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Aren't women great...but...

15:19 / 19.04.04

They make me really nervous. I used to be terribly shy at school, but the only aspect that has carried itself over into adult life, is that women make me nervous - to the point that I nearly suffer panic attacks for the first few times that I meet someone new. Once past this, i'm fine. Does anyone else get this with opposite/same sex meetings? Any advice?

15:31 / 19.04.04

How old are you Jack?

15:46 / 19.04.04

29.

16:18 / 19.04.04

Any advice?
paxil.

16:23 / 19.04.04

My mum used to tell me when I was going into a situation with people that made me panic to just imagine (them) in their underwear...

Why do they make you panic?

16:36 / 19.04.04

Not really sure. I've not had any bad experiences with them, and it's all types, so don't think it's that I find them attractive so panic, but I've always been like it. As I said, after a few meetings I'm fine, but means that I can come across as rude or odd for the first few meetings with people. I'd rather not take antidepresents as well. I just get hit by the fear.

17:02 / 19.04.04

Have you tried to figure out what exactly you're afraid of? It's likely not women per se but some particular factor relating to them. If you can narrow it down further the problem may seem less big.

17:13 / 19.04.04

I'm guessing you didn't grow up with sisters?

Be around women more, on bases other than potentially romantic ie. spend more time with work colleagues, female friends, etc. If you get stuttery, tell them quite honestly that you've always got tongue-tied around women; they may even find this charming. I'm sure they'll be happy enough to jump down off their pedestals and play shrink with you - but you need to do this with women themselves, not with text on a message-board.

And no, don't go near a sodding antidepressant.

17:16 / 19.04.04

Booze, on the other hand...

17:17 / 19.04.04

Yeah, booze is always good for those confessional moments. Imbibe enough to loosen your tongue, but not your gastric contents.

17:38 / 19.04.04

I grew up with one older sister and a very strong mother figure (but don't worry, I have no ed gein tendencies!). Also worked in an all woman office a few years back. Goes back to school days. A lot of people thought that I was gay because as soon as I found out a woman liked me, that was it, complete shut down.

I'd like to think that I was quite a rounded person, but cannot get over these nerves when I initially meet women. But I'll take the advice, get drunk and surround myself with them!

17:44 / 19.04.04

Okay, Plan B: have you tried wearing their skin?

17:52 / 19.04.04

I can definitely relate, I used to be very insecure around women, and this has only recently gotten better. I've had some succes in using magic to correct the parts of m personality I didn't like.
If you are magically inclined, maybe you could try something like that. It's basically just selftherapy.

Scrambled Password Bogus Email

18:27 / 19.04.04

Ganesh, I will meet you one day, maybe soon, and will present you with a handy pocket sized invoice for the keyboards and monitors I have ruined splurging coffe/tea/some other beverage from my mouth/throat all over said computer accessories due to the simple fact, previously noted on many threads, that you crack me up.

18:50 / 19.04.04

as soon as I found out a woman liked me, that was it, complete shut down.

I was exactly the same at school. And college for that matter. And for me at least, the key was in the very strong mother figure bit (read: demanding and overbearing). Psychologically speaking, I viewed girls as a drain on my emotional resources, rather than as people I could have a genuine exchange with. All I could perceive what was/would be demanded of me, and how I might be judged/scorned if I failed to deliver. Thinking like that, it’s no wonder I wanted to run a mile. But I was viewing women through a distorted lens based on bad family experiences.

Don’t know if that’s at all like your situation, but when you say I've not had any bad experiences with them, does that include your mother? If ‘very strong’ is meant as a genuine compliment to her character, then hey, I can’t really explain how you’re feeling. If it’s a euphemism, however, then that's probably where you want to focus your attention. I did counselling a few years ago about this very issue, and it was very helpful. It particularly helped that the lady who counselled me was a great example of someone about whom 'very strong' could be a genuine compliment.

And no doubt like yourself, I think women are fantastic, so it's a very painful thing to feel alienated from them. But there are probably perfectly good explanations for your apparently irrational behaviour.

AC (To the drizzo!)

20:32 / 19.04.04

"Interact with them..."

But what if you're surrounded by muntwives?

03:09 / 20.04.04

A what?

07:31 / 20.04.04

Speaking as one of 'them' (does anyone else find this othering rather perturbing?) perhaps you might try thinking of the women you encounter as people rather than 'women'. If you still get tongue-tied (and if you get tongue-tied and nervous when meeting any new person, irrespective of gender) then it might be worth working on general nervousness rather than nervousness relating to women. If it is specific to women, again ask yourself why you think you are nervous in these situations.

Perhaps the other person is also nervous - have you thought about that? If you try to think about the other person, why s/he is interesting, why you are interested in them, and less about your own reactions to them (or even your potential reactions, if you find yourself drying up from the get-go).

I don't like this 'women are great, but' thing, either. No doubt some women are great, and some are not, and some are attractive, and some are not, but sweeping generalisations are rarely helpful in situations like these.

07:51 / 20.04.04

Thanks KCC, I've tried several times to respond to this thread and given up. It's exactly the 'othering' that I wanted to address and yet found was putting me off.

Women are just people, Jack - there are nice ones, less nice ones, shy ones, confident ones ... I agree with KCC that you ought to just try to see women as other people and relate to them on that level. Otherwise, even if you do manage to speak to a woman you're attracted to, how can you ever hope to have a healthy relationship with such an alien being?

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

08:35 / 20.04.04

[White Men Can't Jump] Listen to the lady, man. [/White Men Can't Jump]

Just out of interest (and I'm not being quite as nastily sarcastic as it may sound, btw- I genuinely wish you the best in overcoming this) does it make you nervous when "they" reply to this thread?

