Love-shyness

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Love shyness is a phrase created by psychologist Brian G. Gilmartin to describe a specific type of severe chronic shyness. According to his definition, published in Shyness & Love: Causes, Consequences, and Treatments (1987), love-shy people find it difficult to be assertive in informal situations involving potential Romantic love|romantic or Sexuality|sexual partners. For example, a heterosexual love-shy male will have trouble initiating conversations with women because of strong feelings of anxiety.

Dr. Gilmartin Survey research|researched this phenomenon exclusively in heterosexual men, concluding that (1987, p.1) love-shyness "afflicts approximately 1.5 percent of all American males...[and] will effectively prevent about 1.7 million [U.S.] males...from ever marrying and from ever experiencing any form of intimate sexual contact with women."

Gilmartin's definition

Gilmartin had seven criteria for each "love-shy man" he included in his study:

  • He is a virgin. He has not yet experienced sexual intercourse.
  • He is a man who very rarely goes out socially with Woman|women.
  • He is a person without a past history of any emotionally close, meaningful relationships of a Romantic love|romantic and/or Intimate relationship|sexual nature with any member of the opposite sex.
  • He is a person who has Suffering|suffered and is continuing to suffer emotionally because of a lack of meaningful female companionship. In short, he is a male who desperately wishes to have a relationship with a woman, but does not have one because of his shyness. In other words, he is not a man who consciously chooses not to have romantic or intimate relationships; rather, he wants such relationships but cannot establish them.
  • He is a man who becomes extremely anxiety-ridden over so much as the mere thought of assertiveness|asserting himself vis-à-vis a woman in a casual, friendly way. This is the essence of "love-shyness".
  • He is a man who is strictly heterosexual in his romantic and erotic orientations. Again, he is a male who is in no way a homosexual.
  • He is a male. There were no women interviewed in the study.

Gilmartin did not rule out the existence of female or homosexual love-shy people, but he doubted they would feel the same negative effects as heterosexual men, and suspected that the condition would manifest very differently in them, largely due to the societal roles that force heterosexual men into an "active" role in initiating relationships that do not subject women or homosexual men to the same pressures. Gilmartin explains, "[T]he very shy young woman is no less likely to date and to marry than is the self-confident woman, non-shy woman . . . . In essence, even very shy women marry. Love-shy men cannot and do not marry irrespective of how strong their desires might be . . . . "

Results of Gilmartin's research

According to Gilmartin, people of all ages, all sexual orientations, and all genders can be love-shy. However, in Gilmartin's opinion, the negative effects of love-shyness manifest themselves primarily in heterosexual men. Gilmartin's data collection included only heterosexual men. He studied 200 love-shy college students (aged 19-24), 100 older love-shy men (aged 35-50), and a comparison group of 200 "non-shy" college students. Gilmartin's non-shy men were not intended to represent the average male, and were recruited only if they were highly social.

Temperament and personality

The love-shy men in Gilmartin's sample had significant differences in temperament from the non-shy men. They scored significantly lower on Extraversion, and higher on Neuroticism than the non-shy men on the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire. In Eysenck's terms, they had a "melancholic" temperament. Most of the love-shy men (and only few of the non-shy men) reported that their mothers had often said that they had been quiet babies, which Gilmartin suggests is evidence that love-shys are more likely to fit Jerome Kagan's description of behavioral inhibition.

A minority of the younger love-shys had some feelings of optimism in getting their problems fixed while all of the older love-shys felt very pessimistic about their problems and also felt cynical to the world and women in general. The older men expressed more anger in their interviews while the younger men were calmer.

Interactions with peers and family life

Most of the love-shy men, but none of the non-shy men, reported never having any friends, not even aquaintances. The vast majority of love-shy men reported being Bullying|bullied by children their own age, while none of the non-shy men did, and love-shy men were less likely to fight back against bullies. Around half of the love-shy men reported being bullied or harassed as late as high school, while none of the non-shy men did. Even as adults, the love-shy men reported remaining friendless and abused by other people.

