Fear of rejection

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I know rejection is inevitable. I know asking out women is mainly learnt through experience, and success is achieved through trial and error. I know the more women I ask out for more likely I am to be successful. And I know why players are more likely to be successful, because they're not afraid of rejection and they ask out mutliple women rather than just focusing their attention on just one. I've seen one confident, cocky man who was hitting on a friend of mine get turned down quite abruptly. I suspect men like these are successful with women because when they get rejected, they have the confidence and self-respect to say "it's your loss, not mine" and move on, and women see that as strength.

Yet I have a crippling fear of rejection, and I take rejection personally. That is the main factor preventing me from having a relationship. I know this is an irrational fear. The worst a woman is going to say to you is "f*ck off" but the best she thing she could say is yes and you could have a future together, and that would be the worth the risk. If you ask out ten women and only one says yes, then it would be worth it. I've never asked a woman out to her face in my entire life, nor have I ever asked a woman to sleep with me in my entire life. I've only asked out about three women in my entire life out over the internet, and all said no. I know I should be asking out many more women and in person to be successful, and I did not even know untila few years ago that it's the men who are seen as supposed to make the first move. Even so, I've been approached by women yet I squandered these few and far in between opportunities because I was so scared to make the next move.

It's time to face the fear of rejection, head on.

Of course you're right.

It's like dealing with any phobia, being exposed to the the thing you fear repeatedly desensitizes you to the point that it is no longer debilitating.

If you need any tips on how to get rejected, feel free to ask me - I know every trick in the book!

Asking out women you just met right then, like at a bar or club, is probably the least likely way to successfully get a date, at least for us. We're just not built for being pick up artists, and if you ask most husbands where they met their wives, not many will say "At the bar." So if I were you, I wouldn't put too much concern into asking women out, because chances are if you have to 'ask them out', you probably don't know them well enough yet. Instead, just get to know the women around you better, the ones at work, at church, in your circle of friends, etc... Most people meet their future spouse through somebody else, either a friend, coworker, neighbor, whatever. Don't terrify yourself at the bars.

As for fear of rejection, I refer you to the Lord of the Rings trilogy: Sam was too nervous to tell Rosie that he liked her in the first movie, but fearlessly approached her in the third. What changed? The fact that he'd gone so far, done so much that a thing like asking a girl to the country dance was nothing in comparison. Obviously you can't go on a quest to destroy an evil ring through a kingdom of orcs, but you can live your life in such a way that asking a girl out no longer scares you, because you know you have nothing to lose.

QFT. Just awesome advice, @sacrip.

I'm not sure if I get what you're saying. The main problem I have is knowing when and how to ask women out, because I lack the intuition NT's have. Of course you shouldn't limit yourself to bars and nightclubs, but if you're saying I shouldn't ask women out and instead focus on getting to know the ones I'm acquainted with, hoping that one day it will become more than friendship, then I'm setting myself up for a heavy fall. In my experience, you'll never get past the friendzone that way. Maybe it has worked out for you and maybe it works with older women, but if you're going to chase women in any case, you're going to have to let them know sooner rather than later that you're interested, or else you risk being stuck in the friendzone, or somebody else will beat you to it.

Yes, you should get to know a woman a bit before asking her for a date, that's why you ask her for her number first, but if you fool around too much trying to be her friend in order to get to know her well then she'll lose interest and whilst you wasted all you time and energy on her all your other potential SO's have slipped away. Perhpas your definition of "asking women out" is different from mine. Even if you don't call it a date, asking her to do something with just the two of you is still asking her out in my opinion. Perhaps I've completely misunderstood what you're saying. Maybe I'm completely full of s**t. It's possible. And if so, please explain to me where I'm wrong.

Good advice in the second paragraph, BTW, but I don't entirely agree with the first.

Last edited by Sirunus on 30 Nov 2010, 6:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Sirunus, if you know the woman well enough, you'll probably get hints from her as to weather to ask her out or not.

About bars, people either go there for one time pick-ups or to socialise with friends, thus not the ideal place to look for someone for a long-term thing. It can happen but it's rare enough.

Learning to flirt may help, it's hard to learn but it may help your confidence a little bit to build this skill.

Well I seldom go to clubs or bars these days anyway, so it sort of rules that out, but on nights out my female friends tend to bring with them female friends. And if I'm going to get to know a woman, I'm going to have to make the first move sometimes.

To be honest I had the biggest fear of rejection in my early 20's, I mean it was huge, but I saw a psych who said to me "Do you like everyone in the world? So how can you expect everyone in the world to like you?"

Guys tend to immediately assume the worst will happen when they ask someone out, like not only will they reject you, but create a huge scene and try and belittle you as well. Seldom happens.

It's a huge thing to get over, but it is possible, been there and done it. Most guys Aspie or not are intimidated by girls, particularly in a dating sense.

I would never go up to total strangers and ask them out. This does not work out well. I will only consider ones who know at least one other person I know. My friend approaches strangers and asks them out, and they end up rejecting him for some trivial thing. Strangers don't work out sometimes because they have no investment in your social group. Hence they have a reduced interest in being decent with you and so they're more likely to reject you for trivial things or to mistreat or mislead you.

Once my friend in California approached a stranger and she rejected him because he was a bit awkward with opening the wine. It's not like he drinks a whole lot of the stuff. In another example, a stranger told me "Oh, you couldn't be getting your Ph.D." I could have told her where she ought to go, but I didn't want to be nasty about it. At that moment I decided this interaction is going to be another one of those learning experiences, so I just played along.

I learned that with strangers dating is more of a game or an exercise in drama than a genuine effort to build a relationship with someone.

Last edited by sgrannel on 01 Dec 2010, 10:56 am, edited 1 time in total.

I also have a fear of rejection, but slowly over time I have become less afraid of it.

The question on here seems to be how to figure out when to "take it to the next level" or when to ask her out. Sure, she gives hints...but SO DO YOU. It's not all about her, and if you make it that way, you set yourself up for failure. She is reacting to you more than you are reacting to her, and if you try to become friends with her, then you will be stuck in the friend zone. Most guys that have issues with rejection haven't ventured outside the house very often. I gained so much self-confidence when I went out and explored the real world, because once I saw it, I realized that there isn't that much to be afraid of, so women...not so scary. A cute redhead is only scary if she is holding an AK-47.

My fear of rejection is so great that introductions through family and friends is the only acceptable way of meeting someone. Of course, my friends and family being as they are, nothing will come my way, so I have to resort to a sad existence of throwing money at prostitutes. Disgusting. It isn't worth it.

Well, as I said before, the only way I'm going to learn is through trial and error. Maybe it's not a question of "asking the most girls out possible" but making the first move with all potential dates. Yes, I know that my chances of success are higher if I already know the girl than with strangers, and I'm more likely to approach girls I already met than strangers, but rather than waiting for them to make the first move all the time, why don't I give it a shot? I might learn something useful. It's time I got thicker skin.

I have a similar problem and right now its got to a point where I usually try to find an excuse for not asking a girl out to avoid embarassment.


The other day I was introduced to a above average looking female that was single and the first thing that I noticed was that she was posh and she was very self centred(had problems with poshy females when I was at school for a long period so its usually a turn off for me with only a few exceptions).



What Im doing to overcome this shyness is making an effort to get out as much as I can and taking every chance of meeting others. i think its all got to do with confidence so if I keep doing this for sometime maybe Ill gain some confidence and I wont be afraid of rejection anymore.


Sorry I cant offer any advice more advice on this topic and I just wanted to let you know you arent alone.