Shy people, do you hide from this type of attention?

[Kyoshiro Ogari]

Hi,

 

I have a question for all of you shy guys and girls out there, especially those with low self esteem and poor body image.

 

Today I was sitting in a room and talking to my friends, and one of my friends pointed out to me that there were these four girls looking at me from accross the room. I told her to stop joking but when I managed to look their way, I saw one of them looking at me, and then she said something to her table, and they all turned to look at me, smiling. I was totally embarrassed by the attention because they were looking at me for a long time. I literally wanted to go hide, but isn't this what I wanted, to feel attractive? I've whined and moaned about feeling so ugly in women's eyes, but today I felt alive, but my shyness prevened me from enjoying the moment or even initiating some type of contact/smile with them. Even as I got up to leave, my legs felt a little wobbly beause they were watching me walk.

 

What really stresses me out is the fact that I found all of the girls attractive. But I was so worried that I looked like a fool that I didn't get to enjoy that rare moment of feeling attractive to someone. I kept debating to myself, maybe my shirt looked funny, or maybe my hair looked too funny, stuff like that. I'm still in denial that it happened, but I am so confused right now because I am looking for a small opening to give me confidence to talk to women, I get a sign and I turn to mush.

 

So you shy people with low self esteem, or anyone, when you are craving to feel attractive, then you get that attention, how do you handle it? And how does it make you feel in the long run, hours... days... weeks later. Do you go back to feeling ugly (which none of you are!) or does your self esteem meter rise a notch.

 

I will say this. There is this girl I am desperate to talk to. For a brief moment, a few seconds I had the confidence to go up to her and start a conversation. Then I looked into the mirror and want back to Square One.

[Caldus]

Kyo Kyo Kyo...you gotta stop this man. You get one shot at life. Stop looking at the negative side of things all the time. Why in the world would they be laughing at you like that? Maybe they really do find you attractive. Maybe they really do want to meet you. When you meet more and more people, you will realize that 9 times out of 10 people will respond positively. I think the problem with us shy people is that we look at the negative outcomes of any situation way too much so that we protect ourselves from possibly being judged or whatever. It's OK Kyo, they aren't going to bite. Seriously. I think they want to meet you. So do it.

 

Anyway, to answer your question, yes my self-esteem does rise more when people say I am attractive. My self-esteem will fluctuate every week or so (who doesn't go through that?) but most of the time I don't lose that self-esteem I gain if that makes sense.

[WhiteIcE]

I know what you mean about wanting attention, and then when getting it, kinda wished you didn't because you don't know how to handle it.

 

A thing that works for me (its actually a part of my personality) is what I like to call histerical charm. Meaning, I'll be charming in a way that dosn't seem serious, it'l make people laugh, but by looking in their eyes I know it has actually charmed them.

 

For instance, if you catch some girls looking at you all giggly, just throw out "Good evening ladies, lookin good ", and sure, you may feel real stupid about it, and they will probably giggle more, or even laugh, but I can bet you kudos that they will remember that, and it will truly stick.

 

The key is to not take everything so seriously. Just relax, and just try to think that "every experience you have builds you as a person", thereforeee, depeding on how complex you would like to further become, your mind will be more open to somethings that you would normally be too shy to do.

 

Give it a try!

[MetallicAguy]

Well if you want to talk to this girl, since your shy, you have to keep on pushing that confidence until you break and you just have to talk to her.

[Kyoshiro Ogari]

Point blank, I'm afraid of women I am attracted to. Don't know why. Half of my friends are female, too. I guess it's the ambarrassment of them knowing that I like them that intimidates me. I saw a psychologist once and he said I put women on a pedastal. He's right, I do. To me, one woman is frightning, but if I see bunch of them, I start to shake like a Ricky Martin video. I have to tackle this problem asap.

[MetallicAguy]

Lol, that sounds like me when I was really shy. The only way to go to tackle this issue is to actually face your fear and talk to women. Otherwise sit here and think of how your going to do it when the answer is in front of you.

[DropToZero]

Are you reading the emails Kyoshiro...?

 

Anyways....point number one....you may have low self esteem, and until you can accept yourself as a reasonable person and stop being so hard on yourself....no one else will accept you. If you thought about it logically...if a girl finds you attractive, but then you show such low esteem in yourself, you're going to lose that attractive element b/c even you can't accept yourself. Number two, you care WAY too much what people think of you then. If girls are staring at you....that is not a bad thing. You have to find out why you think so lowly of yourself as to think that someone is thinking badly about you w/o you even knowing what they're thinking. Not to mention that fact , what would you do? ..I mean if you're looking at a girl..are thoughts of 'she's ugly or...she looks stupid' coming to your mind?...I would hope not. So what makes you think someone else is thinking about you like that? The more you try and figure out what people think about you and try to mold yourself to be acceptable, the lower confidence you will have b/c you will be tryin to hard. You need to sit down..or something and figure out what makes you a great person to build up that confidence. The more you care what others think, the more you will 'screw up'.....our worst critics our ourselves...99.9% of the time, when you think a girl is staring at you for a 'bad' reason, you're goin to be wrong. Accept yourself...we all go thru this sometime.

