eyes and telling lies
-Some guys act a bit too sure
-But Honey, you still gotta knock on my door

See the guy can be somewhat shy, but not in absolute terms, only in so far that "shyness" is seen as the alternative to the bad guys described in line 2 and 3. He has to be "so good looking" to compensate a little for lack of self confidence (line 1) and still, is expected to do the first move (line 4) otherwise he can forget it

And look how HOT & CUTE she is!!

Sure, I agree, she looks somewhat italian by the way. I bet she has a cool self confident boyfriend

 

[Quixote]

Actually quixote, I don't know why you defended that at all because what I meant was that I was going to disagree w/ him, but

And I thought your disagreement was based on a misinterpretation of his words, not a big deal though.

 

[lily]

Typically, women are not as concerned about looks as men. Sure, they can drool over a hot guy, but biologically they are just less visually oriented than men. There are good evolutionary reasons for this. So don't worry about the parts of your looks you can't change (e.g. big nose, ugly face, etc). That said, the parts of your looks you CAN change, you should - it can only help you.

Finally, some misc. points about women.

a) Don't supplicate. Don't buy her flowers, run errands for her, fix her computer, call endlessly, etc, until you're actually dating her.

b) Don't fix her relationship problems. If she complains to you about a boyfriend, or her mom, or anything...DO NOT listen and offer advice. Just validate her emotions and try to shift the conversational topic. Fixing her problems or offering advice is a great way to end up in the "friend zone".

c) Don't exude desperation. If she's the only one you're interested in or seeing, that's going to be a problem. Women can sense desperation, and it's very unattractive. Try to meet and date some other women before you go meet her - it will make you less needy, which will translate to a better chance of success.

Yeah it's not a big deal Quixote but I didn't misunderstand what falcon said. Here it displays a, b, c and the last one is about desperation and neediness. The 1st and 2nd is the one I told you was wrong and even the last 1, you probably shouldn't act desperate though women like it a lot if you were to show you're very interested!! And you don't have to lie or try to date others to have it look like you have other choices and it's wasting especially their time.

 

[savage_beagle]

avoid internet romances-most chatters are full of shit.

JIM, to be honest...stick with people you can meet in a short drive, walk or by taking a bus. The internet and its chatrooms are full of shitty people. There are a lot of lying and very deceitful people in this world, and many of them join chatrooms to hook up for one nighters and many are married or attatched to someone. I understand some people have met and fell in love with a person online , which eventually led to married bliss . It is the exception. There are a lot of people who will con you online, especially in chatrooms. Many post a fake photo of themselves, perhaps a ''good looking'' person, and you might never know their real name or place, proffesion, etc. I too had on 2 seperate occasions, been fooled big time by 2 women. They didnt rob me of money, but they did rob me of my personal time--which if i knew the truth..i would of never spent a second on them. One flew to stay with me for a week...which turned out to be a place to hang out and party with her girlfriends (while she chatted online with her boyfriend back home in their city.). The other one had me chatting with her for over a year..with a fake name, fake age , fake family. I finally found out the truth and she told me she was a middle aged divorcee with 3 small kids. I met her anyways (i was curious, all romantic interest was dead once the truth came out), and she was a chain smoking , fat short little sack of crap. Made the best out of the situation and pretended to like her, which got me a free place to crash when i visited her( didnt touch the little troll...just thought i'd give back some of her own shitty medicine). After that stupidity was done and over, i permanentley gave up chatrooms. You should know, i talked to a lot of people i made online friernds with in some of these chatrooms...and the things they told me were just so amazing. Many were married, screwing on the side--many had mental problems, many were backstabbers, quite a few were willing to travel and did--to far off cities in order to meet and screw( in secret...while married with kids at home). I am not trying to piss on your parade, i truly want you to avoid the heartache of what you will find online...lots of deceit. JIM...stick with improving your mental health...stick to real people you can touch and maybe meet in person...please dont waste your life on ''a pretty photo of a girl i met in chat''. :wink: Trust me my friend, or learn it the hard way.

 

[Meow]

Re: avoid internet romances-most chatters are full of shit.

