Feeling nervous around women you find attractive is common and particularly so for people who’re struggled with shyness and social anxiety. Although this article is mostly aimed at young men who’ve struggled with shyness & social anxiety, some of the points might be applicable to women too. This article is mostly going to cover immediate strategies & helpful thoughts for the moment rather though longer term approaches will be briefly mentioned. If nervousness is a problem for you then you may find some of the things here to be of help.
Factors that can influence nervousness around women (and some of the beliefs)
- The general idea that being shy, awkward, quiet or nervous is terrible
- Being focused on the outcome of the interaction (specific to this)*
- The belief that the more attractive someone is the more unforgiving they must be (specific to this)
- The belief that social interactions are all about showing off and impressing rather than finding common ground and connecting
- Not being sure how to go about starting conversations & running out of things to say and hitting silences (a general)
- The thought that people around are watching, knit-picking & sneering (general social anxiety)*
Some of the above reasons are specific to this, though many are general social-anxiety-related reasons. Regardless of what’s applicable, there’s a lot that can be done in the moment to reduce nervousness when you’re starting a conversation. Below are some helpful thoughts and strategies.
Some helpful thoughts to hold onto
- It’s entirely normal to feel nervous around people you find attractive, we all do, there’s nothing weak or pathetic about it
- You don’t need to say super-impressive things, it’s all about giving the other person things to work with other than one-word responses, hope that takes off some of the pressure
- Remember women are human beings like you, have exactly the same feelings, thoughts and insecurities as you do
- Most passer-by’s have better things to focus their energy on than focus on why someone random person looks awkward
Helpful strategies for reducing nervousness around women in the moment; quick index
- Accept that you’ll feel nervous & remind yourself that it’s OK
- Shift your focus away from how nervous you look
- Try not to focus on the outcome or getting approval (critically important), view the interaction as both curiosity, finding out something new & as practice
- Remind yourself you can’t make everyone like you
- Don’t worry about the perfect opener
Accept you’ll feel nervous
First of all, take the pressure off not to feel nervous. A surprising amount of unnecessary social anxiety comes from pressure not to feel nervous. Everyone feels nervous talking to strangers, it’s also likely the people around you do too. Perhaps you’re not used to talking to women you find attractive, don’t give yourself a hard time and don’t expect too much from yourself & to remember that this is something that gets better with practice. Paradoxically, the more you can accept you’ll feel nervous, the less you’ll be. The lizard brain takes a while to register that they’re not ‘dangerous’ even if you logically know that. Remember that it will only get better with practice, don’t feel too bad if your nerves play up.
Shift your focus away from from how nervous you look
Another major source of nervousness is focusing on how nervous we’re coming across and whether people will notice & think badly of it. If you struggle with nervousness around women it’s highly likely that you might be focused on how nervous you look & what she’ll think if she noticed. For all forms social anxiety, focusing on how anxious or nervous we look tends to make it worse. We need to shift our focus of attention away from ‘how nervous am I coming across’ onto other more helpful things. Instead, we need to focus the attention outward; who do they know or seem to know? What might they be interested in? How are they feeling right now? What are they doing? What could I find out about them? What could I find in common?
Focus on finding something new & seeing it as practice instead of outcomes
One of the biggest factors that contributes to nervousness around attractive women is focusing on getting an outcome, making her like you, getting approval. Instead of focusing on getting a good outcome it might be more helpful to see the conversation as both practice and finding out something new. How much we’re focused on outcomes & getting approval is partly influenced by our self-esteem and experience which will be covered in future. However, even if your self-esteem isn’t brilliant viewing your interactions as practice, being curiosity & reminding yourself that you can’t get everyone to like you can go be helpful for reducing focus outcome and can take the edge off nerves.
Remind yourself that you can’t make everyone like you
Another closely-related reason for feeling unreasonably nervous is having a tendency to see the outcome of one interaction with a women as a gauge to how ALL future interactions will go; a barometer as to how all future interactions will go. That’s an AWFUL LOT of pressure to but under. It can helpful to remind yourself that nobody can get everyone to like them, even people who seem super confident & that how one conversation goes isn’t proof of how valuable you are or how future interactions go. People who are confident realize this & it can take off a tremendous amount of pressure to keep this in mind.
Stop focusing on ‘chatting up’ & saying the ‘perfect opener’
Another reason for nervousness could be this thought of ‘I must say the perfect thing’, ‘I’ve got to be funny’. It can be much more helpful to simply focus on just starting a conversation. Remember KISS; keep it simple stupid! The key to a good ‘opener’ is one that gives talking points & thing to work with & something that invites more than one word response. General approaches such as asking how they ended up in the same situation as you, making an observation about the situation around you, bringing up something outside topic that are people are likely to be familiar with etc. can be useful for this. The truth is, openers rarely are elaborate & well crafted. Just viewing the interaction as simply starting a conversation rather than chatting up can take off quite a bit of pressure.
*NOTE; There’s a lot of unhelpful advice saying things such as ‘nervousness is not masculine’, ‘nervousness is not attractive’, ‘don’t show nervousness or you’ll make people uncomfortable’; these are obviously not a helpful thoughts to be having when trying to start a conversation!
Longer term approaches which will help
The following are also important to reduce your degree of nervousness but these are things to work over the longer term but won’t be covered in detail here. These take time and can be ongoing but over time will help;
- Change and challenge any unhelpful beliefs about nervousness
- Learning and practising more general approaches to starting conversations
- Expand your social opportunities (this can help reduce your focus on outcomes)
- Live your life in a valued direction (this can help reduce your focus on outcomes & help you see rejection as ‘like it or lump it’)
Conclusion
If nervousness around women is a problem for you then hopefully everything above shall be of help. This article is focused on helpful things to focus in during social situations and conversations. Things that influence your degree of nervousness include beliefs you may have picked up about nervousness, how confident you feel at the basics of conversation and how much we care about people’s approval & how used you are to talking to women. How much we care about people’s approval is influenced by many other factors such as our overall sense of worth and self-esteem & will be covered in future. Even so, many of these strategies hear can be very helpful. A lot of advice on ‘how to be confident with women’ focuses too much on eliminating nervousness & gives too much focus on it which if anything can make it worse. What we really need to do is take the pressure off.
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