A Woman’s Guide to Helping Their Shy Guy

We women want to support the men we care about, whether they’re our sons, lovers, brothers or friends. Many of these men are shy with women. They find it hard to form romantic relationships with our gender, and we often don’t know why. After all, we can see what great guys they are!

The hardest part for us is standing on the side-lines watching these sensitive souls being damaged by life. These shy guys are the ones that bullies make a bee-line for. These guys are the ones who seem to the brunt of painful practical jokes. These guys think they’re losers with a big L painted on their foreheads.

At least 1.5% of men, so a somewhat dated (1987) study tells us, are so shy they can’t talk to women. They’re uncomfortable even being around them. This 1.5%, somewhere in the region of 2 million men in the USA alone, never find love, never find companionship, and live their lives as shadows on the edges of ‘normal’ life.

It’s very likely that the percentage has increased since 1987. Why? Because technology means that kids are not getting the time to socialize with each other the way they used to. If kids don’t get comfortable being with their peers, then they grow up to be adults who are uncomfortable being with their peers. And uncomfortable usually equates with shy.

The mothers amongst us watch our sons disappearing into the computer room after school, instead of heading out to play. They are playing. But not in the way that will help them to interact successfully in adulthood. Kids have to learn to ‘play nice’. They have to learn about the unwritten rules of conduct that determine how well we can work as part of a team, whether at work or socially. How well we work as part of a romantic partnership.

Technology is the shy guy’s refuge. He can meet his emotional needs by texting, twittering, or playing computer games, like World of Warcraft, with like-minded people all over the world. This is great. In the past, shy kids didn’t have any way of meeting their emotional need for friendship. They were lonely and isolated.
But it may be that many of those shy kids of the past forced themselves to get out in the world, because life was untenable otherwise.

For today’s youth, life on your own is not so bad. And because it isn’t, there isn’t much pressure for them to push out of their comfort zone and socialize in person.

So, how do we help our shy friends, sons, and brothers? How do we get them to connect with others in a way that we know they need to? You can’t nag them. You can’t tell them there’s something wrong with them, and they need to fix it. You can set them up on dates and hope they don’t sabotage the event. You can’t have sex with them (friends and lovers that is) and think that’s going to help them get more confidence in their life.

John Gray noted a really basic difference between men and women in his ‘Men are from Mars Women are from Venus’. He points out that men don’t fix something unless they consider it broken, unlike women who are always improving themselves and their world in little ways. We don’t do this because we’re unhappy with whatever it is, we do it because we consider everything in life could do with a little ‘brushing up’.

Men, like horses, can be led to water, but they can’t be made to drink. They can’t be made to do something about their shyness, about their social isolation, if THEY don’t feel it’s bad enough to need fixing.

If mothers, sisters or friends tell them to try something, they won’t.

But we women are devious creatures. If we can’t get them to do what we know is good for them the direct way, we can do it the indirect way. Think about it. How can you move the shy guys in your life toward what they need and want, without them being aware you’re doing it?