From the data Gilmartin uncovered about the love-shy's family life, they grew up in dysfunctional families. Most of the men reported that their parents and societal attitudes pressured them into being "real boys" because of the men's personalities as children. It is possible that their parents abuse and uncaring attitude to their son's emotions, desires, and interests were responsible for part of their social inhibitions. Even as grown men, the love-shy men's parents expressed that they were disappointed to have them as sons and still belittled them for their current situations. Most were upset that their sons never married and had no grandchildren to leave their heirlooms to. It was also stated that they seldom or even never visited their sons. Ironically, though most of the love-shy men disliked or even hated their parents, they visited them constantly, because they were the only people they could interact with and also to receive financial support despite also receiving heavy hazing. This is stated in the chapters of his book "Parents as a cause for love-shyness" and "The Family as a Hot Bed for rage and Belittlement".

In his recruited samples, Gilmartin had found only 14% of the self-confident university-age non-shy men had no sister around while growing up, as opposed to 59% of the university-aged love-shy men, with 71% of the 35-50 year-old love-shy men never having had a sister. In the same groups, over half of the self-confident non-love-shy young group had grown up with at least two sisters, compared to only 6% of the younger and 3% of the older love-shy men. Gilmartin also noted that none of the older love-shy men and very few of the younger love-shy men had any adults to rely on for emotional support growing up.

Adjustment and anxiety disorders

Gilmartin's love-shy men were poorly-adjusted as they were unhappy with their lives and high in rates of anxiety disorders and possibly mental illnesses. He found that the love-shy men had considerably more violent fantasies, were very pessimistic and cynical about the world, were much more likely to believe that nobody cared about them, and were much more likely to have difficulties concentrating. He also found a tendency in some of the love-shy men to stare compulsively at women with whom they were infatuated or even Stalking|stalk them, but without being able to talk to them, which sometimes got them in trouble with school authorities because of the perceived threat. Most of the love-shy men reported experiencing frequent feelings of depression. Gilmartin noted that about 40% of the older love-shy men had seriously considered committing suicide.

Career, money, and education

Gilmartin noted that the 100 older love-shy men studied were experiencing well above average career instability. Even though almost all of these older love-shys had successfully completed higher education, their salaries were well below the US average. They were typically, if anything, underemployment|underemployed and were working in low clerk|clerical jobs such as Taxicab|taxi driving, and door-to-door canvassers. At the time of Gilmartin's research (1979-1982), 3.6% of college graduates in the USA were unemployed. The unemployment rate for the older love-shy men was 16% because of their perceived bad past experiences with jobs. All of the love-shy men were in the lower middle class or lower.

Being single, the older love-shy men all lived in apartments. As a consequence of their social-sexual inhibitions, and subsequently limited social network, their financial situations were generally less fortunate, and many were forced to live in less attractive neighbourhoods. It is notable that none of the older love-shy men Gilmartin studied owned a home and their places of abode were rental apartments. While many of these men were excellent students, the effects of their shyness had a negative impact on their social lives and also their impression for employers. This diminished many opportunities in their careers in the same manner as it inhibited their love lives.

Music

According to Gilmartin, the love-shy tended to prefer vocal love ballads such as Broadway theatre music, brassy jazz music, easy listening, film soundtracks, and light classical music but not traditional classical music. A few also mentioned having a strong liking for country and western. Rock n roll|Rock music of almost every kind was disliked by the love-shy but only on taste level, not on moral grounds. Gilmartin noted that surprisingly few of the love-shy men mentioned female singers.

Professor Gilmartin concludes that the majority of love-shy men prefer music with emotional/escapist themes and rich, beautiful melody. As a result, love-shy males dislike music that is noisy, loud, dissonant, or unmelodic in their point of view. The non-shy men Gilmartin interviewed typically enjoyed rock music and would only buy rock albums. The music love-shys enjoyed was considered boring by most of the non-shy men.

