Fear of asking a woman for a date

[Bjstamp54]

My biggest fear in the world is asking a woman out on a date... I never have. I am almost 22 and I can't ask a girl out on a date. I've tried, but every time I try I get so nervous or whatever it is that I just about break out into tears. I dunno any help at all even if it's small advice would be appreciated.

 

[Daniel E.]

Re: this is what bothers me

My initial thought is not a treatment but more of a workaround: online dating.

Of course, CBT can help with such shyness by deflating your fears, etc. A founder of CBT, Albert Ellis, had problems asking women on dates and used CBT techniques on himself to ask women out, as he states in the following interview:

ELLIS: So what's more important was women. I was scared ******** of approaching women. I flirted with them in Bronx Botanical Garden near my home, but I never approached them, made up all kinds of excuses.
So I gave myself a brilliant homework assignment at the age of 19 when I was off from college, to go to Bronx Botanical Garden every day that month, and whenever I saw a woman sitting alone on a park bench, I would sit immediately next to her – not in her lap – which I wouldn't dare do before, and give myself one lousy minute to talk to her. If I die, I die, screw it so I die. And I did that. I found 130 women sitting alone that month on the park bench. I sat next to all of them, whereupon 30 got up and walked away, but that left me an even sample of 100 good for research purposes. I spoke to the whole hundred for the first time in my life about the birds and the bees, the flowers, their reading.
And if Fred Skinner, who was then teaching at Indiana University, had known about my exploits, he would have thought I would have got extinguished, because of the hundred women I made one date and she didn't show up. But I prepared myself philosophically even then – it was before cognitive therapy really – by seeing that nobody took out a stiletto and cut my balls off, nobody vomited and ran away, nobody called the cops. I had a hundred pleasant conversations and the second hundred I got good at and made a few dates. So I used what I later developed into rational emotive behavior therapy on myself by thinking philosophically differently, that nothing is awful, terrible, it's just a pain in the ass, that’s all it is.
And that there's no horror in being rejected. I forced myself uncomfortably to do what I was afraid of, the opposite of what phobics do, because whenever they're afraid of innocent things like elevators, they beat it the hell out and then never get over their fear. They increase their phobias, as I at first did. So in rational emotive behavior therapy I combine thinking and philosophy for the first time with feeling, emotion, and also and with behavior therapy, which I got from John B. Watson, Fred Skinner and others. So it's one of the very few therapies that is multi-modal in Arnold Lazarus' sense, and it includes thinking, feeling and behavior, and has about 20 or 30 techniques under each heading; it has lots of evidence in favor of it. That doesn't mean it's completely true and will work for anybody.

An Interview with Albert Ellis, PhD - Psychotherapy.net

 

[Mari]

H! Ellis sounds a bit odd to me - I would not consider a date with a stranger that I met on a park bench. The idea of taking the pressure off by not taking things too seriously sounds interesting. I would think more along the lines of 'practice talking' with girls around your age in any situation that is available to you. Some ideas are casual conversation in a check-out line, asking for assistance locating an item in a store, just going out of your way to speak with girls wherever you are - without expectations. In the library, at school, at work, at any activity that you participate in. Possibly when you are more comfortable just talking then you could ask a girl you know to do something casual with you such as coffee and a donut. As for phobias - I do not mind elevators but I will not go on stairs if there is any glass or open space. I guess if it was important to me I could practice and succeed. Mari

 

[Lilhelp]

I'm hoping the original poster comes back. That breaks my heart.

I wonder if it's the fear of rejection actually or just that women are foreign to him in a sense. That is if bj is a guy. I know women that have a fear of asking other women out on a date.

I'm old now. HAHA. So having lived alot I am astounded that there's been men that have told me they had at one time wanted to ask me out but were afraid to. That's a perception thing I guess. Deep down we're all just basically good ol' human beings. The outside is not always what it seems.

O.K. sorry for rambling. I hope the OP did get a date. Oh, I went out with people I met just walking down the street, and they to this day remain my friends. You have to use street smarts and common sense. There's ways to do it safely.