JIM, to be honest...stick with people you can meet in a short drive, walk or by taking a bus. The internet and its chatrooms are full of shitty people. There are a lot of lying and very deceitful people in this world, and many of them join chatrooms to hook up for one nighters and many are married or attatched to someone. I understand some people have met and fell in love with a person online , which eventually led to married bliss . It is the exception. There are a lot of people who will con you online, especially in chatrooms. Many post a fake photo of themselves, perhaps a ''good looking'' person, and you might never know their real name or place, proffesion, etc. I too had on 2 seperate occasions, been fooled big time by 2 women. They didnt rob me of money, but they did rob me of my personal time--which if i knew the truth..i would of never spent a second on them. One flew to stay with me for a week...which turned out to be a place to hang out and party with her girlfriends (while she chatted online with her boyfriend back home in their city.). The other one had me chatting with her for over a year..with a fake name, fake age , fake family. I finally found out the truth and she told me she was a middle aged divorcee with 3 small kids. I met her anyways (i was curious, all romantic interest was dead once the truth came out), and she was a chain smoking , fat short little sack of crap. Made the best out of the situation and pretended to like her, which got me a free place to crash when i visited her( didnt touch the little troll...just thought i'd give back some of her own shitty medicine). After that stupidity was done and over, i permanentley gave up chatrooms. You should know, i talked to a lot of people i made online friernds with in some of these chatrooms...and the things they told me were just so amazing. Many were married, screwing on the side--many had mental problems, many were backstabbers, quite a few were willing to travel and did--to far off cities in order to meet and screw( in secret...while married with kids at home). I am not trying to piss on your parade, i truly want you to avoid the heartache of what you will find online...lots of deceit. JIM...stick with improving your mental health...stick to real people you can touch and maybe meet in person...please dont waste your life on ''a pretty photo of a girl i met in chat''. :wink: Trust me my friend, or learn it the hard way.

Ahhhhh goshhhh yeah you got f*cked over but not everyone does. I know people, lots of happy endings meeting online. If you've known someone for 5 years that's a long time to keep up an "act" God if I had followed your advice of stick to someone you can touch in person i'd still be living at home in an abusive situation contemplating suicide instead of living in another country with a wonderful man who takes care of me, I wouldn't be seeing a therapist and making attempts to get better.

If he's sure about her, and trusts her... that she isn't "conning" him, if he's sure in his own mind the pic of her is really her, and she really wants to see him he should atleast go for it. He is already spending time with her online obviously, so what's the worst 2 scenarios that can happen...? he shows up and she's not as good looking as she seemed in the photo, woopdedoo... that's not a deal breaker. Or she doesn't like him in a romantic sense, I'm positive she will like him in a friendly way as they already do connect in a friendly way... and he'll gain an even better friend out of it.

Obviously I met my man online, his mum met her fiance online, I know a lot of other people who have met lovers online and it's gone well. And also i've made a lot of friends online who have became TRUE friends in person who I spent a lot of time with.... not everyone is out to con you or out to get you, sometimes it's for real.

My very very very best friend still lives back in England, we met on a message board and hated eachother at first. But eventually him and his friends met up with me and my friends and something clicked. He is STILL here for me EVERY day online or on the phone even tho I am 6,000 miles away. I don't know what i'd do without his friendship and support when I have a melt down.

A lot of good can come out of online relationships/friendships it's worth a try, don't just assume someone is out to fuck you over.

 

[Jim_Bergerac]

Well, just an update, I don't know how I feel right now, I am trying to not take this as rejection. Like I say I have the most special friendship with this person and I really fancy her loads. In the past couple of days she mentioned about the heat and went swimming and how she wished I was there too. And things kind of got a bit hot, saying that we would splash each other and end up kissing, which was like wow. This happened again yesterday and she started the conversation like that and things were even hotter.

But this morning she said told me she liked the chat we had but that its not right and it must stop. I agreed that it felt wrong as that is what lovers do, and for sure we have an amazing friendship but we are not lovers. I did say if we do meet and she liked me loads and felt attracted to me, that I could definitely feel the same as I think she is magical person.

At the end of the day it is for the best because how awkward would it be meeting up for first time when you are supposed to be lovers with someone who you have never spent time around. So I am not upset or unhappy and I hope she said it has to stop because it really isn't right, rather than its not right because she thinks I am not good enough for her like that.

Right now I just want to become instantly confident and beat this SA and start progressing with my life, live life, to be able to go and do things that right now I am scared to do because of my SA. I feel I have made good progress in starting to desensitise my insecurity about my nose which I have always been so incredibly self conscious about, so that is a good start. I am now going to try and desensitise my confidence issues. But I will write that in a new post.

