I'll start by saying that I'm telling this with the idea that it may somehow inspire anyone here to face a fear, or attempt to do something they would usually avoid.
If you're familiar with my posts, you may have noticed an even annoying tendency of me to complain too much about my loneliness and my inability to socialize with women and ultimately to find a romantic partner. I say that I do this because I'm mostly functional on others aspects of my life, and I can't help to care vary much about this; also, I'm working on it since I started to see the university psychiatrist more than a month ago.
The story starts with a girl from my university. I noticed her at the beginning of last semester, and I developed an unusually strong attraction towards her. Beyond me considering her aesthetically outstanding, there was also a perception that on the personality department she was particularly adequate for me (an idea with no rational basis whatsoever). After some carefully observation (no, no stalking there), I learnt that she was not only on a different career but also on a different semester, and there fore our chances to share any course were none, taking out what for my mind would be the only reasonable excuse to start a conversation with her without being to obvious about the fact that I like her. Yes, that was my terrific plan: to get to knew her without her noticing that I liked her, and just letting her knew that if I was sure the she liked me too. I know, it's absurd.
What I did the rest of the time (besides making this thread: http://www.socialphobiaworld.com/damn-limerence-35103/) was to quickly glancing at her trying to do it unnoticed whenever she passed by. But may be after the motivation I've got from therapy and my online friends, I begun to analyze the futility of my behavior.
I arrived to the conclusion that I didn't wanted to spend a bunch of time if not the rest of my life wondering what would happened if I just talked to her at least once, and for the worst case scenario, if she rejected me, I would't lost anything and I'll be able to forget her.
So what I did.
Something unorthodox, may be stupid, but basically the only think that I could think off. I redacted and learned from memory on my mind how I would just say hi, ask her for a couple minutes, apologize for making her uncomfortable by doing precisely what I was doing and for spend the whole year sneakingly looking at her without saying anything, explain her that I didn't just flirted or ask her out because I just don't have the slightest idea of how to do that, and finally explain why I was doing that, which basically was because of the conclusion I mentioned above. I tried to imagine which would be her possible reactions and what would I do about them.
So Monday morning I was nearly sure she was going to be at university at 10 am, indeed she was. She was with a couple female friends and a male friend. That slowed me a bit because she usually is only around her female friends. I went inside the lunch area to try to call a friend and talk with him for a moment to remove that obstacle from my head, but he didn't answered and at that moment she entered the lunch area with only her female friends. That gave me another obstacle because for some reason I always visualized my conversation with her outside the buildings, and meanwhile due to anxiety I dehydrated and ran out of saliva, so I went out someplace else to buy a little bottle of water. After a couple minutes, I could manage to be again in that "zark it, I'm doing it" mood, I went near the lunch room again, and when I glanced inside she was in a table with a female and the male friend. I had to sit down outside for another couple minutes, until I finally could just not think, but act.
So I went towards her, I said to them "hi, sorry to interrupt", and then I said to her "I was wondering if you have like ten minutes, there is something I would like to explain you". She was of course surprised, like "wait, what? just me? why just me?". Her female friend looked at her encouraging her to go, then we went to a table close to theirs, and sat face to face. I introduced myself, finally knew what her name was, and finally was sure that the color of her eyes was brown and not blue. From here I was dehydrated again, my field of vision was very narrow, like if I was watching a movie or the tv instead of my own life, but neither my voice or my body were trembling, but of course it was noticeable that I was nervous.
Like I practiced on my mind, I started by apologizing to her for being somewhat selfish by clearing up my mind at the expense of making her uncomfortable (she nod with her head), and I told her that any question or comment was welcome. Then I apologized again if I made her uncomfortable by just glancing at her every time we were close without ever saying anything to her, but then my carefully plan was flushed down the toilet: she said the she didn't realized that I looked at her, may be because she is a bit absent-minded
. I was sure that she knew that I like her, and precisely that one was the only general possibility that I didn't considered. I admitted to her that I was relying on the possibility that she had realized that I looked at her, and then I tried too keep up with my plan of telling her that I didn't flirted with her or asked her out simply because I didn't had the slightest idea of how to do that; as I felt I was about to run out of things to say, I admitted that the only idea I had about that, if may be a cliche, would be to ask her for a cup of coffee to talk and know each other better.
