SPEAKER_00 0:00

In today's short podcast, we're going to be discussing how shy guys actually flirt. And let me tell you all, before I was an executive love coach for all of you beautiful women helping you get out there and attract love, I actually used to coach shy guys on how to get out there and meet you. And so in today's podcast, we're going to be talking about this concept of attracting guys who might not be the most initially confident, extroverted men, but I'm telling you, shy guys offer a lot of potential in relationships. Gary, this is gonna be a great one. I think that's gonna help them out a lot. Welcome to the Love Strategies Podcast, where we help successful women attract high-value men, date with a strategy, and improve their relationships. Now, whether you're single or dating or in a new relationship, we're here to help you dive into the male mind and provide raw insights found nowhere else, backed by science, psychology, and our own personal experiences. Your hosts today are myself, Adam Ladolce, a professional dating coach and founder of Love Strategies, and Dr. Gary Lewandowski, a relationship scientist, professor, and our head relationship coach here at Love Strategies. Please share with a friend and enjoy.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

Yeah, I think that yeah, at the foundation of it, there's a lot more guys that are into you than you think. And if you're discounting a lot of these shy guys, you're missing them entirely, right? Because I'm sure you've met a guy who you kind of saw him and you're like, huh, you're interested. But then when you talk to him, he seems nervous or quiet or reserved or even a little awkward. So immediately you wrote him off. You're like, ick, not my type. He's just not into me.

SPEAKER_00 1:39

He just doesn't like you. And your girlfriends will probably be like, Oh, if he is not walking across the room, chatting you up and knocking you off your feet, whatever, oh, he's just not into you. And it's like, no, what are you talking about? Terrible advice, Deborah. Sorry. Terrible advice. Apologies to all the Debras. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:00

But you know, stand by what I said. It's very easy to friend zone this guy, where on the other hand, there's the confident guy. He's charming, he's funny, he makes strong eye contact, he comes right up to you. Your attention naturally gravitates to him. He's got no problem talking to you, chatting up your friends. He says the right things, he teases you just enough. And so you're like, ooh, the chemistry with this guy is off the charts. But is it chemistry or is it really just practice? A little bit of overconfidence, maybe even a dash of narcissism. It's probably a lot of those things. And this is why we're we really want to advocate. And I like that, I love this topic because I love advocating for like the shy guy, the introverted guy, the nice guy, who I just think in general is just the good honest guy, right? Like we call shy guy, but I think it's really the good honest guy. He's not loud and he's not obnoxious, he's not, he's not really great at flirting. He's gonna be subtle, maybe a little awkward. But if you are not paying attention to this guy, the worst part is you're missing out on the guy who is actually the guy that you want. Like when you ask yourself, who do I want to spend the rest of my life with? It's much more likely to be this good, honest man, this shy guy that you're immediately writing off and you're like, Why are there no good guys in the world? And it's like, they're there, I guess, Deborah. But you know, it's but we're missing them because our filter just isn't calibrated properly to find them.

SPEAKER_00 3:30

Yeah, Gary and I had a quick discussion right before the we started recording the podcast. He's like, I don't know, should we even be calling them shy? I'm like, let's just leave it in the title because for whatever reason, you all like to hear about shy guys. But really, what we're incorporating in this are the guys who may have been married for 30 years and now are widowers, right? Or guys who just are not naturally great at approaching women because they haven't done it a lot and they've maybe focused on their career and they might be very charismatic in the boardroom, but are not great at actually approaching women. Like, I don't even consider those guys necessarily shy because honestly, most guys fall into that category. It's very frankly rare that a guy has the confidence to just go up to a woman he finds attractive and chat her up. It's actually quite rare. Now, it might not necessarily feel it to some women because they're like, well, that happens to me quite a bit. Well, the thing is, it might be the same guy who's chatting up 30 different women on a given day. So it feels like there's a lot of guys out there who do it, but it as an actual number of men, percentage of men, is actually quite small. And this is where my area of expertise is very strong. I did this for a huge part of my career. I'm telling you, I've worked with men who are can speak in front of 5,000 people and do it no problem with no nervousness whatsoever. But the thought of talking to a woman they're attracted to, like they would rather jump off a cliff than go do that. Like the nervousness is insane. So that's just kind of like my pre-framing going into this.