Seriously, dude, you're getting all worked up about nothing. Just try to forget when you're talking to anyone whether they're male, female or fucking fish. (Although if you spend too much time talking to fish, that could be a REAL problem.) Sounds to me like your conversation is suffering from performance anxiety. (Apologies for sounding bland here- I know little about psychology, BUT...) Sounds to me like you've given yourself some sort of mental block on these situations. If it can be put there, it can be removed. Probably by you. And probably a lot easier than you think.

And good luck.

09:13 / 20.04.04

Strong mother figure? Inadequate around women? Feeling intimidated?

Is it up to me to state the obvious?

Crawl on your knees over to the world of Femdom. You won't have to speak. Hell, you probably won't be able to speak. And your twitchy nervousness will be a boon. Everyone will want a piece of that. Also, it'll be harder to accuse you of objectification if you are...well, objectified. Everyone's a winner.

09:47 / 20.04.04

The title to the thread was not meant as a generalisation, just as a title. My mother is a stronge figure as in admirable in that she held the family together and never buckled, not over-bearing, very very supportive and trusting.

The thread wasn't set up to bemoan women and demonise them as alien as such, it was more an attempt to find out if other people have panic-moments, or have overcome them and what they did to take their minds off of the fear and back onto real life, mine just so happens to kick in when I meet new people, in particular women.

As I have said, after two or three meetings I relax and get on perfectly well with men women and fish, it's just inital nerves. It becomes a bit of a cycle, nerves, frustration, nerves feeling stupid for feeling nervous, more nerves - just wanted to know if anyone else has anxiety problems that they have broken.

Sorry if this wasn't (and looking at it now, it isn't) clear.

It's not so much that I focus on women in association with negativity due to the anxiety caused when the fear kicks in during intitial meetings, it's more that the fear is very crippling, socially.

10:32 / 20.04.04

It wasn't so much your intention that I was questioning, more the way in which the language you used (and which several other people have used in this thread - I wasn't only referring to your posts) seemed to categorise women as 'them' - as someone else (Stoatie?) said, as if 'they' were another, alien species - and that this wasn't questioned at all, either by you or by any other posters in the thread. This seemed to me to be more likely to exacerbate your problems than otherwise.

miss wonderstarr

11:06 / 20.04.04

What's the big deal? Our society is categorised by gender. You may have noticed this when in a clothing store, at the gym changing rooms or when you visit a public bathroom. Men and women are styled differently and styled to behave differently. That division between male and female, or masculine and feminine if you want, is perpetuated throughout most of the world. You can hardly blame one individual for picking up on it and regarding women as "different to men", if it's the binary distinction at the heart of an entire culture.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

11:22 / 20.04.04

Yeah, point taken. But race was the defining point of (avoiding the cheap way out) South Africa for a very long time... didn't make it a good thing. Yes, there is still a huge gender division in western soicety- and probably most societies. (But that would be a Head Shop topic.) Also, I don't think it's what's being got at here- you yourself say there's a big gender distinction now. Does it make you nervous when talking to the opposite sex from whichever you are? Are you frightened of people with different bits?

I think all that was being said wasn't "oh, these patriarchal western societies breed misogyny, aren't they terrible". It was more "jack, think about this. These people without willies ain't that weird if you let yourself get to know them".

No disrespect, kovacs, but I think it's more one guy's personal issues that we're dealing with here than the way society works. And the fact that people have brought up the gender divide as part of it seems to me to be more down to the fact that that's what he's having problems with, rather than whether it's right or wrong.

11:38 / 20.04.04

Yes; kovacs, my point wasn't really 'how dare you think that there is such a thing as an opposite gender' (though of course this could well be a matter for debate - probably elsewhere, there are some v interesting threads on the subject in the Head Shop). It was more 'thinking of the category 'women' as 'them' or in some way 'other' is probably not going to help you overcome difficulties such as nervousness in social situations'.

I am personally a little uncomfortable with threads, on public boards with a large readership of people who identify as both male and female, which seem to assume that it's totally umcomplicated and non-controversial to start threads with titles such as 'Aren't women great... but...' (whatever the intention was!) and to refer to women en masse, and as 'them' or 'they', and that was part of what I was getting at.

miss wonderstarr

14:53 / 20.04.04

Sure, I agree that thinking of women as a different species is not just not going to help you get over your nervousness -- it's probably the cause of it.

I did think about race (ethnicity) as a possible counterpart, and the truth is that black men and white men, in Britain at least, are not socially distinguished in anything like the same way as are white men and white women. Black men don't, in general -- though there might be interesting arguments to the contrary -- wear different clothes, go to different changing rooms, use different bathrooms. Men and women are often segregated in British culture -- I would say "Western" culture but actually my understanding is that it's even more the case in Middle Eastern culture, for instance.

But, no, absolutely -- the thread wasn't about that. I don't think our social structures help a guy who sees women as Other, however.

Does it make you nervous when talking to the opposite sex from whichever you are? Are you frightened of people with different bits?

Yeah, sometimes. My erotic focus or whatever is women, so if I find a girl sexually attractive, yes that might make me nervous, or make my exchange with her feel more loaded -- flirtation is a nervous process itself, in a good way. If I never felt a weird thrill around girls, I think that would be a shame to be honest. I like that kind of charge sometimes. But no, it doesn't happen to me with all women by any means.

15:26 / 20.04.04

I think one way of translating Kit-Kat Club's point is to suggest that jack74 try talking to women as if they were men. Which, in my opinion, would be sound advice.