She said she may do the coffee thing, but that such thing would lead to gossips that could get her into trouble. I didn't needed further explanation. I told her that I understood, and that one was a reason for what I was precisely doing that, just to stop wondering if I ever had a chance. After that I told her that I was glad that things were clear, and that I wished her the best luck with her career and her boyfriend. She said "good luck to you too" and we say bye.
I don't know if she was being sincere by telling me that she didn't realized that I looked at her, or with the boyfriend thing. The point is that for whatever reason, she wasn't interested on me, or in the remote case she was, I freaked her out. I really don't care why. I'm glad to find out that I can handle rejection. By talking to her face to face, I confirmed that I found her gorgeous, but from now, she's just that, another gorgeous girl, and that's it.
Is probably going to be awkward the next times we are near each other (well, today she passed by and I noticed she looked at me for a moment but at least this time it wasn't as awkward as I imagined it could be), and I probably gave her something to talk about with her friends for a while. But it was worth the try. I've taking off a huge weight of my back.
The first three hours after that, I didn't had any idea of what to feel, just the idea on my head of "it is done". After that, once I got home, and for the rest of the day, there was an intermittent feeling of guilt, of "crap, what have I done", not because I was thinking that in some way I ruined my chances with her, I knew already I probably never had any, but despite I knew I shouldn't care very much about it, there was a worry about what her and her friends were thinking about me, and not that I imagined that they were thinking "what a freak/creep/idiot" (which is always a possibility), more like I'm not used at all to leave people with a feeling of "what the hell just happened?".
Interesting that I remember the whole thing like if it was an episode of a tv show, something that I saw but it didn't happened to me, like if my brain was so freaked out that it tries to dissociate from me.
I'm glad to have something less to worry about, but still I have in front of myself the challenge to learn to socialize with woman and the very few to none opportunities that I have on my everyday life to do so, at least until I learn to do something as basic as maintain eye contact and say hi to a stranger out of a socializing reason.
If you're familiar with my posts, you may have noticed an even annoying tendency of me to complain too much about my loneliness and my inability to socialize with women and ultimately to find a romantic partner. I say that I do this because I'm mostly functional on others aspects of my life, and I can't help to care vary much about this; also, I'm working on it since I started to see the university psychiatrist more than a month ago.
The story starts with a girl from my university. I noticed her at the beginning of last semester, and I developed an unusually strong attraction towards her. Beyond me considering her aesthetically outstanding, there was also a perception that on the personality department she was particularly adequate for me (an idea with no rational basis whatsoever). After some carefully observation (no, no stalking there), I learnt that she was not only on a different career but also on a different semester, and there fore our chances to share any course were none, taking out what for my mind would be the only reasonable excuse to start a conversation with her without being to obvious about the fact that I like her. Yes, that was my terrific plan: to get to knew her without her noticing that I liked her, and just letting her knew that if I was sure the she liked me too. I know, it's absurd.
What I did the rest of the time (besides making this thread: http://www.socialphobiaworld.com/damn-limerence-35103/) was to quickly glancing at her trying to do it unnoticed whenever she passed by. But may be after the motivation I've got from therapy and my online friends, I begun to analyze the futility of my behavior.
I arrived to the conclusion that I didn't wanted to spend a bunch of time if not the rest of my life wondering what would happened if I just talked to her at least once, and for the worst case scenario, if she rejected me, I would't lost anything and I'll be able to forget her.
So what I did.
Something unorthodox, may be stupid, but basically the only think that I could think off. I redacted and learned from memory on my mind how I would just say hi, ask her for a couple minutes, apologize for making her uncomfortable by doing precisely what I was doing and for spend the whole year sneakingly looking at her without saying anything, explain her that I didn't just flirted or ask her out because I just don't have the slightest idea of how to do that, and finally explain why I was doing that, which basically was because of the conclusion I mentioned above. I tried to imagine which would be her possible reactions and what would I do about them.
