Are you one of those love-shy singles who doesn’t date because you’re timid? Are you single, shy and looking for love? Wish you knew how to overcome shyness? If you do, don’t be bashful about it because you’re in good company. According to Dr. Phillip Zimbardo, a Stanford psychologist, nearly 40% of singles are shy about asking someone out on a date.
Love-Shy Singles Description
A single person who is shy is often anxious (some have even been diagnosed with Social Anxiety Disorder) or uneasy around the opposite sex and dating situations Some may have ADHD. Many love-shy singles wrongly get tabbed as being “stuck up” or weird, when in fact they are simply lacking in self-confidence and uncertain how to communicate their feelings.
Many feel a love-shy single’s self-consciousness over finding a date stems from being afraid of rejection, which sadly is one of the fears that keep women and men single.
If you are a love-shy single Christian who has struggled with timidity in dating relationships, the following tips may help you conquer and overcome being shy:
Love shy singles -Tips on Overcoming
Address the Origin
Loneliness and shyness go hand in hand. Understanding why someone is love shy makes it easier to treat and heal, both clinically and spiritually. Although some psychologists feel shyness has genetic and environmental causes, many singles can trace their bashfulness to one or more embarrassing incidents that utterly ruined their self worth.
Think about your own past. Were you a shy boy? A shy girl? A shy teen? Was there anything that happened in your childhood that made you withdraw? Talking about these experiences with a qualified Christian counselor and/or understanding pastor can foster healing.
Imitate How Others Do It
Take note of how other singles communicate with the opposite sex. How do they introduce themselves? What topics do they discuss? What kind of body language is going on? Knowing how to have good conversation starter skills can help a love-shy person break the ice.
Enjoy Mixed Company
A low pressure way for a shy person to meet other single men and women is by joining clubs where people have a shared common interest, such as sporting activities, reading clubs, christian singles groups, etc. In this type of environment, dating relationships can occur naturally.
Remember It’s Not About You
Understand that shyness is, ultimately, a whacky form of self-centeredness. Instead of keeping your eyes on yourself, worrying what other people are thinking, practice taking a proactive interest in them: Seek out what they think, how they feel, how you can make them feel comfortable and relaxed.
It may be difficult for a shy person at first, so if you need to, pray for boldness in this area. If you do this, you will see your social skills improving, and find it much easier to converse with and meet others.
When we take our eyes off of ourselves, we can do amazing things with God’s help. Remember, Peter walked on water as long as his eyes were not on his own fears.
Consider Using an Online Dating Service
Many love-shy singles have found there are many benefits to using online Christian dating services like eHARMONY because they are able to meet a date in their own way, and at their pace. This can also occur in the safety of their own homes. For some reason people find it far easier to initiate conversations online rather than in person. Whatever works for you is what you should try.
LOVE SHY SINGLES- RESOURCES
If you are a shy woman or shy man who is interested in online Christian dating, this resource on how to meet more single Christians online may be helpful. There are also a number of Christian Singles articles you may also like.
CHRISTIAN DATING advice
24 Comments
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RM
I doubt if I would find a compatible woman using your service. You see, even though I am a very decent, quiet and courteous man (I have always kept my nose clean), I AM NOT A CHRISTIAN AND HAVE NO DESIRE TO BECOME ONE OF YOU PEOPLE. I believe in freedom of religion, but I am not religious. Also, I have an aversion to others who presume to impose their sense of morality upon others, which is why my nearly twenty year friendship ended with a born again christian. If I did meet a christian woman, she would have to accept me for who and what I am and refrain from bringing me into the fold because I will not tolerate that under any circumstances. Naturally, I would gladly accept her for what she is, but I would not subscribe to her status as a christian, and that is final. Goodbye.
Mr. Nice Guy
Hi. I’m a 28 yr old man who has never had a girlfriend. Aside from a few prostitutes,one of whom I lost my virginity with, I’ve only had 1 sexual relationship that lasted a month back in 2000. Grew up a lonely child, parents got divorced,moved to a new high school,and became a fat pothead.But it’s not unusual to be a virgin after high school and I always told myself hot chicks don’t dig fat guys. But then I got in shape after the army. thought I would get all the ladies. But I’ve been rejected over and over by what I thought were prospects.over 10.Let’s just be friends is the story of my life. I discovered I have love shyness. My interest in religion started before my love shyness, but now it seems to go hand in hand. ALL I WANT IS TO LOVE. TO SHARE MYSELF. Thanx for listening to me whine.
