Approach Confidence

I strongly believe that men and women are more or less alike despite their physical differences. In fact, the more I study what attracts MOOS (Members Of Opposite Sex) to one another, the more amazed I become that the genders have such a difficult time understanding each other. When you get right down to it, most of the double-talk happens because most of us-men and women-have a hard time getting outside of our own heads and considering the perspective of someone else. And yes, you are thinking correctly: that of getting stuck in our own headspace is really one of those areas that is not particularly "gender-specific". How's that for the Mother Of All Ironies?

Nothing better underlines this idiosyncrasy than what is known as the "approach anxiety". This topic needs no introduction for 99% of you who are reading this. Since the dawn of time, men have encountered women who obviously interest them and have collectively clammed up. Even the most ostensibly fearless men out there hesitate when confronted with the idea of approaching a particularly interesting woman. In fact, because they often fear the verdict of being "accepted" or "rejected" by a woman they approve on sight, the "contest" that could end in "getting beat by a girl" is too much specially for the "tough guys" among us. Funnily, some of the biggest w-puppies around hotties are U.S. Marines on 1000cc sport bikes. Go figure…. Whatever the exact reason for approach anxiety (e.g. fear of rejection, lack of things to say, "getting beat by a girl", etc.) most men deal with it sometime in their lives. Whereas in the Land Of The MOOS, women are typically unaware that approach anxiety even exists...let alone is such a limiting factor for most men.

Of course, most of us guys have no idea how women themselves view approach anxiety. They've never bothered to find out. After all, that would ironically have involved walking up to them and asking them, right? The first time I asked some girl if she heard the term "approach anxiety", she fully acknowledged that even she had no idea it was going on. For her, and for every single one of her friends, the assumption had been made that men who don't walk up to them and say "hello" are simply uninterested. Following logically, this means that since over 95% of all men are too timid to approach a woman, most women go through life thinking that less than 5% of all men are actually interested in them. Factor in the reality that the more intriguing a woman is to a broader cross-section of the male population the greater the percentage of men who lack the courage to approach her becomes, and you can quickly figure out why so many particularly sharp women are dateless. I specifically remember the doe-eyed beauty of my college days going without a date for months. And that's just one example. Recently I went and tested what I had learned. I asked many reasonably attractive woman I happened across how often guys came up to them an introduced themselves. By far the most frequent answer was, "Um...not often." For many, it was such a rare occurrence that each time it happened was like a "scene from a movie", soon to be recounted to every one of her girlfriends in detail. And yes, to my own utter shock, an overwhelming majority of women usually assumed that men who didn't talk to them were simply uninterested. Granted, most knew that some men were too shy to talk to them, but sadly none saw how universal approach anxiety really is.

What's more, here's the real kicker: Most women I talked to claimed that they wished more men would talk to them. They LOVE when it happens, and would be thrilled if it happened more often. Simply put, they fail to comprehend why they're so freaking "scary" to men. Repeatedly, I heard things like this from women I checked in with: "Who me? Why in the world am I so scary to men? I'm a nice person!" When I explained to these women how very real approach anxiety is to most men, and that a far higher percentage of men around them probably were very interested than they supposed, most of them were stumped. "Wow. Really? And here I was thinking I just wasn't so attractive after all." Oh, and for what it's worth, when I asked women about this, not one of them was rude to me. Not one. But here's the dope- Women are overly conscious of their safety. Before they allow themselves to relax, enjoy your company, and possibly become attracted to you, they must assess whether or not you're going to complicate their lives and possibly hurt them physically or emotionally. And the only way you can assuage a woman's instinctive concern on this matter is by REFUSING TO ACKNOWLEDGE the issue and showing her she's got nothing to worry about.

Again, a woman is always on the lookout for a guy who is similar enough to UNDERSTAND her, but who is also DIFFERENT enough to be able to FASCINATE her and TEACH her things. So the bottom line is, if you can get out of your own head and understand what's really going on inside a woman's for a change, you'll find that an "unfair advantage" has been right under your nose all this time. Women all over are watching most men walk right on by and are wondering what's wrong with themselves. I realize this is a preposterous thought to you. But how could your life change if you put it to the test? Remember, women follow your lead. If you can walk up to a woman confidently, expecting a positive response, then she too feels comfortable and positive towards you. Contrast this to working up the nerve and bracing yourself for a contest when approaching a woman. And when you expect rejection, you lead a woman to give you exactly what you expect. Rather, understand that a woman is probably oblivious to the very existence of approach anxiety, take that to heart and begin viewing women as they view themselves. They're wondering why you keep passing them by. After all, they're even not that scary to themselves !