Too Shy to Date
Published on February 5, 2015
Do you consider yourself too shy to date? There was a time in my life where I felt that way. Either I didn’t go on any dates (sometimes for years) or, when I tried, I ended up feeling more stress than enjoyment. However, I knew I was unhappy being single. Fortunately, I found a method to dating that works…even for someone who considered himself “too shy” to approach women or to go on a date without looking stressed out.
Maybe you’re interested in how I had success (success that led to marriage). Before we get into what worked for me, I think there are a few questions I’d ask first:
- Are there situations where you find yourself outgoing? For example, if you’re with a small group of friends can you become outgoing in that context? Will you tease and joke around and generally act as outgoing as the next person in that context?
- Are there places where you are comfortable (work, friend’s house, etc.) where you feel more outgoing? Do you take charge at work or home but then struggle at the bar?
I ask those questions because I was able to answer yes to those questions. As an example, when I started at my first job (McDonald’s) I was super shy. I would hardly raise my voice to talk and was so quiet that on my first day my co-workers thought my name was Stan, not Brad (I eventually raised my voice but the name Stan stuck anyway).
Fast-forward six months and I’m the same guy, still working at McDonald’s, but now any time anyone new started I went out of my way to introduce myself and found it very easy to talk with people.
You might have a similar story to this. If you do or if you can answer “yes” to some of those questions above, my gut says that there is a way for you to date. You are not too shy.
But how?
Comfort Leads to Confidence
If you’re like me, your comfort determines how outgoing you will be. In my McDonald’s example, what changed was that I became comfortable: I had lots of friends, I could help the new people through training them and so on.
One challenge with dating is that unlike a job like McDonald’s, you often don’t get to date every day. There are times where there’s no opportunity to build that confidence.
For someone as shy as we can be, I feel we often pick the wrong goal. We end up with the goal of “finding a relationship”. Yes, that’s the long-term goal but I think to get to that goal we need a short-term goal that comes first: “become comfortable with dating”.
How I Found Comfort in Dating
I’m going to describe the steps that led to my finding comfort and then success with dating. I’m not saying this is the only way for a shy person to have success, but I am saying that this was very effective for me.
Step 1: Try Online Dating with a Service that Helps
First, and maybe you saw this coming, I think online dating is a huge help. However, if your shyness has been preventing your success, I don’t think every service will work. Many of the services will give you all the negative feelings that the real-world does when it comes to dating.
Instead of trying any service, I would recommend eHarmony. This was the first dating service that I had success with and here’s why: the way the service works builds your comfort. There are very specific rules around how people can communicate. Many of the stressful areas are entirely removed with the way that eHarmony works (you can learn more here).
The fact that eHarmony pairs you with specific people, puts structure around communication and removes any need to deal with rejection in the early stages all add up to something you can use to become comfortable while having a guided process to learn the ropes of online dating.
Step 2: Talk to Everyone
Do you remember what the goal is? It’s not finding a relationship…not yet anyway. It’s about becoming comfortable so the outgoing part of you has a chance to shine.
With that in mind, the next step is to talk to all of your matches. Or if not all of your matches, you need to be communicating every day. If comfort is the goal, you have to give yourself exposure to build it.
So don’t look at your matches with questions like, “Could I see myself marrying them?” That’s the wrong question at this stage. The right question is, “Could I have a conversation with this person and be willing to learn more about them?”. Looking at things this way will make you more open to communicating and give you the much needed experience so that you can start thinking about finding a relationship.
Maybe you’re not convinced by my success and still think you’re too shy to date. If so, I’d recommend you check out my Online Dating Guide. In it, I talk about my struggles with dating in general and then my struggles with online dating. In the beginning, it was hard and I did things wrong for a long time. You know the advice I just gave you to talk to lots of people? It took me six months to start trying that and only then did my shyness become less of an issue.
If you don’t want to read my guide, then I’d recommend one article from it on confidence versus comfort. This highlights more ways to gain comfort if you are dating online.
But most of all, please don’t convince yourself you’ll always be alone because you’re shy! I do think, especially in today’s world, there are always ways for us to connect.
Author: Brad
Brad initially struggled with online dating but over time became quite successful using it. He met his wife using online dating and has been giving advice and helping people improve their results since 2007. He has written a Free Online Dating Guide to help others find success with online dating. You can learn more about his personal experience using online dating and running this website here.
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