Savage - I understand what you say, that is shocking reading about your experiences. But this girl I have known for 4 or 5 years and she is just an amazing person, it has nothing to do with how she looks, it wouldn't matter how she looked (as long as she wasn't like really obese). But I am not stupid, I reckon there is about a 1% chance we will ever be together, but I do value her friendship very much and one thing I have learnt is that I have lost and drifted away from so many amazing friends over the years, if only I knew then what I know now and how difficult it gets to meet really good friends with ace people, I would have done so much more to not allow friends to drift away. And there is no way I would risk losing this fantastic friendship, when I see she is calling me, leaving me a text or an email, I instantly feel so happy. Its a brilliant feeling. But I have to overcome my SA because nothing will ever happen for sure if I don't.

 

[lovemylas]

"If you sent here your pic. And she is still talking to you. And still would want to meet you. Then she musn't think your ugly. Otherwise she would just stop talking to you. It's the net, that's what they do."

I couldn't have said that any better myself, young. Why in the heck would someone keep a relationship going if they thought a person was not desirable to them? Why would they risk their life on an airplane over a nation, an entire ocean, and almost another whole nation, to see and be with someone they thought was ugly or not gorgeous to look at? It's not just on the net that this "doesn't" happen, too.

EDIT:
Thank goodness.

 

[LA-girl]

I just wanted to add that at least for me (and I'm sure I'm not alone!) social intelligence is far more important than social confidence.

I mean there are many guys out there who might be self-confident, but seem to lack empathy or humour or other qualities that has more to do with social intelligence than confidence.

Judging from the majority of the guys in here you don't seem to have a problem in that area...

 

[savage_beagle]

hi again!

HELLO! What i wrote earlier was true (of my experience). As i described, not everyone has a terrible experience with meeting someone nice online, and i didnt write it from a bitter perspective...i wrote it as a caution to JIM, to get him to look at it from another angle. Jim, obviously you are not stupid, that was never implied---we can tell you are fairly intelligent---you are just another person trying to cope as best as you can, as we all are. You are doing the best thing, by just keeping your online chats to a minimum and friendly level. The 2 events that happened to me were not very nice things to have happened, as i was in a semi- depressed state and had my days of anxiety and self doubts. I was lonely and spent way too much time on the computer (this sound familiar??), and i was too absorbed with the wrong people (online). Anyways, since i keep yapping in this forum about all the work i put into positive thinking and changing the ways of my mind, i used it as a life lesson. For those of you that are curious, i still maintain a friendly relationship online with a girl i have chatted with (from mexico) who i speak to on msn, yahoo and ocassionaly long distance thru the phone. That is strictly a friendship and nothing more. So , of course, friendships can be made online and if JIM's relationship turned into something more, thats great for him. I am just offering my opinion and hoping JIM doesnt get hurt any more then he has, but in the end, JIM is a smart cookie...he knows how to handle his own affairs. Everybody have a very nice weekend in the sun. :wink:

 

[Jim_Bergerac]

Savage - thanks for the nice words, I wasn't one bit offended by your words of warning, I think what you say is very valid and true. I must be honest and say I have gotten chatting online with lots of people, I have met one person which was good, we dated for a while but in the end we weren't right for each other - she was very confident and independent, we did get on very well and had some nice times, she ended up travelling and met someone on her travels. We rarely contact each other now. But almost all the other people I chatted to have ended up nowhere. But this friendship with the girl I mention - we've had a great friendship for 5 years, its only because of my SA that I fear meeting her, I just don't want to mess it up, I know if I can just get confident things will work out brilliant.

But what I wanted to say to you Savage is that - I totally agree about spending too much time on our pc's and you meet so many people that are just a waste of our time. But my question is - have things changed for you and you managed to meet new people in person? I find it so hard to meet new friends these days - I have always met friends through my time in education, but that finished for me some 6 years ago. I mean you meet people at work, but most of them have their own lives or are married, have their own social circles, etc, so it really is hard to meet new friends who actually want to have fun and do the same things you want to. I would love to hear if you have met new friends in person!