Cheikh
you haven’t love shyness, you give up the fight versus shyness.
dani
Mr. Nice Guy you have no idea how much i understand you man… i hope you will manage to figure things out and have a lovely family
Joe
I can’t believe that you used a woman in your picture regarding love-shyness. While women may be love-shy, the problem does not affect them the same way it does men, due to societal rules saying that men must make the first move. Love-shyness has virtually no effect on the ability of a woman to date and get married. With men it does. You should replace the picture with one of a man.
Me
Sorry Mr. Nice Guy, but your story does not sound like a love-shy person..
A real love-shy person is afraid of relationship and intimacy..
By definition you need to be a virgin to be love-shy.
True love-shyness men even feel uneasy or completely ignore girls who are making moves of them.
Cristian S. R.
Sorry if my english is bad.
I’m 22 and I’ve never had a girlfriend, even a kiss, I’m also virgin. Many people tell me that I’m handsome, and some girls stare at me, but I don’t know how to approach to them, I too serious and just don’t know what to tell them, and that makes me nervous. I can be months exchanging looks with a girl and never saying a word, and that is frustrating.
Some weeks ago I read in Wikipedia about love shyness, and I got identified with it, actually I shared all the characteristics of a love-shy man such as “rarely goes out socially with women”, “He has no history of any emotionally close”, “the love-shy tended to prefer vocal love ballads such as Broadway theatre music, brassy jazz music, easy listening, film soundtracks, and light classical music but not traditional classical music…Rock music of almost every kind is disliked..”, “love shy men would like to have daughters instead of sons”, and many other characteristics that when I read them I felt very sad. Now Im trying to overcome this shyness through self-help books, learning to dance, and going out more.
TheGoat
Aye. Its so frustrating to have this problem makes me wanna pull my brains out. Parents say I look good and I have occasionally noticed the odd girl watching.Never had a gf never even been close.Never mucked around with sex. I wait paitiently each year im disapointed.Unfortuantely about 3 years ago I took a nasty blow from trying to get a girl [despite trying to fix it up she now treats me like a horrible evil dangerous person even though I did nothing wrong] and its completely ruined me. I want just one girl to love but I am incapable of doing anything about it and its so frustrating. I know if nothing is done that ill probably never find anyone. Seeing whats happened to the older love shys is not encouraging. For all I know there might be one who does like me but I cant do anything and its driving me mad.
Annonymous
You know it infuriates me to see how this problem is so widespread, yet society doesn’t give a hoot.. i am not supposed to curse on a Christian Website I guess, right? LOL… anyway! As I was saying, society really does a number on people who are “Love-Shy” – can I ask an innocently and mind you, stupid question? – Where did the term, “Love-Shy” come from anyway?! I believe that men, and I do mean men!, who are Love shy are really trying to meet someone of the opposite sex, but – and excuse me Ladies for saying this – yes i am a man and I know what I’m talking about here!!! Men who are love shy are just victims of a society which quickly likes to label and categorize everyone into some kind of REDICULOUS LABELING STRATA.. get me? Love Shy?? No, no, no.. men who are lonely and have tried over and over and over and over and over and over to get a date or be with a woman, only to be rejected over and over and over and over… again, makes one feel self-pity and self concious and feeling like – “LOVE IS NOT FOR ME” and ” I’m a big fat loser when it comes to love”.
As a Christian, I can remember when I went to Church the last time – about 1 year ago – YES, NEWS FLASH, NOT ALL CHRISTIANS GO TO CHURCH EVERY SUNDAY!!!.. when I was there last year a priest got up on the alter and began to give the sermon, after a few minutes, he began to speak about the “Love” that Christ has for all of us.. then suddenly he spoke about how they’ve noticed (the Church has noticed) a drop in the numbers of young people getting married!!! – WELL EXCUSE ME!!! and he went on to say, “well, we don’t know what’s going on…” ‘Come on now!!! WAKE UP!!! Smell the coffee burned quite some time ago!! You – the priest in the church, don’t know what’s going on??!!! – Why don’t you ask the “Ladies” – what’s going on? Why every time a MAN asks them out – they instinctively say – NO and “Let’s just be friends”. Am I squarely placing the blame on women, no I am not, however, men are not GOD and we can’t – as in the Motion Picture movie, “What Women Want” staring Mel Gibson, intuitively know what a woman is thinking at any given moment in time. This is a dream all of us guys have, to be able to read a woman’s mind and know if she’s truely into us and know, GOOD HEAVEN’S – if when we make our “MOVE” on her, if she’ll be the next one to say NO! or will she be moved beyond our wildest dreams to say YES!
