My Thoughts on Approach Anxiety
Approach Anxiety (AA) has been the bane of my PUA career since I first started liking girls in Kindergarten. Once my liking for girls became sexual, I started to feel an anxious rush whenever I'd talk to one of them: ugly, hot, young, old anything---except for my mom, teachers, and such. Talking to ANY women felt anxious, the hotter she was the more. Soon at around the age of 11, all social situations would make me anxious: parties, talking to kids in class, confronting people about things, etc. To put it succinctly, anyone whom I thought had higher value than me or could best me, I felt anxious breaking the ice. Labels: Ideas
But, what is "anxiety"? What is "struggle"? What do these words really mean?
In my opinion, anxiety is a word very loosely defined. Some people say: "I am so anxious to win the prize!" Other say: "I am so anxious about this test coming up!" Anxious: same word, same emotion, two different meanings. I very much agree with Eckhart Tolle in that words are nothing more than sign posts to describe what you are thinking or meaning. Moreover, if you study signals and really think about it, you'd know there is always a loss in communication; no one can perfectly describe exactly what they are thinking... so how can we really know what someone means by "anxious" except by context, their body language, and what we think they mean. (I got a lot of this concept from some essays I did in Sociology and Linguistics in college).
Anyway, as many great philosophers have said (I believe Nietzsche and Huxley are an example) that words and their perceived meanings define communication, not necessarily intent. So when we say Approach Anxiety, the word Anxiety in that context aways seems to be interpreted as negative. AA IS anxiety, but does it have to be "negative" anxiety!? What defines negative anxiety*?
Take this example:
When you are about to get on a roller coaster at a theme park, you may notice your hands become sweaty, your heart beats loud and fast, your mind thinks extra fast, and a rush comes into your chest. This is how I feel at least, perhaps you may be slightly different. When I am about to open a set, talk to strangers, or anything like that, that EXACT physical feeling comes over me also. Exact to the fucking bone. Through my studies in Psychology, the current and strongest theories is that physiologically, all types of anxiety are the same: fear, excitement, thrill, terror, all. To our bodies, they are the same but of various degrees of course.
My question: Why do roller coasters emote positive, exciting anxiety and why is approaching a woman emote fearful anxiety?---(at least fearful for me and many others)
They are the EXACT same emotions, anxiety of various levels. They do the exact same thing to our body! In my opinion, the ONLY real difference between the levels/types of anxiety are how we interpret it by situational context, habit, and what we are taught earlier in life. Approaching a women is NOT the same as getting in to a fight, hunting a lion, or getting busted, but it IS just as similar in the "anxiety" sense. The reason we interpret approaching women as a negative anxiety is exactly because we are taught to. We may see others scared of it on T.V. (sitcoms make humor of it), friends talk about it, we see rejection and don't want it to happen to us, or whatever.* ---(same '*' as before)
Approaching is an anxious experience (for me and many of you perhaps) but it does not have to be a fearful anxiety! It can be an exciting anxiety! We need to just train our mind to be excited about it, like we were about to go on a roller coaster.
Okay, note a key mental difference between a roller coaster and approaching a women is that when we go on an roller coaster, it is the theme park that does the work; we just sit down. But when we approach a women, we need to put effort into it. Well, as I have learned at the Call Center and experiences sarging, approaching is not hard work once you do it a lot, know how to deal with contingencies, and learn to fucking love it! In fact, it is FUCKING fun when I am in a good set, on a good phone call at work, feeling good and being happy is what this community's main goal is. The negative "anxiety" immediately transforms into positive "anxiety"---but its still the same physiological anxiety! Its just my mind telling me "hey, this is cool now!"
You know, for the longest time I searched for ways to eliminate AA and anxiety in general It came to the point where I got a hold of a tape on "Overcoming Social Anxiety Disorder" and it was then I realized true excessive anxiety is a disorder. What most of us go through is natural. We need to accept the anxiety and re-interpret it as excitement, like we are about to go on a roller coaster. My fear of snakes, lions, and jaguars is totally justified, the fact that I fear approaching women is just bad programming, no bull shit disorder or what-not.
Also, I notice that after a few approaches in a night, the anxiousness starts to fade. Just like a roller coaster, going on it 10 times it is not as bad. So, the best advice I can really give is to embrace the anxious rush and re-interpret it as excitement. no not allow yourself to think of it as a negative. Its not negative, it just is. Its neither negative nor positive---we choose to make it negative or positive. It simply is what it is.
*I believe we feel fearful anxiety talking to those whom we feel have higher value because if we made a fool of ourselves in our pre-historic tribe days, it could mean ostracization: a deep seated human fear. Thus I think it is vitally important to look at all humans as having equal value (our forefathers were on to something with "All Man is Created Equal" as I feel this is what they meant, but that is another topic for another time).
I do not agree with the current theory "we are afraid to approach women because of being rejected and laughed at" my gut tells me the truth is we are afraid of making a fool of ourselves (saving face) and our culture has made us think getting rejected by women is horrible. No one wants to be seen as a fool, but talking to a beautiful women is far from foolish, even if you made a few Boo-Boo's and mess up. Don't think of failing an approach as making a fool of your self, think of it as just getting on a shitty roller coaster.
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Great analogy. I've read similar things tons of times. Guru's say to use the approach anxiety to your advantage, but they don't teach the lesson. They just repeat the abtract concept over and over. And instead of using it to one's advantage, most people just bite through it.
This analogy is a good one to keep in your head for actually turning AA into something more positive. I see every girl or person I speak to, as a new possible adventure. It might be awesome and wild, but it might also suck and turn out to be the most boring road trip ever. Don't count on a holiday, just open and see where it leads you.
If you start counting on a holiday, you need to worry about so many things. Money, clothes, packed stuff, getting some days off from work, etc. etc. If you just dive into the adventure and make it spontaneous, you'll take care of those 'worries' as soon as it actually MATTERS.
That's how I see it, but your rollercoaster metaphore has more feeling attached to it. I'll see if it can pump my state when I go out again.
Posted by
Anonymous |
Friday, February 16, 2007 4:18:00 AM
I always see newbies asking how they can get rid of approach anxiety but really as you say, it's something that doesn't really go away. It's more about how you deal with approach anxiety that is the issue.
Great post.
-Matt Savage
Posted by
Matt |
Friday, February 16, 2007 7:18:00 AM