[MetallicAguy]

I think he accepts poorly of himself because he's never had a gf.

[easyguy]

ALWAYS be optimistic.

[ShySoul]

First thing, YOU HAVE GIRLS LOOKING AT YOU. Now they are looking at you for a reason, and I sincerely doubt it was something on your shirt. You've mentioned how you see yourself as ugly and unattractive. If you were then these girls wouldn't be looking at you. So stop thinking like that.

I've never had girls look at me and until recently never had any kind of attention from a girl. The fact that you have a group of girls interested in you like that isn't something to fear, it is something to be embraced. You should use it as a confidence builder.

 

Still, I know where you are coming from. For the first time in my life a girl has actually taken the time to really get to know me and show interest in me. She's actually even told me she likes me. Now, on one hand I am scared to death. Part of me wonders why she likes me, what she could find so attractive about me. But the bigger part of me says that this is everything that I've been waiting for and that if I waste the opportunity, I'll just be kicking myself for a long time to come. If you or I, or any she guy, wants to get somewhere in this whole realtionship thing, then we need to seize an opportunity when it comes along. Since we are too shy to say anything or give hints ourselves, we need to capitalize on opportuinites that are presented to us. Plus the knowing that she is interested has brightened my whole life. I still get down and think that I'm boring or unattractive at times, but then I can always come back and say "well, there is one girl who likes me." Use those times as a way to boost your confidence, not run away.

 

"I start to shake like a Ricky Martin video."

Ok, with humor like that and the sweetness showed in your avatar, I don't see why any women wouldn't want to be with you.

[Caldus]

"I start to shake like a Ricky Martin video."

Ok, with humor like that and the sweetness showed in your avatar, I don't see why any women wouldn't want to be with you.

 

Amen to that.

[corvidae]

I completely understand you Kyoshiro Ogari. It's hard to explain to yourself let alone to anyone else! You know, every incidence of when a girl might have been interested in me I talked down to something else, like they were looking at someone behind me or mistook me for someone else. To be honest I wouldn't have gone over either. I mean, it's one thing to find someone attractive, but it's another to pursue it then and there. I don't know what it's like in other parts of the world, but here in the good old UK it is considered very inappropriate to try to pick people up outside of certain arenas eg. it's OK to approach someone in a bar, but not in a library. Perhaps they did find you attractive, but that doesn't mean they wanted you to go over to them, so don't feel bad about it. Besides which, if one of them liked you then the burden ought to be on her to make contact. It strikes me as unreasonable for anyone, be they man or woman, to give a feeble signal and expect someone else to do all the work. If she liked you why didn't she get your number? What problems does she have with shyness?

 

Anyway, what I would do is to not beat yourself up over this. You didn't do anything wrong, so don't be judgemental on yourself. Take this for what it is, a positive reinforcement, and perhaps it will go some way to giving you self-confidence. Though I understand that a life-time of negative experiences cannot be made up for by this one incident.

[SilverManic]

I'm pretty shy too, I used to hate myself a lot and get really embaresed about things. My friends helped me a lot with my self confidence and now I'm just shy when I meet new people or when people broach certain topics. Don't worry youself about it.

I think that friends make the best lovers personally.. you know them better and know you get along just fine. Maybe that would be the best way for you. I was good friends with my current boyfriend for 2 years before we started going out. I didn't really have a crush on him before hand but I thought he was cute, inteligent, caring. All things that you seem to be so don't worry so much.

You have your whole life so why would you need a girlfriend at this very moment?

Good Luck and I'm sure you will be fine.

~S.

[mjctraider]

I feel the same way about being shy and if a girl shows interest in me, I'm too shy to do anything about it. I hate it and wish I could stop being so shy and not take the oppurtunity to talk to a girl that is interested in me. However I think that may have changed. There is this girl in one of my class in college that I think might be interested in me. I've seen her looking in my direction and not sure if she is looking at me or not, but I think she is.

 

I don't know her name and don't know anything about her, but for some reason out of all the attractive girls in that class, she is the only one that has caught my attention. And I don't know how or where it came from, but I have this confidence and self-esteem and motivation that I'm determined to ask her out next time I see her or at least exchange phone numbers.

 

Where this confidence came from I don't know becuase usually I'm like, "I'm too ugly that girl won't go out with me there is no reason to ask her out" I feel so motivated that I feel like I could almost walk up to any girl and ask them out. So I know how you feel, but hopefully you'll get the confidence and motivation like I have right now and go up to a girl that is looking at you or shows some interest and ask her out. Good Luck.

[Kyoshiro Ogari]

What you can do is try to eliminate those negative thoughts that you are giving yourself and think of yourself in her eyes, as if she is indeed watching you... attracted to you... wanting to get to know you better. Maybe this can help for that moment and give you the confidence to approach her. With me, I'm trying, but I get so nervous when I get the attention that I forget where I am and who I am.

