(Under 18) Shy of girls? Maybe you have a deeper underlying problem

Hello, this response was meant for someone else but I expanded on it because I really wanted to elaborate on what has been working for me. Now, these are things that I've learned from my experiences, so for those of you that disagree or want to chime in on what helped you, feel free to add on. Otherwise, the audience this post is focused on are guys under 18 who are shy of girls and want to approach them. I read a lot of stuff, but the most profound things I learned were from observation, experience, and reflection. I think most guys who have problems talking to girls result from not developing their communication skills to adequately address the issue, but it may also be attributed to lifestyle. That's what I would like to address here, so please read on.


I truly believe your fear of talking to girls is a complex problem, but may have its roots elsewhere. For example, I don't know if you have a phobia of girls, but you probably don't since you're eager to find out how you can approach them. Your problem is actually the reverse, since you don't respect yourself enough so you feel that they are naturally out classing you in every way. It's like you think they've reached the level cap in a game, and you're too shy to talk to them because you're a noob. This is not true because levels don't matter when you just want to talk to them (unless they're trying to make it hard for you to understand by using words that aren't in your vocabulary). And you need to define your objectives for approaching girls, usually it's because you feel you need to be in a relationship because other people are in one and it looks fun/nice/etc (not always true). There are several reasons why you might want to approach them, but no matter what it is, you need to know why you want to approach them and what you hope to get out of it.

Here's what I think helped people on NoFap the most - getting "busier". Let me translate/break this down to you. A majority of the successful stories posted on NoFap attribute their success to making themselves more busy. But, they don't really explain how they got busy, they just explain what makes them busy. They will tell you that they started hitting the gym or joined a club, etc. but they will not tell you the important step that comes before making those decisions. That step, is called "taking responsibility". If you are not as busy as you think you should be, then you don't have many responsibilities to handle yourself. Usually, this is because you're still in adolescence (under 18 or still live with family/friends/etc who are still providing for you). If you aren't the breadwinner (money maker) in your living quarters, then you have a load of free time. Most of this time should be spent going to school/studying/working a part time or full time job, and then you have your leisure time. The objective of going to school/studying/working is to one day provide for yourself, without depending on your family for resources. This means, eventually moving out and living on your own or with roommates/partners/etc. When you actually try to go from point A (depend on family for resources) to point B (depend on yourself for resources), you really need to prepare for that big change. That preparation is usually invested in school and work experiences to eventually obtain a steady flow of income in the future to support yourself/future family. Now, you may be wondering why I went to explain all of this.

I went to explain all of this because once you understand this as a system, you can start optimizing its individual parts for better results. And what happens when you get busy and all that free time you think you have now is not so free as you thought? You start to prioritize what you need to do and not what you want to do. You start to think about your future and how you're going to create it. This includes changing your habits, becoming more "mature", and taking better care of your health. Since you're young, you might think you're really healthy because you're a fresh organism. Not really, because you need to support your body to maintain it. Your body will take care of the complex stuff like running your organs and storing your memories for long term retention. You on the other hand, need to give it the resources it needs to accomplish this. Your body WILL tell you when you're not doing it right, but it will also tell you when you are doing it right. For example, think about how you feel after having "junk food", pretty junk after awhile right? How about, when you have that super antioxidant, healthy and fresh smoothie? Pretty energized right? How about after you had a great workout? Pretty fantastic huh? How about when you stayed at home all day thinking about going outside? Well, you should be feeling lethargic and possibly ill, unless you regularly go outside for work/school/etc and needed a break. Now, what does this have to do with approaching girls?

Wait, we're still talking about girls? But, how can I possibly think about talking to girls when I have all this responsibility to take care of first? There is no time to give to these girls that I want to talk to because I go to school & study/work, I have errands to run, chores to do, exercise, feed myself right, family/friends to meet, hobbies, etc. In fact, I just met this incredible girl who wants to go get coffee with me this weekend. We have so many things in common, and it just clicked.

This is just a scenario that I baked up. It's pretty straight forward, and I didn't go into any details. When life gets busy, you need to start managing your time. In this fast-paced world, it may seem like hell, but it can be done. I currently live with my mother now, and I've made it a point to help pay for things with my part time job while attending college. What has this taught me? Well, I sure wasted a lot of money on insignificant things in the past, but now I am a lot more careful on what I spend my money on. I'm still learning how to use my money though, it's getting better but my part time job does not supply me with adequate money to live on or be happy with. I'm turning away from materialistic things, but I do value high quality things to replace them (quality over quantity). Under 18 and can't get a part time job and get little allowance? There are some jobs that allow you to work if you're under 18, I don't know any type because I didn't do that myself. Ask your school if you can volunteer anywhere. While you won't get money, you will get experience and the people you regularly help will recognize your efforts and may reward you (if they liked your hard work). This volunteer service can be listed on your resume and you may develop some useful skills along the way. It also gives you an opportunity to make new friends, and yes they can turn out to be girls too. But don't get too excited about that, focus on the job and you may receive attention from people you want. Heck, if you study hard in school people will know who you are because you're "that guy" who scored the highest on the latest test. But why should I study more instead of have fun? This is where I made my mistake.

I mostly stayed up late playing online games in high school. This lead to sleep deprivation and your favorite PMO symptoms. Looking back, I was literally a zombie. I did not develop communication skills and I pretty much wasted my education. I did get by in my classes, but did not get to experience high school the way I wanted to. I admit to holding onto these regrets that I still think about from that phase in life, but because I'm so busy now, I don't think about it so often. In fact, they are growing weaker because I am becoming stronger as a person. Life is really not easy guys. Once you hit 18, you're legally an adult, which means that while you can legally enter that adult shop, you can legally live independently too. Money is not easy to come by unless you're a genius or really work hard for it. In this day and age, you need to be smarter than your competition and have a stronger network of people you know. Even if you're qualified for a job, someone else might just know someone already in that company and have a better chance of getting that position. So, study hard now and reap the rewards later. I can't tell you how much I regret not studying hard enough and literally wasting my time on unnecessary things like games. I'm pretty sure I racked up over 5,000 hours from that. I can't get that time back anymore, it's gone forever. But, I can start doing things right now, and reduce the damage that I have caused from before. You're still thinking about meeting girls?

Here is one secret I learned by observation. The highest ranking people who graduated in my class, are becoming doctors, engineers, etc. according to my fb feed. They also post places they have traveled or moved to and the food/places there. They are the reason why I don't go on fb that often because I compare my life to theirs. Most people will tell you not to do that because it will make you feel bad. I thought about that advice, and do it anyways to remind me of what I need to do to achieve similar results. While I had "fun" in high school, these people were studying their butts off and preparing for the next step, college. Now, I'm playing catch up, and it's even harder when you're an adult. The morale of this story is to work hard and smart. How do you do this? You start early while you're still under 18, and you stop wasting your time on insignificant things, or you start limiting them.

You may very well be better off than me and can say that you already study well and have lots of free time to spend elsewhere, fantastic. Then I'm glad you learned more about me. As for others who are thinking about girls or wants and not focusing on how they can get them later on, are dooming themselves. When you're successful, these sorts of things will naturally be attracted to you. People notice successful people and admire them, envy them, or even dislike them. If you dislike them for their success, then you have it backwards (unless they stole it from you, etc.). If you don't know them, then stop. These negative feelings are not being generated towards them, they're being generated towards you. You're the one feeling this negativity, not them. They're reaping their rewards and basking in their riches, not you. But remember, if they achieved this by working hard and smart, then so can you. Stop limiting yourself to your unsatisfactory life and start creating the things that will make them satisfactory.

Study, damnit.