I (23M) was sitting on a bench drawing and a girl sat on the same bench, then she started talking about my drawings, I said a few words about them, but I started to feel that I was getting very nervous, and after some phrases i just stood up and walked away to another part of the park. A few minutes later I saw her heading my way again. But when she saw me her face became sad and she turned around and walked back the other way. Now i feel so awful about all this ,I didn’t mean for this to happen but it kinda did. I want to ask people any advice of how to overcome this fears so this is not happened again. For the context i didnt have any genuine converstation with girls in 8-9 years, and i didnt have this problem with males
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Being nervous because it was a girl and not a guy is something you need to switch in your brain. It is a Human that wanted to speak to you. Once you adjust your thinking, the nervousness will go away. I understand people are shy, but being shy because of gender is a useless thing that will only harm your social skills & friendships. People are people. You will be ok.
Yeah you probably right, but i dont really know how to make that switch, being out of touch with opposite sex didnt do me any good and now it became hard as hell
I’ve spent my whole life being like OP. You’re right but it’s a hard thing to get over.
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First off, it’s OK. We all make mistakes and misrepresent our feelings sometimes, which can affect others in ways we don’t intend. The particular social accident you describe is also quite common. I promise she will quickly recover from the inadvertent rejection.
My answer is: practice. 8-9 years is a long time to be out of practice at anything of this sort.
There are a variety of ways to actively pursue that practice, some more creative than others, but the most natural way is simply to invite interaction with others in general such as, apparently, drawing on a bench at the park :)
What were you afraid of exactly?
of a girl talking to me, i didnt get any communication with opposite sex in ages, probably mental stuff, now my brain associate them as something new and overwhelming, i dont fully get it myself…
Maybe you should consider some therapy—it can really help with anxieties like these.
Sounds like you’ve been led to see girls and women as “alien” for whatever reason. Understanding the why of that could help us help you, or more importantly, help you help yourself.
So, why didn’t you have any meaningful conversation with any woman relatives, school or work colleagues in so long?
I dont have that problem with relatives coz i grow up with them and they are very familiar people to me, but i dont feel like talking to them about all this, i graduated from school a very long time ago, and my institute was mostly men, i remember our group of 30 people only had 2 girl, and now i work in freelance so no colleagues
As an aside - what you did is fine. Will she/others interpret it in various ways? Sure.
But leaving a situation that you might not have been comfortable with isn’t wrong.
And while I’m not disagreeing with this, it is also ok to check in with yourself and notice “ok, I have uncomfortable feelings” but then ask the question “Am I in danger?”. We all get uncomfortable some times but we’d never do anything new if we always stop ourselves just because we’re uncomfortable. The trick is learning the difference between good/safe uncomfortable and bad/dangerous uncomfortable, and to learn that you need to practice being with your feelings. Read up about exposure therapy.
So for context, I’m an asexual guy who had one girl in his classes at high school & went to a 75% male university on a course that was 94% male…
Right after graduating I had the same issues you’re describing, just from “new experiences” more than anything, but when you go out into the world and start interacting with people you’ll be fine - it’s somewhat normal especially if you didn’t have a drive to seek out women previously or even just didn’t have the self confidence to
Also though, that sounds like a bit of a weird interaction as an introvert anyway, I don’t think I’d have been super comfortable either way as I’d be expecting to be robbed or scammed or something, but if someone is expressing interest in something you’re passionate about then they very clearly want to hear about it, so just say things about it even if it’s cringe or not perfect
I don’t think you did anything wrong. I hate people striking up a conversation like that as well.
You can train yourself not to panic, deep breaths, focusing on something in the middle distance, closing your eyes, counting to ten - whatever works for you. And then you can ride a situation like this out. Either by masking your discomfort or giving very curt replies. You can also just say “I’m very sorry, I’m not in the mood for a chat.” But you mustn’t worry that you made an extrovert sad. She’ll get over it and maybe learn from this experience as well.
Everyone is entitled to their privacy. It’s a basic human right. If you were alone and then a stranger approached you, you have every right to move away. You didn’t do anything wrong.
It’s an unfortunate situation because it seems like she regretted it too, but that’s not on you. You did not cause that.
You are right, but i was just afraid because she was a female, and as a said i didnt have any interaction with women in 8-9, except formal ones, like in university or stores and etc. i think you get it. And the thing is i dont know why was i feeling that much nervous when she started talking to me, but i want to overcome that and i dont really know how…
It’s ok to be afraid and still do something. Challenge yourself to try a question, people love to talk and that means you don’t have to.
Idk about going forward in general besides truly believing that people are fundamentally ‘good’ and there’s almost always nothing to fear… but I do think you’re gonna have to apologise to the lady and explain what happened. It ain’t a crime to be shy, and it would reassure her. Maybe compliment her if you’re feeling brave! Or at least say something like “it’s kinda cool to approach people randomly, I wish I were as comfortable…”, that sounds like a good follow up to the apology.
truly believing that people are fundamentally ‘good’
I don’t believe that. At all.
And I don’t think that anybody can simply change such a fundamental kind of belief.
Of course we can, but it takes time and a conscious effort to unlearn whatever traumatic lessons you were taught by life/your childhood.