[hecka_bekah]

Hey I just wanted to say that by not accepting compliments, you're telling others you're not deserving of them!

 

Maybe you think you aren't, by why does everyone else posting on here think that you are? Maybe it's because they see a genuine person who deserves the best The people you care about in your life see a wonderful person you just can't really see youself. So why not start getting in the habit of accepting the compliments and I'm sure you will then start to actually know that they are true!

 

It starts with saying positive things even if you don't really mean what you say because eventually you will start to believe it!

[MetalJoe]

Accept the compliments and just go for it

 

I used to be the same. I didn't get compliments very often, and when I did get them I would get embarrassed or ignore them because I refused to believe someone would actually be interested in me.

 

I still blush sometimes when I have someone show an interest, but I accept the attention now and try to take the opportunity.

 

Make eye contact, give them a smile and go with the flow. Enjoy ;-)

[Helpme86]

but if I see bunch of them, I start to shake like a Ricky Martin video.

LOL, use that to your advantage.

[SouthernSon]

Kyoshiro:

 

You've got some good advice coming here. Here's some input that I hope you will find useful.

 

I was just like...no scratch that...I WAS YOU when I was younger. I was just like that...I always hoped to catch the eye of an attractive girl in my youth...I dreamed of it. Well it started to happen and on a very regular basis too. What did I do? Well I rarely reciprocated...I don't even know why really. That's one thing I wished I would have done was go up to them and ask them out because I already knew for a fact that they liked me. I had girls that wanted to literally get me into bed and go at it with me...and not any hags either, these were very attractive young women. But nothing happened with a majority of them. *sigh* Well that's in the past and I can't change that now but I'll always remember that.

 

Look, I'm going to be very blunt here and hopefully it might get you to snap into action fast. Your profile says you're 32...is this correct? Look man, you are NOT getting any younger. You need to change the way you act around women NOW...not in another year, not when you're 35 or 40...NOW!

 

First off, a table of women checking you out?! Holy cow man...think about this for a second. You could have possibly had your pick of any of those hot ladies. It's possible maybe they weren't all interested in you, but you don't know that for sure now do you? You know why? Because you didn't go make a little small talk with them. Let me give you an example of what I would do if I were in your position and a table of sexy women were checking me out...

 

They all look over and smile at me? I look back, give a nice big smile. Maybe they might wave ...hell don't even worry about that...instead of seeing if they wave, I'd take a little initiative and I'll wave first. Wait for them to wave back. If they are within earshot, I'd probably ask them if they'd mind if I joined them? In all likelihood they'll very much want me to join them, so I'll pull up a chair. Great!

 

Now I deserve a little reward for being a little confident in myself and taking a little step into the unknown. So for 5 seconds as I pull up my chair to the table, I fantasize about these 4 gorgeous ladies naked and pawing all over me at once, their sweet perfumes and the smells of their hair draping on my body completely intoxicating me while I let them have their way with me....oh yeah. \

 

Now back to reality because that's highly unlikely to happen. So I'll ask them "how are you fine ladies doing today?" They'll likely ask me how I am in return, so here's my chance to flirt a little bit. I could answer "doing just fine", but that's kinda boring, so I'll choose instead to say something like "well today didn't start out so well but things are really looking up now", or something similar. Likely they'll all smile at that response, maybe I could ask them what brings them here today or maybe instead "so what coincidence has allowed me to grace the company of you 4 beautiful ladies today?" Hopefully this might make them blush a little bit, in which case, great. The other plus to saying this is that you've communicated to them you think they're all attractive so now you've sorta put the ball back in their court to flirt back a little with you.

 

After that I'd just see where the conversation went. Of course be courteous and introduce yourself and get their names as well.

 

So to summarize Kyo...stop worrying about if your hair is perfect or if there is food on your shirt somewhere. Just keep being yourself. The only suggestion I might make is when you are out in public like that to carry around some cinnamon mints or something just in case your breath could kill a squirrel at 50 yards. Don't worry about anything else, but you have got to take a little chance and just make small talk with strangers, even attractive women. I know it's a tough job talking to sexy ladies, but someone's gotta do it. We just need you to step and say "YES! I WILL talk to these women!"

 

Btw, shaking like Ricky Martin isn't all that bad if you get my drift.

[Veldrin DeVir]

Heya, I know exactly what you mean.. I have this fear of boys.. well, only boys I'm interested in, that know I like them. Before they know, we act like best mates and muck around.. but when I tell them and they tell me they like me back.. I just go all quiet and awkward and then I end up not talking to them at all and nothing happens.

Also, have really bad image problems. I always think I look really bad, even though my friends tell me I'm good looking.

I dont know what to think.. if I think I look good, and then go and talk to a guy and I dont really look good, I'll look like such a fool..

Ahh well..