So Monday morning I was nearly sure she was going to be at university at 10 am, indeed she was. She was with a couple female friends and a male friend. That slowed me a bit because she usually is only around her female friends. I went inside the lunch area to try to call a friend and talk with him for a moment to remove that obstacle from my head, but he didn't answered and at that moment she entered the lunch area with only her female friends. That gave me another obstacle because for some reason I always visualized my conversation with her outside the buildings, and meanwhile due to anxiety I dehydrated and ran out of saliva, so I went out someplace else to buy a little bottle of water. After a couple minutes, I could manage to be again in that "zark it, I'm doing it" mood, I went near the lunch room again, and when I glanced inside she was in a table with a female and the male friend. I had to sit down outside for another couple minutes, until I finally could just not think, but act.
So I went towards her, I said to them "hi, sorry to interrupt", and then I said to her "I was wondering if you have like ten minutes, there is something I would like to explain you". She was of course surprised, like "wait, what? just me? why just me?". Her female friend looked at her encouraging her to go, then we went to a table close to theirs, and sat face to face. I introduced myself, finally knew what her name was, and finally was sure that the color of her eyes was brown and not blue. From here I was dehydrated again, my field of vision was very narrow, like if I was watching a movie or the tv instead of my own life, but neither my voice or my body were trembling, but of course it was noticeable that I was nervous.
Like I practiced on my mind, I started by apologizing to her for being somewhat selfish by clearing up my mind at the expense of making her uncomfortable (she nod with her head), and I told her that any question or comment was welcome. Then I apologized again if I made her uncomfortable by just glancing at her every time we were close without ever saying anything to her, but then my carefully plan was flushed down the toilet: she said the she didn't realized that I looked at her, may be because she is a bit absent-minded
. I was sure that she knew that I like her, and precisely that one was the only general possibility that I didn't considered. I admitted to her that I was relying on the possibility that she had realized that I looked at her, and then I tried too keep up with my plan of telling her that I didn't flirted with her or asked her out simply because I didn't had the slightest idea of how to do that; as I felt I was about to run out of things to say, I admitted that the only idea I had about that, if may be a cliche, would be to ask her for a cup of coffee to talk and know each other better.She said she may do the coffee thing, but that such thing would lead to gossips that could get her into trouble. I didn't needed further explanation. I told her that I understood, and that one was a reason for what I was precisely doing that, just to stop wondering if I ever had a chance. After that I told her that I was glad that things were clear, and that I wished her the best luck with her career and her boyfriend. She said "good luck to you too" and we say bye.
I don't know if she was being sincere by telling me that she didn't realized that I looked at her, or with the boyfriend thing. The point is that for whatever reason, she wasn't interested on me, or in the remote case she was, I freaked her out. I really don't care why. I'm glad to find out that I can handle rejection. By talking to her face to face, I confirmed that I found her gorgeous, but from now, she's just that, another gorgeous girl, and that's it.
Is probably going to be awkward the next times we are near each other (well, today she passed by and I noticed she looked at me for a moment but at least this time it wasn't as awkward as I imagined it could be), and I probably gave her something to talk about with her friends for a while. But it was worth the try. I've taking off a huge weight of my back.
The first three hours after that, I didn't had any idea of what to feel, just the idea on my head of "it is done". After that, once I got home, and for the rest of the day, there was an intermittent feeling of guilt, of "crap, what have I done", not because I was thinking that in some way I ruined my chances with her, I knew already I probably never had any, but despite I knew I shouldn't care very much about it, there was a worry about what her and her friends were thinking about me, and not that I imagined that they were thinking "what a freak/creep/idiot" (which is always a possibility), more like I'm not used at all to leave people with a feeling of "what the hell just happened?".
Interesting that I remember the whole thing like if it was an episode of a tv show, something that I saw but it didn't happened to me, like if my brain was so freaked out that it tries to dissociate from me.
I'm glad to have something less to worry about, but still I have in front of myself the challenge to learn to socialize with woman and the very few to none opportunities that I have on my everyday life to do so, at least until I learn to do something as basic as maintain eye contact and say hi to a stranger out of a socializing reason.
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