Shyness, introversion and dating

The old chestnut "A guy who's interested in you will always ask you out" has resurfaced at Evan Marc Katz's dating advice blog. More to the point, a client (Angelina) asked him if it's true and his reply, though focussed on her specific scenario, kind of said yes. Those links I've given above should make it perfectly clear what I think of that.

Now, in the specific case that EMK answers we're talking about a friend who hasn't made any kind of move to date her in 10 years, despite all kinds of suggestive remarks he's made. Basically, Angelina admits to it being, "I fooled myself into thinking that my friend of 10 years had feelings for me".

I'm going to say that after 10 years either a) he never was interested in you or believes he cannot give you what you want/need, or else b) you're totally in his "friend zone" now, and even if he started off interested, he has trained himself not to any more; instead, you are someone it is safe to joke around with, because you are unavailable and uninteresting. Either way, trying to change the rules is going to lead to an experience that is familiar to many men (most of us/them the "Average Frustrated Chump" of PUA lore): painful rejection. Which is what Angelina experienced, and wanted reassurance about.

But the specific advice concerning Mr. 10-Yr-Friend is not something you can generalise to all men, or all "should I ask him out?" type scenarios. It's possible that had Angelina been bold and made her move when she first got to know the guy, then she would have had a happy outcome (I am also slightly concerned that it looks as though the only reason she made a move was that she thought he was interested, not because he was inherently interesting to her, which would be why she had waited so flippin' long to make her move). We just don't know.

But the thing that has prompted this post in particular is that EMK goes on to talk about the guys who don't tend to ask first in somewhat disparaging terms:

The first thing that I can think of is that he’s not some shy beta male who had a crush on you for ten years and was too embarrassed to make a move.

I’m guessing that maybe 25% of guys are that way. Maybe more, but I don’t know too many men like that. Guys who are the way I was in high school – befriending all the pretty girls in hopes of getting close to them, only to discover that you’re in the friend zone.

...

I’m guessing, Angelina, that your guy was in the top 75%.

It's strange that this is remarkably similar to the often-quoted figure for Introverts versus Extroverts. It turns out that that figure is a myth:

an old estimate from the early 1960's by Isabel Myers of the Myers-Briggs organization. It was just a personal guess with no real statistical data behind it.

She estimated that 25% of the population of the United States were introverts and 75% Extroverts.

...

The real number based on the first stratified random sample by the Myers-Briggs organization in 1998 showed Introverts 50.7% and Extroverts 49.3% of the USA.

It's worth noting also that a lot of people mistake introversion for shyness, and ascribe negative connotations to it, just like EMK did to the failure to ask a woman out. And he's ascribed similar negative connotations.

Several of his commenters (and some of EMK's own further remarks) implicitly reference the Nice Guy approach, and some even say that the only type of guy who doesn't make the first move is the Nice Guy type who ends up developing contempt, possessiveness and/or other symptoms of sexual entitlement (and therefore is Very Bad News). We cannot ignore that those people exist, and that there are even quite a lot of them. There may even be a significant overlap between them and guys who are genuinely shy. As the first link above explains, I used to be a "Nice Guy", but thankfully I saw where I was going wrong and got better.

Leaving aside the appropriately negative characterisation of the "Nice Guy", EMK and his commenters still ascribe to the reluctance/failure to ask first the characteristics either that he's not interested, or else he's "shy", "beta", "the bottom 25% of men", "insecure". But reluctance or failure to ask first could just be due to introversion, meaning that constantly being the one to "reach out" is very hard work and might not be worth it (unless you've got absolutely unequivocal signals already). As noted above, people often mistake introversion for shyness, or indeed "betaness". And let's face it, a lot of very successful and very pleasant guys are introverts, so they really aren't all that "bottom strata of men" - it's a mistaken perception. And, as noted above, around 50% of guys are likely to be introverts, some of whom are going to be a whole heap of bad news for other reasons (perhaps that they have a severe does of Nice Guyism), but a fair proportion of whom - probably a similar proportion of extroverts, anyway - will be very good boyfriend/husband material. But there's a much greater chance that you'll only find out if you ask them first.

One commenter on EMK's post all but stated outright that "women aren't supposed to get rejected, men are supposed to get rejected, women shouldn't have to face that kind of pain." (I'm paraphrasing and reading between the lines somewhat liberally, but it's the clear subtext of her remarks, and she does state outright that only men should have to brave being rejected.) Obviously, I think that's a narrow-minded and short-sighted view; and I feel it's also really quite vicious and hate-filled towards men. We shall say no more about such nonsense and I shall leave those opening links as my testimony in that regard.