Cinema

The movies (1945 to 1980) most often seen by the American love-shy in Gilmartin's study were:

  1. Jeremy (1973)
  2. David and Lisa (1962)
  3. Forbidden Games (1952)
  4. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964)
  5. The Graduate (1967)
  6. Butterflies Are Free (1972)
  7. Marty (1955)
  8. Fiddler on the Roof (1971)
  9. Romeo and Juliet (1968 film)|Romeo and Juliet (1968)
  10. Nobody Waved Goodbye (1965)

According to Gilmartin, the full list of 63 repeatedly seen movies can be classified into two categories:

  1. "heavy", emotionally engrossing love stories, and
  2. escapist musicals with a strong romantic flavor.

Other love-shy attributes

According to Gilmartin, many love-shy men show the following patterns:

  • often feel women are more privileged (have it easier) than men and often envy this perception
  • place great, often disproportionate importance on physical beauty (especially facial beauty) on both themselves and the women they are interested in
  • had a physically difficult birth or needed a c-section to be born
  • are not as likely to be interested in male friendships. Most of the love-shy men had feelings of misandry towards the same-sex.
  • are under-developed in muscle tone
  • were usually quiet as infants, while non-love-shy men are rarely so
  • tend to be more interested in movies and music, and prefer watching different types of movies from non-love-shy men. Most of the love-shys interviewed hated sports that were of the "rough and tumble" nature, such as American football.
  • are more interested in female oriented activities
  • are less patriotic
  • are more likely to be apolitical
  • are less religion|religious but largely Spirituality|spiritual
  • are very sensitive to petty stimuli, bright light, and syringe needles
  • develop interest in females at an earlier age than usual, particularly in the third to fifth grade range
  • often only want to have female children because of their strong positive opinion of the opposite sex and detest the idea of having male children due to bullying by male school bullies and lacking interest in male activities
  • often have tense, nervous, angry, and/or two-faced mothers
  • often was a victim of child abuse by the parents or a third party at a young age
  • often were an only child
  • often have no sisters, and rarely have more than one
  • often had no adults to turn to for emotional support as children, and continue to be that way as adults
  • often felt they had little influence on family decisions as children
  • ones who had siblings achieved intimacy with relationships and were preferred by the parents
  • suffer from depression because of the treatment from their parents and their lack of a social and sexual life
  • often go through an excessive amount of psychological trauma, of which love-shyness can be the aftermath; many of the above items can be precursors of it
  • hold their parents responsible because of some of the aforementioned limitations

However, these attributes are not limited to people who are love shy; these patterns have also been diagnosed in other sorts of medical conditions.

Gilmartin's theory

Causes of love-shyness

Gilmartin estimates that love-shyness afflicts approximately 1.5 percent of American males. According to Gilmartin, love-shyness is, like most human psychological characteristics, the result of some combination of biological (genetic/developmental) and environmental (culture|cultural, family|familial, religion|religious, etc.) factors (see also: nature versus nurture). Gilmartin believes that shyness is a condition which needs to be cured.

He mentions several possible biological causes of love-shyness, most notably low maternal testosterone during fetal development, nasal polyps, and hypoglycemia.

Crucial factors exacerbating negative development during the love-shy male's childhood are:

  • School bullying. Love-shy boys are vulnerable to bullying from their peer group, due to their shyness and inhibition. Non-conformism to peer group norms also makes the boy a target through no fault of his own.
  • Parental upbringing. Where a child receives primarily negative stimuli from his parents (e.g. corporal punishment, child abuse, verbal abuse, criticism, 'put-downs', negative comparisons, indifference) this will most likely cause the boy to retreat further and further into his 'shell'.

With so many negative stimuli from crucial relationships in one's childhood, the love-shy boy becomes a social isolation|social isolate. He learns to associate these crucial interactions (i.e. with parents, peer group) with hurt feelings and is likely to avoid social interaction. Social isolation becomes a 'vicious circle' for the love-shy individual as the years go by, and inhibits his chances in interaction with the opposite sex, as well as in other crucial areas of life such as his career.