I am not “Love Shy” by definition, however, as a divorced man myself, now 1 year and 2 months after getting divorced, I don’t go out with women, I have no social contacts with women and I certainly don’t have a girlfriend. I have friends that are women, however, and I speak with experience here, being friends with women is not the same as being in a committed relationship with one! Some women just want to be friends and others want more than friends, our job as MEN is to get a sense as to which one’s are the “Marrying” kind and which one’s are not. I am not “Love shy” however, I’ve been alone for more than one year now and I feel very alone, post divorced it is a very lonely feeling. However, last year I went out with several women, but – I WAS NOT ABLE TO BREAK THE FRIENDS BARRIER – so, even going out with women is no – NO GUARANTEE that you’ll get anywhere near 1st, 2nd or 3rd base! I’ve been married once before and I am very serious here!! I will NEVER EVER REMARRY EVER AGAIN!!! and mind you, I’m a Christian… go figure that one out! So, it is possible that being hurt in ANY relationship with a woman, can make a MAN become like a kind of “Love shy”??!!! YOU BETCHA my find feathered friends, YOU BETCHA! Well, anyway, that’s my speach. Oh and Ladies if a man has the guts to ask you out, be nice and let him down easy if you don’t want to go out with him. And for us Guys, don’t worry, as they say, no guts, no glory. The worst that will happen is she’ll say no.
The views expressed here are my own and no one else’s. I share my experiences with you without any reservation whatsoever.
Love-Shy-Girl
I am a love-shy girl. I’m 26 and have never been in a serious relationship. I used to be very shy in every way, but I’ve worked on it and now am properly assertive in my job, though some still describe me as meek.
I’ve tried hard to overcome my love-shy ways, but I still need a lot of work. I read a great book that helped me a lot just in the way I approached dating — How to Get a Date Worth Keeping.
I’ve tried to implement the advise of that book into my life, but it is very difficult for me.
Each year I hope and pray that God would bring me someone to love, someone that would take care of me, and someone that we could make each other happy. But it just hasn’t happened.
I don’t know how to get a guy’s attention. I’m a good girl, and I know I’m beautiful and get compliments all the time, but guys just don’t ask me out.
I often feel very very sad because I am single. But I don’t know what to do to change my situation.
Enrique
The solution to all your problems of love and social shyness is very simple, you just have to stop using products containing chemicals such as deodorants and perfumes, believe it or not these chemicals create an alteration in the brain by creating this kind of feelings of shyness, so the solution is simple, do not use deodorants and perfumes, deodorants can be replaced by lemons because these are natural deodorants without chemicals, well, i gave you the solution, try it and start flirting.
love-shy girl13
I’m also a love-shy girl. I’m 20 and never had a boyfriend or even had a date. A lot of people ask me how come I don’t have one yet. They said I’m good-looking. I’ve had some guys who asked me out, but I just do not go with them because I don’t know how I will act. Making eyecontacts with other people is kinda hard for me but I find it more difficult to make eye contact and make conversations with potential partner. I’m very frustrated about this because I feel like they will feel bored and they might think I’m weird because I don’t know how to interact with them. I hope I can overcome this real soon. I feel like our society really pressure singles like us.
Cirrus
Shyness is NOT a form of self centeredness.I,myself a love shy,am constantly wondering if I could be with someone I like because I’ve established that no one wants to see me happy,allow me to be happy,or I don’t think I’m allowed to be happy.Shyness is not healthy.Shyness is NEVER good.
Shy boy
I’m a 16 year old boy who is a real shy guy. I don’t know much of all this Christian stuff but I have all the charaterisics of being shy. Don’t get me wrong I have. Lot of friend and make a lot of people laugh but Sorry for any misspelling words…when it comes to girls it feels as if my body won’t let me treat them as any regular person. I am really nice to them and do my best to not be hated. I just can’t be my regular self around them. I have found this girl in my life Which i have te biggest crush on. Every time I think of her it rips me apart knowing I am a shy kid who doesn’t know how to cop with all this love. Love is a very mysteryous thing. Without it life is worthless. If I didn’t care about love so mug I wouldn’t be here writeing this probably boreing you. I hope one day I will find out if the love of my life has the same feelings for me. If you read all of this thank you. It means a lot more to me than you think.
anonymous
Sorry for my bad English.
I’m a 18 years old girl and I think I might be love-shy. I never had a boyfriend and I never been kissed. My friends and familly tell me that I’m pretty and even some guys that were interested in me. But when I’m with a boy I get really nervous and I turn really really red!! It’s so frustrating!!!
leigh
I am another “nice guy” who , like so many others who are under
your radar, are completely out of the “game” and resigned, but
happier, to be out of this horrible hypocrisy.
