I'll bet the following statement is true for any guy reading this who doesn't do well with the ladies: You don't really understand what it is you're doing WRONG that makes you so unattractive to women... for the exact same reason that "Casanova" who scores left and right with them doesn't understand what he's doing RIGHT.

Huh? Read that again if you have to. Both YOU and Casanova are essentially clueless as to why you ended up the way that you are in terms of your skill levels (or lack there of) when it comes to charming and seducing women. Of course, Mr. Casanova isn't unhappy about his situation, right? But you sure are.

Theory Time: I believe that both sets of behaviors which lie at opposite ends of the spectrum are the result of accidents that occurred when you were both just beginning to notice girls in a different light (sexually)... sheer random incidents which involved elements of good or bad luck, and nothing more.

It went like this: YOUR first trial and error experiences occurred with a girl that simply DIDN'T LIKE YOU (probably because of personal issues that had nothing to do with you, but so what?) You thus ended up with a completely negative reinforcement of your early efforts at seduction and socialization. This awkward and possibly shameful first try at romance robbed you of the critical early confidence you needed to keep on experimenting and practicing your skills. It kicked off a descending spiral of inaccurate behaviors that led to more and more failures with women as time passed, further stunting your social development.

More failure resulted in a complete loss of confidence, growing social ineptitude and a withdrawal from the game of flirting and even attempting to seduce women. Your behavioral changes might've progressed to episodes of delusional thinking, dark fantasies, etc. In other words, your character changed to make it even less likely that you could successfully interact with women, and voila'... a "nerd" was born.

Casanova, on the other hand -- due to simple GOOD fortune and nothing else -- may've tried the exact same moves during his adolescence just as you did, but HE happened to choose a girl that LIKED him, and therefore responded to his fumbling first efforts favorably. Get the picture?... a positive reaction to the exact same inept moves that you made! Merely because of random good luck, he happened to choose to work a girl who responded to him in an emotionally reinforcing way.

This "big break" (that you didn't get) gave Casanova confidence AND positive social feedback -- which further provided a laboratory to fine tune his behaviors. Perhaps he even grew up in an environment that supported or encouraged those initial experimental behaviors -- a supportive older sister or a female friend that he could talk to in confidence whenever he needed advice? Someone to make the female psyche seem less mysterious and intimidating? You, on the other hand, may've grown up in an all-male environment where women seemed remote and unfathomable. Possibly your every move in this arena was met with scorn or ridicule whenever you actually tried to act, making you even more gun shy.

You learned to associate fear and paralysis with the idea of courting a woman.

Anyway, here's my point: Your downward turn could've just as easily have been an upward turn had your luck been good instead of bad with those first experiences. I believe that this element of LUCK is more pivotal in our lives that most of us realize. The timing of the luck is critical. It sets the stage for the interplay of key events upon which your self-image is manufactured in fits and starts. You see, there is really no fundamental difference between the Social Casanova and the Social Coward. Both are simply the end result of being turned in different directions at a critical point in their lives.

Stated differently, your current status as a social coward is all "nurture" (or in your case, lack of it...) and NOT "nature". You out there reading this trying to find some edge with women are no more genetically programmed to fail socially than the Casanova is to succeed... you both simply LEARNED how to do it as you traveled along divergent social-life paths.

Think about it... What if that first nervous reach for affection had gone differently? What if that first girl you ever asked out had said yes and became your "girlfriend" instead of laughing in your face and running off to tell her friends what a loser you were? Imagine how your social skills and confidence would've improved over the subsequent months and years if that time had been spent in social interaction (good, bad or ugly) with women instead of social isolation? It would've given you a whole different concept of yourself and made you an entirely different person than you are today.

And to think that it all turned on that one damned UN-lucky first break!

It's time to stop handing random chance the power to direct your destiny. Time to make a course correction back into the world of the living (and the socializing). There are techniques to make it easier than you might think, but it all begins with a decision not to let the faded echo of a long-ago negative event continue to shape your life. And until you make that decision, nothing will ever really change for you.

©2003 Mike Pilinski

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