 

[seekingpeace]

Hi everyone, I'm a newbie but I felt like I could contribute something to this topic. Please forgive the length :lol:

A friend of mine who could see that I was struggling with some relationships in my life sent me this and it made a huge difference in my perspective on life and love.

There are people who can walk away from you.

And hear me when I tell you this! When people can walk away from you:
Let them walk.

I don't want you to try to talk another person into staying with you, loving you, calling you, caring about you, coming to see you, staying attached to you. I mean hang up the phone.

When people can walk away from you, let them walk.

The bible said that "they came out from us that it might be made manifest that they were not for us. For had they been of us, no doubt they would have continued with us. [1 John 2:19]

People leave you because they are not joined to you.
And if they are not joined to you, you cannot make them stay.

Let them go.

And it doesn't mean that they are a bad person, it just means that their part in the story is over. And you've got to know when a person's part in your story is over so you don't keep trying to raise the dead.

You've got to know when it's dead.

You've got to know when it's over. Let me tell you something. I've got the gift of good-bye. It's the tenth spiritual gift, I believe in good-bye. It's not that I'm hateful, it's that I'm faithful, and I know whatever God means for me to have He'll give it to me. And if it takes too much sweat, I don't need it. Stop begging people to stay.

Let them go!

Jim - I think you should go and meet your friend in person. Find out if she has a part in your story. After all, if she turns out to be shallow enough that your looks dictate whether or not you remain friends, is that the kind of friend you want? My only word of caution is this: be careful not to build her up too much in your mind. After all, I once had a glamour photo done in which I think I looked pretty darned cute. The problem is, I don't go to that much trouble in my everyday life, so sending someone that picture would be false advertising, but it might be tempting if I thought that the odds were very low that we would ever meet face to face. The way I see it is that meeting her (as absolutely nerve-wracking as it may be) is a win-win situation. Either you find out that there is nothing there and you can spend your time finding other meaningful relationships, or you cement your friendship even further and see where it leads you.

I hope you'll keep us posted!

 

[Jim_Bergerac]

That was a really great post seekingpeace. I am not at all religious but what was said was very true. I have seen people beg someone not to leave them, I have seen people trying so hard to keep someone interested and to be honest if that person doesn't share the same feelings for you then you should leave things with your respect intact so to speak and not give that person the satisfaction that you need someone who doesn't need you. I think its a fantastic quality to have, its definitely one I would love to use.

The thing is seekingpeace - the problem with going to meet this girl whilst I lack in confidence is that when I am so anxious and self conscious and scared like I would be if I met her, I am not the real me. The real me (anxiety free) is nice, friendly, great sense of humour, interesting, ambitious, adventurous. The anxious me is quiet, can't smile, looks terrified, can't make much conversation as I scared my voice will go, fidgeting with my hands. That is why I dare not go now. If she sees that me - she will not be interested, she will think I am not the person she thought I was, I am strange, I am weird, etc. Hope you understand what I mean. That is why I just so wish to be confident for when I meet her, so I can be myself and show her what a fantastic person I am, which I know I am. I am just risking losing her if I go now as a nervous ninny.

 

[seekingpeace]

Thanks Jim, for your patience. I do understand what you're saying. The problem I have is that I have wasted years trying to gain this confidence that you seek and it remains elusive for me, and often I wonder if I use my lack of self-confidence as an excuse to isolate myself so I don't have to participate in society. I am struggling with this, trying to reach out despite this crippling self image. I have a couple of people in my life who don't seem to be able to walk away, much as they might like to sometimes, and I feel the same about them. They don't understand my social phobia, and we don't speak of it because it makes all of us uncomfortable, but they still try to keep me involved and for that I am grateful.

I'm not a religious sort either, but when searching for answers I try to see the basic message behind the literal words, to find comfort in the common humanity we all share. Thanks for reading!

 

[seekingpeace]

Just out of curiosity, if you've been corresponding with her for 5 years and you met face to face but were nervous and fidgety, wouldn't she know you well enough to realize that you aren't always that way? I am truly asking because I don't know the answer, having not ever corresponded that long with someone that I hadn't met. Does she know about your SA? If she's a sensitive sort, it seems to me that it might be worth trying, but I completely understand that it's a gamble you might not be willing to take right now. Sigh... it really sucks that it is so hard for us to just relax and tell that little voice in our heads to shut up and stop worrying about what others think of us.

 

[Videotape]

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