You may use the “Dating To Relating For Men” column in your newspaper, magazine, or website royalty free as long as you do not edit out any information, and you make sure the attribution (AssociatedNews.US) and the copyright (2013 Dating To Relating, Inc.) are clearly legible within the column. You may only use the column royalty free in your newspaper, magazine, or website. It may not be used in any books, book compilations or collections without our express permission.

Answer: Well, sounds like you are uncomfortable with women and perhaps people in general. And when you find yourself in such a condition, you have to start out with some basics and learn to get comfortable.

Learning is best done in gradients. If you try to do too high of a gradient too soon, you will fail.

So the first step in getting comfortable with people is to go somewhere where people interact and just observe. Observe them interacting and observe what seems to lead to successful interacting and what seems to lead to unsuccessful interacting. Yes, you will be an outsider looking in, but if you learn from your observations you won’t be an outsider forever.

When I got divorced from my wife who was also my first girlfriend and lover, I was very uncomfortable meeting women. But I forced myself to go out to crowded clubs every night for months. I would go there, stand at the bar, not talk to anyone (unless they talked to me) and just observe people all night.

Little by little I observed and learned what guys did and said that was successful and what they did and said that was not. I also learned what women seemed to like and not like.

It actually took me two months before I felt comfortable enough to talk to a woman and apply some of the things I had observed. But when I did, it worked. Then I started talking more and more and finally in another month I had my first successful sexual encounter with a woman I met in a bar.

Within another month, I totally mastered meeting women at bars and clubs.

I guess the moral of this story is don’t be afraid of experiencing uncomfortable situations. And don’t be afraid of failure. I have met many guys who are too uncomfortable to go stand at a bar for months being the “outsider looking in” so they stay at home and become the “outsider looking in” for the rest of their lives.

As long as you learn from “discomfort” and “failure”, discomfort and failure can be two of the best teachers you will ever have. Putting yourself in uncomfortable and failing situations with no intention to observe and learn from them is of course pointless. But putting yourself in the same situations with the intention to learn can lead to the fastest gains possible.

Of course it is also possible to avoid some of the uncomfortableness and failure by learning from people who have already done it and can pass on their observations and wisdom. Hence, there are people like me.

Mr. L. Rx