Are you constantly asking yourself, “Why am I socially awkward with women”? Maybe you aren't so great at talking to or relating with them and you wonder what’s going on.
I mean people are just people. So if you can talk to your friends for hours, why can't you talk to women?
There are actually several common reasons why this might be, and they're ruining your chances at having a successful dating life.
The Dating Apps That Actually Work For Socially Awkward Guys
Being socially awkward can make dating tough but using the right app can make things a lot easier. If you haven't had a great time using dating apps to this point it's probably because you're using the wrong ones.
There are a couple of apps that dating experts have been recommending to socially awkward guys that you need to to try first:
| Site | Our Experience | Our Rating | Free Trial Link |
|---|---|---|---|
Best Casual Encounter Site  | Experience Highlights
| 9 | Try AFF For Free |
Great If You're Handsome  | Tinder Highlights
| 8 | Try Tinder |
2nd Best For Most Guys  | Experience Highlights
| 8 | Try Passion |
The 10 Reasons You Are Asking "Why Am I Socially Awkward With Women"
There are actually several common reasons why this might be, and they're ruining your chances at having a successful dating life.
#1 - Here’s the #1 answer to the question, “Why am I socially awkward with women?”
You think that women are perfect for some reason, that they have no flaws.
This means that if you screw up, there's going to be a super harsh judgement placed on you.
Not only that, but it also means that you've lost her forever. This could lead you to be needy.
She'll never forgive you for your mistakes.
The truth is so different, man.
As the saying goes: “A hot girl's shit stinks just as bad as yours.”
You know that girl you're talking to?
She has insecurities.
She has money problems and family issues.
She gets nervous around guys too.
She's awkward during sex.
She's a person with FLAWS JUST LIKE YOU and that's OK!
Because guess what, that's what she's attracted to.
Not to you being perfect but the fact that you have some character.
Sure, she wants a reasonably smooth talker and sharp dresser.
It’s just like you wanting a girl who can dress up, wear some sexy heels, and make you happy.
But whom do you trust more: Someone who admits they screw up sometimes and isn’t perfect, or someone who never admits to making a mistake?
Everybody makes mistakes.
Nobody’s perfect, and that’s OK.
#2. You project all your past emotional baggage and problems on them
The reason why so many of us have problems with our dating lives is that all of our past emotional traumas and unresolved problems come out when we interact with the opposite sex.
So all those times when you were bullied as a kid?
When your parents weren't there for you?
When you felt abandoned and learned you needed to survive on your own?
When your first girlfriend cheated on you?
These are all going to answer the “why am I socially awkward with women?” question.
It’s all going to come out unless you work through and resolve it using tools like therapy, supportive friends, and your own focused consciousness.
In Mark Manson's article where he re-counted his time in the Pick-Up Artist (PUA) community, he listed the common emotional problems men run away from:
“...by FAR the most common deep emotional problems and fears that I come across in the PUA crowd are: ex-girlfriend or ex-wife that broke their heart and/or ruined them, divorced or absent parents, death of a loved one, death of a parent, or just repeated emotional beat-downs growing up — whether it be growing up in the projects, being verbally abused by girls your entire childhood for being fat, etc., etc.”
Has one of these events ever happened to you?
Have you worked through it at all?
Doing so will make your interactions with women FAR better, easier, and more enjoyable…
Otherwise, the past will keep coming up and repeating itself.
#3. You think that everyone is silently judging you
While this is a combination of the first two points, it's worth mentioning on its own.
This belief can be inserted into your mind from childhood from being bullied or having over-judgemental parents that never told you that you were good enough.
For whatever reason, it comes down to you believing that everyone is constantly criticizing, judging, and thinking about you.
It's true: we all judge.
We're all guilty of it (i.e.: that’s what first impressions are - a judgement).
But the thing is that most people are so concerned with what's going on in their lives and how they look that they don't have much brain power or energy at all to devote to thinking about you. This is a great mindset to stop being needy.
In fact, it's super ego-centric to think that everyone's just thinking about you!
Control what you can in terms of presenting yourself well and learn how to communicate better.
But then, just focus on being you.
The right people will stay, the wrong people will leave.
And depending on where you are in life, these “right people” will change.
Someone who's attracted to you now might be revolted by you later, because you’ve changed and grown.
That’s a good thing, as long as you’re moving in the right direction.
It shows progress. And a great step to getting over your insecurities.
In fact, check whom you're attracting into your dating life:
If they are high quality women, that are happy, mature, and on a mission, great!
But: If they play games, are manipulative, and are mean, the only constant in the relationships is you.
So…
#4 - You insist on using canned lines and playing “the game” with them
The only reason someone needs canned lines is because they aren't confident enough in their own abilities to carry on a conversation.
Of course if you're just starting out with dating and talking to new people, it's OK to have some go-tos – nobody's perfect.
But, you can't really expect to rely on canned lines for an entire conversation or relationship.
Mystery is well-known for teaching the Mystery Method and being one of the forerunners of the PUA movement, largely thanks to Neil Strauss' book, The Game.
But in the book, Strauss talks about how if the PUAs ran out of lines, the girls eventually found out whom they were, and would usually leave.
Eventually you have to BE the confident, care-free guy you’re trying to project and imitate:
The facade can't last forever – The truth comes out whether you want it to or not.
The only type of women who will be attracted to you by the canned routines and false identity you’re projecting are those that are portraying their own false identities.