All of which serves as preamble to the main point I wanted to make, which is to describe how come I know that - when it comes to dating - shyness and introversion are NOT the same thing, and that either can be the cause of not making the first move.

To begin with, I am going to quote Nathan's comment from EMK's comment thread:

A few of the women here have seriously skewed views of “shy” men. Insecurity can appear in anyone, regardless of how outgoing, charismatic, etc. they are. Furthermore, the way Flower White writes, you’d think all these guys are helpless and need to be handheld through the entire process. As someone who hovers in the middle of the introvert/extrovert scale, I’ve experienced both sides of the story. I have been the guy who makes the bold move, and I’ve been the guy who isn’t sure, and has waited a fairly long time to assess things. But I’m talking weeks or months; sure as hell not ten years.

We're talking the weeks/months timescale here - as described above, if it's a years timescale then even if I was interested to start with, I have put you firmly in the friend zone by that stage.

Let me take you back to the first ever date I went on, which wasn't even officially a date, except that we met up for a meal and a drink, and made special plans, and our only real purpose was to meet each other. It was a date.

We met through the Informed Consent kink community website; I put out tentative feelers, got a response, we gradually developed a rapport and about a month after we started chatting daily on IM, we agreed to meet. That's the introvert part. That's how it works best for me (phone, Skype, etc are also good ways of chatting in that introductory phase). She travelled down from London, I bought the food and drinks (see my rules about who pays - she wanted to go Dutch, but I refused).

Here's the shyness bit: apart from to confirm my identity when she got off the train, all the way from the station to the restaurant I was unable to speak. I was that shy. Completely tongue-tied. This is a woman I had been having occasionally sexually explicit conversations with for about a month. That's fear, insecurity, shyness, "betaness" for you. It had nothing to do with being an introvert, because one-on-one situations work pretty well for me with my introversion generally. But I was shy.

I think my shyness and my introversion are related, in that being introverted means/meant that I didn't get the same acclimatisation to other people that some people do; and that led also to fear of others. Hence, shyness and insecurity.

That was nearly 7 years ago now, and saints be praised, I have come a long way in overcoming that particular social handicap. It's not that I am no longer shy, it's that I have dispelled a lot of it and have techniques to deal with the rest, although it's obviously still there. I am not the shy, helpless, fearful little man that I was back then ("little" here being figurative; I was still a tubby bitch back then). It's odd that just 19 months ago when I wrote this post it seems I still felt the shyness quite strongly as well (though definitely was getting better).

However, nothing has altered the introversion I experience, which both a) makes it difficult to get to know someone (and it takes me a while to do so) and b) makes it difficult to judge a situation well enough to make a first move. Typically, if I am getting to know someone generally then by the time I know I am interested in her then we are already well towards the friend zone, because it takes that long to guess. Making "cold" pick-ups has so far not met with any success, so the other way I get to meet people is through dating sites (which at least means that we know this is not "making friends" - there's an agenda to be pursued!)

I still, even with my new-found confidence, very much prefer that a woman who is interested in me should make it explicit before I am forced to try; and I am still sufficiently unsure of implicit signals for it to be a risk to make the first move (doesn't mean I won't, but it takes me longer to do, and I may feel the moment has slipped away, putting you towards the "friend zone").

I really reject the "beta" classification that so many people seem to think goes with some of my personality traits. If I'm honest, 2 years ago it would have been pretty fair. But after last year especially (and before that, my relationship with SNS) I simply don't think it is any more. I am not the emotional wreck I once was (although the joins are still visible where I've pieced myself together again). The things that I can control in my life, I do, and though I am not "successful" in all my endeavours, I am successful in actually endeavouring. And who knows, maybe this is the year I get a decent job? I have confidence, strength, purpose - I have, in many ways, a sense of "alphaness". I just don't perform it in quite the way that people seem to demand I should.

If a guy seems to have the qualities you value, then you should go for it and brave the risk of being hurt (it's no more than you would demand of him in return, no?). It's possible he may not have thought of you that way, but your approach changes his mind; it may be he was interested and didn't yet feel sure to approach; it may be that he is a good guy but currently still at a "shy" stage in his life. It may be that he's just not interested (and indeed, it may be that he would have approached if he was). That's the risk you take. It's a fact that the vast majority of relationships are going to end in heartbreak anyway, so it is a part of living and loving and dating that it should hurt from time to time. Shying away from that is a good way not to find love at all, whether you do it while seeking, or at the start, or while you're in a relationship. And by not being willing to make the first move, you could be shutting out 50% of the great men out there (and seriously - if a guy is put off by the fact that you are clear about what you want, then do you really want to be with such a wimp in the first place?)