Posted by fachad on March 26, 2002, at 9:55:00
In reply to OSchl- Social Phobia a real,debilitating illness!!, posted by 3 Beer Effect on March 25, 2002, at 13:20:12
3 Beers,
Is your Social Phobia limited to the initiating of mating related activities with members of the opposite sex?
Or is it more global and affects all areas of social interaction in your life?
I was REALLY shy about dating or even talking to a woman I found attractive, and it was the central focus of my emotional misery and isolation from about age 12 to age 24. I never even had one single date in high school or the first two years of college. People thought I was gay or something.
I overcame it with a combination of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) and Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT). David Burns wrote an excellent book on this exact problem, titled "Intimate Connections" and I would highly recommend it. All of David Burns and Albert Ellis books are very good.
Another factor that made a HUGE difference for me was a telemarketing job that I got to pay my way thru college. That job taught me that rejection meant NOTHING and it was all just a numbers game. I was told "NO" and "piss-off" a few hundred times a day, every day, and to my surprise, I did not die, and I even managed to sell a few jobs every day! I was able to transfer that experience into the bar scene, and lost all fear of being “shot down”. That realization (that rejection meant nothing) really changed my life. It might be worth your while to seek out some equally desensitizing experience.
P.S. I also found that 3 beers were helpful in emboldening me with the opposite sex!
poster:fachad
thread:100046
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020322/msgs/100270.html