Both of your acts are born from your own senses of insecurity: like attracts like.
Confident women want confident men and they won't tolerate this nonsense.
#5 - You don't have an interesting life that you think is awesome and worth sharing
Many times if you’re not confident or happy with your own life, you’ll sub-consciously sabotage yourself from letting people in to your world.
While outside you’re trying to portray someone who’s awesome and happy, inside you’re thinking: “Why would anyone be interested in me? I live on my parent’s couch, I work at the CD shop, and I don’t have any future prospects.”
In fact…
#6 - You think getting women will solve all of your other problems
Many times we use addictive things to cover up feelings of lack or unhappiness.
If you’re unhappy with your job, life, or body…
If your family is going through a tough time or is always arguing with you…
If you’re failing out of school and don't want to feel stressed out about the scholarship you might lose…
Then you’ll turn to things like alcohol, drugs, video games, or women to bury and distract yourself to “solve” your problems.
Or even worse, you’ll treat them as magic pills.
“I’m fundamentally unhappy but once I have women, then I’ll be happy and can move forward.”
Have you ever said this to yourself before?
The sad truth is that the “I just need X to feel Y” thing never goes away.
Save yourself the trouble: Women will never complete you.
The only way to feel happy and complete is to feel it solely by yourself, and bring women in to share in your adventure.
If you are fundamentally unhappy with your life, fix that first, then go back to dating.
#7 - You put far too much pressure on yourself
Even asking yourself, “Why am I socially awkward with women?” is an indication of putting way too much stress on everything going well.
In North American society, men have INSANE pressures put on them through the rock-solid confidence and abs of movie stars to always be “alpha”.
We need be the Don Drapers women are looking for.
You need to say the right thing.
You can’t show any weakness.
You have to get every girl.
Every conversation needs to go well.
If you screw up at all, you've lost “the bang”.
All this pressure will run in the background of any interaction you have and not only probably tank everything, but make you feel like absolute garbage when a conversation doesn’t go exactly the way you want it to… even when you have no control over it.
For example: A girl legitimately has a boyfriend and you think she’s not interested in you because she tells you that.
You assume it's because you weren’t “cool enough”, not that she's telling the truth about being in a relationship.
The pressure you place on yourself gets placed on others around you as well.
Loosen up a bit.
#8 - You have a HUGE attachment to the outcome of every social interaction
So why do you put so much pressure on yourself?
I mean, you’re just talking to a girl.
Sure, it’d be nice if things go well.
But if not, there are millions of other girls out there. This is a classic symptom of the nice guy attitude.
It’s because deep inside, there’s something that’s making you feel like you NEED her to like you.
You feel like you NEED to have sex with her.
You feel like you NEED to have her.
But just because you feel something, doesn’t mean it’s always true.
In reality, not getting a girl you like would be a let down, but it’s not a huge deal.
There are plenty of cool girls out there.
There’s just some deep driving force inside you making you feel like you need everyone to like you and approve of you.
But you can't control other people's thoughts and judgements about you, there's such a thing as free will.
Focus more on approving of yourself and your own actions, which you can control 100% of the time, and you’ll feel far better. A step in the right direction to figuring out why girls may not like you.
You’ll also enjoy your conversations more.
#9 - You perceive women as having more experience than you
If you’re particularly new to dating or talking to strangers in general, you might think that EVERYONE else has it figured out:
How to hook up, be social, be charismatic, and have an amazing life.
The truth is we’re all kind of searching in the dark, grasping at whatever we can hold on to that feels right in the moment.
But that changes.
As you grow, you learn, and you’ll change your course.
It’s quite possible the woman you’re talking to has more sexual, interpersonal, and life experience than you.
Or maybe she doesn’t.
Maybe she does but in front of new people she gets all nervous and it makes her seem inexperienced.
Everyone has different strengths and weaknesses based on their past lessons and memories.
Maybe she has more, maybe she has less.
Who cares.
Just put yourself out there as you, and if she doesn’t like you, find someone who does.
And as you do this, you’re gaining life experience anyways.
#10 - You have incredibly poor beliefs about your social abilities and yourself in general
Everything will always come down to the stories you tell yourself and your beliefs.
“Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve.”
Or, you can state this as the law of attraction.
If all you ever tell yourself is how nobody will ever like you, then nobody ever will.
If you always think that you suck at socializing, then you always will and will always talk yourself out of doing it.
In reality, you’re being affected by a bunch of cognitive distortions: thinking patterns that aren’t showing you the whole truth, affected by your past actions, and protecting you from past traumas repeating themselves.
To get better at socializing, you need to scrutinize all the thoughts you have, analyze them, and see if they’re really true.
For example:
“We were talking for a bit but then she said she had to go. She must not have liked me.”
Did you ask her for her number at the end?
Was she smiling and laughing during the conversation?
Did she not enjoy ANY of it?
How do you KNOW she didn’t like you?
“If I go up to a girl randomly, she’ll think I’m a creep.”
What are you basing that conclusion off of?
If it happened before, does that mean EVERY single girl will feel the SAME way?
Has there never been ONE difference?
Read these two articles to learn more about these topics and how to dismantle cognitive distortions that are ruining your chances with women:
1. Beliefs And Worries Which Sustain Shyness, Insecurity, And Social Anxiety
2. Cognitive Distortions And Socializing
While you might be asking yourself, “Why am I socially awkward with women?” now, that doesn’t always have to be the case.
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