We do NOT believe that sex is “owed” to us and we do NOT believe that women are “inferior”. We were raised to act in a
way to treat women with respect ( opening doors, carrying
packages) not because they were weak, but because it was the
right thing to do.
We are the ones who volunteer to collect coats for the
underprivileged kids, coach soccer ( we have no children) and
attend the fundraisers for fallen police officers.
I cannot imagine sex with someone who does not want me,
I would never force myself upon or hurt anyone and I would
want to bring my partner pleasure before I reached my own.
We do not do things toward a goal of pleasure finding,
since we get pleasure out of doing things right. We are
the guys who make the girl’s mother LOVE us, even if the
girl can only see us as ,yes, you know it, “a friend”.
An honest attempt to be a good host for dinner, a good
listener is met with “you , as the man are supposed to make
the move” , no matter how offensive or inappropriate it may
feel. Yes, we know that we need to be “something else” and
practice “the right way to act and what to say”, but that
sounds as dishonest and hypocritical to us as it sounds
“wimpy and nerdy” to you, so the women who respond can
ALWAYS say that we think that we are “entitled” to
something when we do not.
My community honors me, and I am deeply flattered,
and I deal daily with women on a professional basis,
sometimes feeling great comfort that they do not know
ANYTHING about the fact that I do all of things that I
love to do —– and go home alone.
I guess I watch television to see just what kinds of
one on one conversations can take place between men and
women, but my imagination just is not that good.
You can have your game, but call it what it really is,
and leave “really good guys” out of it.
dude
A shy girl is cute, a shy guy is weird.
Cheryl Tieman
How do meet a man if your?
H. Mickey Gill
Dude: Why do you think a shy guy is weird? If anything, I think a guy’s so-called “shyness” is his aversion to a dating system designed to screw him (and most other guys) over at every turn.
W
Not to mention that dating tends tocurrently favor the increasingly sociopathic and amoral secular ideal of a man, who by definition will be VERY assertive, vs. the Christian/moral man.
Melusi Lukhele
Am glad to here that am not the only person who feels love shy in this world. Am a male at the age of 19 who has never had a girlfriend let alone converse with a girl due to this shyness. When ever am with the opposite sex I feel nervous and cant even say a word. I had a biggest crush of my lyf at my seventh grade, on a girl dat i sat next to in class. We used to talk about a lot of things bt i waz too shy to tel her how i feel, i felt connected to her nd i think she felt the same way 2. We then seperated she went to another school. Two yrs later, i got her mxit contact (social networking site). Then i made my move ther, i told her how i feel on the site. She waz so digusted that i made my move there nd told me she had feelins for me b4 but she moved on, she waz sèeing someone. My mind felt lyk collapsing ryt ther. Since then i have failed to love another girl. Though the have been some galz who have shown keen interest, i fail talk to girls, precisely. Pliz help me
Ms. Helper
I recommend everyone to read Boundaries by Dr. Henry Cloud & Dr. John Townsend.
Having clear boundaries is essential to a healthy, balanced lifestyle. A boundary is a personal property line that marks those things for which we are responsible. In other words, boundaries define who we are and who we are not.
Boundaries impact all areas of our lives:
Physical boundaries help us determine who may touch us and under what circumstances.
Mental boundaries give us the freedom to have our own thoughts and opinions.
Emotional boundaries help use to deal with our own emotions and disengage from the harmful, manipulative emotions of others.
Spirtual boundaries help us to distinguish God’s will from our own and give us renewed awe for our Creator.
Often, Christians focus so much on being loving and unselfish that they forget their own limits and limitations. When confronted with their lack of boundaries they ask:
Can I set limits and still be a loving person?
What are legitimate boundaries?
What if someone is upset or hurt by my boundaries?
How do I answer someone who wants my time, love, energy, or money?
Aren’t boundaries selfish?
Why do I feel guilty or afraid when I consider setting boundaries?
Lawrence
As I’ve been reading up on this shyness subject, ive related to most of it. I do not fear a relationship, but I do fear of intimacy. I’ve kissed and madeout and all that, but when it comes to sex, I fear it like death. I’m proportionate and do not lack anything in that department, but I just fear of messing up, or doing the wrong thing to upset her and think differently of me. My situation isn’t as radical as some I’ve read, but it has put me in a depressive type state and life is seeming more pointless. Help is all I ask for.