Shyness vs. gynophobia

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I'm 33 and I honestly find women between 27 and 40 to be more physically attractive than women between 18 and 24, the 18-24 year olds look like children to me, and although I sometimes am attracted I feel uncomfortable and pederasty about it.

This indicates healthy maturation of the psyche... you're not "stuck" at an age where some men get stuck, usually due to not being able to make sexual connections with women of their own age at the time. Some become more able to meet women as they get older, but until they work through it they're trapped at 22, feeling deprived of female contact.

Almost everyone still enjoys looking at beautiful young women, though. Even 7-year-old girls enjoy looking at beautiful young women, because they're pretty.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I see what you're saying, Nigel...a person with healthy self-esteem obviously isn't going to put up with certain things, like abuse, chronic alcoholism, chronially out-of-work guys. And there's nothing inherently wrong with saying "I want a family at some point and I'm going to make that a priority". I just find it odd that these people throw the L word around so much. Didn't TGRR once define it as "the state or condition of caring about somebody more than you care about yourself"? Not out of low self-esteem, any more than you put your kids first out of low self-esteem. It's just the way it is. You don't grant it to somebody who's going to turn you into a human speed bump, there has to be some trust involved, but it involves accepting a person exactly the way they are without trying to force-fit them to some anachronistic relationship mold.

A person with healthy self-esteem won't put up with life with someone who is fundamentally incompatible with them, either. Even if they love them. "Falling in love" is a chemical state. Making a life commitment to love is something you should do not because you "fall in love" (because that can happen over and over and over again for as long as you're alive) but because you know you have found a good match for your love. A LOT of people stay together miserably because they're "in love" when they would be happier if they moved on and found a COMPATIBLE partner to fall in love with.

TROOF

That first part is just chemicals. Chemicals lose potency. Which is probably also why there are serial monogamists. They are chasing a new high.

Love Infatuation is a drug.

Brain studies by biological anthropologist Helen Fisher show that if you are a secure person with good self-esteem and you find a good match to make a love commitment to, the "in love" parts of your brain stay stimulated for the duration of the relationship. Isn't that something? I find it incredibly hopeful.

No shit?

Yeah, check those links I posted a bit back... love REALLY IS a drug, and in a rewarding long-term committed love relationship, your reward centers continue being stimulated the whole time.

When you break up with someone, you actually go into withdrawal, which is why it feels so terrible. Love, it turns out, is incredibly similar to cocaine.

[Slyph]

I'm trying to get back into like, making friends after basically severing everyone who wasn't good for me, (read: most of my friends) and the way I'm trying to do it is: I'm joining clubs.

Which kind of sucks, because, getting fucked in a pub and meeting someone you'd hang out wiff is like, well everyone's just plain disposable aren't they? If you come off bad with one person, you write them off as a "stranger".

When you try joining clubs, it's like, you fuck up, You're going to see that stranger again. :-/ And they're going to be one of the limited number of people in the room available to talk at. Which makes talking to women with "I'm not trying to fuck you" intentions (I'm married) all the more awkward, because if they think you're after them, then, damn. That's just awkward.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Volunteering is a GREAT way to meet people of the opposite sex, if you volunteer at the right things.

I just got back from my first day at a Habitat for Humanity build (my sister's new house) and now I think I know what I'm doing allll summer...

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Anyway, between my admiration of Helen Fisher, my interest in science, and my decade-long fascination with shyness, I think I've figured out what I want to be, which is a biological anthropologist. I want to study shyness, classify different types of shyness, and figure out how it works in the brain.

[Don Coyote]

Anyway, between my admiration of Helen Fisher, my interest in science, and my decade-long fascination with shyness, I think I've figured out what I want to be, which is a biological anthropologist. I want to study shyness, classify different types of shyness, and figure out how it works in the brain.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Yanno? I'm pretty hot for 40. I'm not going to find a gorgeous 30-year-old mate to spend the rest of my life with... that's unrealistic, but more to the point, it's unappealing. I want someone who is my peer, someone I can relate to, so I'm going to look for a guy who kind of lives my lifestyle, who is also pretty hot for 40. It's not that it's "unfair" that I won't give fat suburban 40-somethings a chance, it's that they are ALREADY NOT A GOOD MATCH. If I have any kind of self-esteem, there is no reason at all for me to even consider it.

I think, though, that for a lot of people, ten years or so either way doesn't really make any difference. They read the same things, have the same friends, listen to the same bands, there's plenty to talk about. So what if one of them wasn't around for what went on when the other one was in third grade?
Twenty years difference = though.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

I really have no patience for the semantical bullshit people try to confuse the issue with. Here:

http://www.ted.com/talks/helen_fisher_tells_us_why_we_love_cheat.html
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/helen_fisher_studies_the_brain_in_love.html

Vids won't load for me. It'd take me three days to watch those. 
I did find links to a bunch of articles here but what I'm trying to understand is this - does she say love and infatuation are one and the same??

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Here is a little contrast between the pleasure centers being stimulated by beautiful young women.

Watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdm3T67IXdA&feature=fvwrel

...and then this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l07cMK6iWUk

...and tell me which one was more pleasurable to view.

[President Television]

It's actually not that they're unappealing. They are probably appealing (physically, if not psychologically) to women who are approximately in the same ball park of age and looks. But that's not good enough for them. See the hypocrisy?

Everyone else is exactly as self-absorbed as you are. They're not thinking about you, except inasmuch as they're thinking about you watching them and judging them.

Trust me.

I know all of this, on an intellectual level. I know that they're not actually judging me. I still maintain the irrational belief that they are.

[Don Coyote]

It's actually not that they're unappealing. They are probably appealing (physically, if not psychologically) to women who are approximately in the same ball park of age and looks. But that's not good enough for them. See the hypocrisy?

Everyone else is exactly as self-absorbed as you are. They're not thinking about you, except inasmuch as they're thinking about you watching them and judging them.

Trust me.

I know all of this, on an intellectual level. I know that they're not actually judging me. I still maintain the irrational belief that they are.

Which means maybe therapy or at least more time outside with people.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Here is a little contrast between the pleasure centers being stimulated by beautiful young women.

Watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdm3T67IXdA&feature=fvwrel

...and then this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l07cMK6iWUk

...and tell me which one was more pleasurable to view.

That almost made me ghey.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I really have no patience for the semantical bullshit people try to confuse the issue with. Here:

http://www.ted.com/talks/helen_fisher_tells_us_why_we_love_cheat.html
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/helen_fisher_studies_the_brain_in_love.html

Vids won't load for me. It'd take me three days to watch those.  
I did find links to a bunch of articles here but what I'm trying to understand is this - does she say love and infatuation are one and the same??

I would read some of the articles, though the lectures are really the best way to absorb it. Chemically speaking, love and infatuation are both, metaphorically, the same cocaine. If you become infatuated with a good match, your reward centers receive consistent doses of love chemicals, continually reinforcing the condition of "being in love". If you get a bad match, your reward centers are alternately highly dosed and then deprived of love chemicals, creating the emotional roller-coaster effect. It's highly addictive and people often stay in unhealthy relationships because "but when things are good, they're SO good".

But of course, when things are bad, you go through really agonizing withdrawal pains as your reward receptors are deprived of the spiked doses of love chemicals they're anticipating.

When you get over someone, the reward receptors shut down. Once they stop anticipating the reward, the withdrawals end and the pain stops.

Being in a relationship that triggers anxiety or insecurity due to incompatibilities is actually physically painful, as it generates that spike/withdrawal cycle. People with low self-esteem will tolerate that, because they don't understand that it's not healthy love, they don't think they can do better, or they don't think they deserve better. People with good self-esteem recognize that their partner isn't a good match, and move on, go through withdrawals, and look for a better match.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

It's actually not that they're unappealing. They are probably appealing (physically, if not psychologically) to women who are approximately in the same ball park of age and looks. But that's not good enough for them. See the hypocrisy?

Everyone else is exactly as self-absorbed as you are. They're not thinking about you, except inasmuch as they're thinking about you watching them and judging them.

Trust me.

I know all of this, on an intellectual level. I know that they're not actually judging me. I still maintain the irrational belief that they are.

Which means maybe therapy or at least more time outside with people.

Therapy.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

I would read some of the articles, though the lectures are really the best way to absorb it. Chemically speaking, love and infatuation are both, metaphorically, the same cocaine.

Same cocaine but not the same thing...people get infatuated with people they don't even know. Love=/= Bieber fever. 

If you become infatuated with a good match, your reward centers receive consistent doses of love chemicals, continually reinforcing the condition of "being in love". If you get a bad match, your reward centers are alternately highly dosed and then deprived of love chemicals, creating the emotional roller-coaster effect. It's highly addictive and people often stay in unhealthy relationships because "but when things are good, they're SO good".

But the emotional rollercoaster effect can come from the individual's own insecurities, it doesn't necessarily indicate a bad match. As a rule, infatuation stage is "the bells are ringing, the sun is shining" and then the experience floods with the fear of losing it, but you just recognise that for what it is. This is what I tell clients all the time, guys don't always text back, it doesn't mean HE HATES YOU AND HE'S IN THE BED WITH YOUR BEST FRIEND LAUGHING AT YOU.
I mean, yeah, if he treats you like crap, you bail, but the rollercoaster is part of that stage regardless.

But of course, when things are bad, you go through really agonizing withdrawal pains as your reward receptors are deprived of the spiked doses of love chemicals they're anticipating.

When you get over someone, the reward receptors shut down. Once they stop anticipating the reward, the withdrawals end and the pain stops.

"The thrill is gone..."

Being in a relationship that triggers anxiety or insecurity due to incompatibilities is actually physically painful, as it generates that spike/withdrawal cycle. People with low self-esteem will tolerate that, because they don't understand that it's not healthy love, they don't think they can do better, or they don't think they deserve better. People with good self-esteem recognize that their partner isn't a good match, and move on, go through withdrawals, and look for a better match.

Yeah, if it's really incompatibilities. Sometimes it's peoples' own demons, though.