Love-shyness, sexual orientation, and gender

Gilmartin believes that love-shyness would have the most severe effect on heterosexual males, because of gender roles. He claims that it may be possible for both shy women and homosexual men to become involved in intimate relationships without needing to take any initiative, simply by waiting for a more assertive man to initiate the relationship or in the case of lesbians, a more assertive woman. According to Gilmartin, shy women are as likely or even more likely due to their love-shyness as non-shy women to date, to marry, and to have children, while this is not the case for heterosexual men. Love-shy heterosexual men normally have no informal social contact with women (virtually by definition). They cannot date, marriage|marry, or have children, and many of these men never experience any form of intimate sexual contact. Gilmartin found that third parties such as parents and friends are often inconsiderate of the difficulties of love-shy men, and are reluctant to aid them in finding girlfriends, because many view them as "unworthy" to obtain a girlfriend. He also noted that none of the love-shy men sought sex workers for moral reasons and fearing they would fall in love with them. And often love-shy men were often unable to obtain a mail order bride because the international marriage agency either viewed them as "mentally unstable" or were too impoverished to pay the mail order bride fees.

Gilmartin notes that love-shy men are frequently assumed to be homosexual, because of their perceived lack of interest in women and this would also cause homosexual men to make advances to them but the love-shy men would reject them. Interestingly, a small number of the non-shy men admitted to have experimenting with homosexual acts though none of the love-shy men had any sort of sexual activity in their life besides masturbation. One of the men mentioned having borderline bestiality leanings, another felt sexually stimulated by rubbing Barbie dolls against himself whilst naked, and another was a coprophiliac. Additionally, Gilmartin noted that many love-shy men are not interested in friendships with other men. This, combined with their lack of success in initiating contact with women, causes feelings of loneliness, alienation, and depression.

Love-shyness and mainstream psychology

Love-shyness is not recognized as a mental disorder by the World Health Organization or American Psychiatric Association. It does share some characteristics with commonly recognized mental disorders, however.

Like people who have a specific social anxiety, love-shy people can be very anxious in informal social situations.

Like people who are afflicted with an avoidant personality disorder, love-shy people feel uncomfortable in many informal social situations, and typically avoid opportunities for social contact.

Some of the psychological and social problems of the love-shy men could be considered autistic because of the men's trouble in regards to peers, social interactions, and adjustment to change. Years later when asked in an email, Gilmartin felt that 40% of severely love-shy men would have Asperger Syndrome. But it will never be known if the men were autistic/aspergian or not because none were known to be diagnosed with either condition.

Love-shyness can also be interchangeable with involuntary celibacy.

Treatment and hope for the love-shy and proposed societal changes

Gilmartin proposed that "practice dating" sessions would help the love-shy men overcome their problems with anxiety and eventually would help them find a partner. He also proposed that the medical community take a more serious view on shyness, for bullying in school to be outlawed, and for parents to stop conditioning their daughters into not taking initiative when it comes to courtship and dating.

He further recommended a new children's recreational organization, the "Coed Scouts", which would permit children to socialize with both genders.

Gilmartin also felt that the younger love shys would have a better chance at overcoming their shyness since they were treated less harshly by their peers than the older love-shy men were. However, his research has yet to be updated so it is unknown if any of the men were able to curtail their problems.

Criticism of Gilmartin's writings

Gilmartin makes references to pseudoscience such as astrology, reincarnation, past life regression, and Kirlian photography|Kirlian aura (page 15) to support his conclusions which reviewer Elizabeth Rice Allgeier felt "waters down the potential impact of his writings" in her book review for the Journal of Sex Research. In a separate review of the book, Jonathan M. Cheek suggested that comparable emphasis should have been given to the study of love-shyness in women.

References

See also

External links

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