SPEAKER_01 5:04

Well, and I think it's this mistake that like confidence and attraction go together, but they're actually two different skills, right? Confidence is a social skill. That ability to just go up to somebody and start a conversation, that's a social skill. Attraction is an emotional experience. And they're not necessarily the same things. Yes, they're correlated, but they're not perfectly correlated. And so, weirdly, though, and this is where it actually starts falling apart, is that emotional experience that you feel with attraction gets you all ramped up and actually makes it harder to be smooth, skillful, act naturally. It's because like when you're into somebody and you're feeling all the feelings, like your brain's like, and I'll tell you what guys are telling themselves is like they're saying, act natural, act natural, don't blow it, don't say something stupid. And it's like when you have that voice saying all those things to you, it's like, don't say something stupid. And you're gonna, then you're just gonna say something stupid, right? It's like don't think of a white bear. Well, you just did, right? And so it's this counterproductive thing that happens with guys that it's like your girlfriends will say, Well, if he really liked you, he would just come up to you. No, no, and in many case, it's the exact opposite, particularly for guys who are not well practiced. Here's the other thing, and I can tell I'm I get fired up about this because I love, I love talking about this. The shy, introverted guys who are not good on first dates, they're just not. I'm not gonna try to pretend that they're good and you should appreciate how they're good. They're not, they're not good at flirting, they're not good at first dates. But here's the most important part who cares? Who cares? It's actually it's actually a great sign that this guy is not good at first dates because it means he doesn't do it much. The more important thing is these skills don't matter. The dating skills and relationship skills are not the same skills. You want to be in a relationship with this guy, you don't want to date him for the rest of your life. And so these dating skills that he doesn't have, would it be nicer if he had them? Yes, agreed. But if he doesn't, let's not worry about it, right? It's like who would you rather have work for your company? Somebody who has strong interview skills or someone who has strong career job skills. Well, you want the career job skills, it's not even close. And so dating is much, very much like that. And so we just want to make sure you're optimizing for those relationship skills. And let me tell you, these shy, nice, high character guys, they've got communication skills, they're good at support, they're good at problem solving, they're intellectually curious, they have good emotional regulation, they're growth oriented. Tell me you don't want those things because that's what these guys have.

SPEAKER_00 7:40

Well, it's funny you say that. It's not only do we not care if they're good at interviewing, but in some ways, if they're really good at interviewing, then guess what? The chances of them moving on and going off to someone else, you know, in the job situation or on a first date is actually much higher. Like if a guy's very good at a first date, then he's probably gonna, you know, he might have a short-term fling, something like that, but he might move on pretty quickly because he knows he's got the goods. Whereas a guy who, you know, he might struggle on the first date, but by the second date, oh my God, do you get a look into his soul and you discover he's one of the kindest, most endearing, funny, maybe a little bit of shy humor, uh, a little bit of um, you know, uh dry humor, but you know, you you get the goods, the depth of who this person is. I'd much rather that person because the security is much stronger. So I think that's really important, which I think leads us very well to the first point, which is that shy guy attraction almost always looks like nervousness, right? He's going to be nervous when he's around you. One thing I would do when I was coaching men is I would go up, go out with maybe a group of two or three, as many of six shy guys, and we would go to an event, a party, um, sometimes like a high-end lounge bar, and I would really get these guys to go out and just talk to women. And this is a really fun part of my job because I would just kind of creep at the bar and just watch them. And I was just like, I would find parts, creepy. Yeah, I would I would have my binoculars kind of out there, and I was like, Oh my god, I cannot believe I get paid to do this. I was in my mid-20s, what a fun time! Uh, just so much fun. But their body language was just always so off, right? They would be fidgeting with their hands, they would be very, very nervous, they wouldn't be making great eye contact. And it was one of those things that because they were so attracted to that woman, the more attracted to a woman that they were, the more nervous they would get and it would feel very like nervous energy. And it's just worth like being aware of for all those women when you're talking to a guy and he's fidging a little bit, it means he's really into you, and that's a good thing.

SPEAKER_01 9:55

Yeah. The other thing is when you go into a situation that you know is important and you care about, but you also know you're not fully prepared for or low on skills, how do you feel? You feel terrified, you feel nervous, you're super nervous, you know that you don't have all the skills. Like these these guys know that they're not great on these first meetups, they know they're not great on approach, they know they're not great at flirting, and it makes everything worse. Because think about it, the guy who's super confident, why is he so confident? Well, because he doesn't care, he just doesn't care that much. If it doesn't work out with you, well, there's many others it can work out with. And so, like this guy who's nervous, see it as a good sign. Also, just realize because he cares, he has a lot of what we call in psychology cognitive load, which just means it's got a lot of head trash, a lot of stuff going on. He cares. He's second guessing himself. He's wondering if he should have said what he just said. He's wondering if he should be making more eye contact. Should he have laughed at that moment? Should he smile more? Is he looking bored? Like he's like this, all of this like self-monitoring is taking place and it's all counterproductive to being smooth, to being charming, to saying the right thing. It makes him stutter and stammer and look away and like look bored at times, and it's just cut these guys a break. I mean, I guess I keep my coming back to that is like these confident guys are confident for not the right reasons a lot of times. The shy guy is lacking confidence for many of the right reasons, which is counter counterintuitive in many ways.

SPEAKER_00 11:34

If you want a man who's investing in you, I mean like emotionally investing in you, a man who's shy and keeps talking to you and tries to engage in conversation, that's a much higher investment than some guy who has no problem approaching a woman from across the bar. Right. Like that's cheap. I I think of some friends of mine who are just very good at or were very good, they're all married now, but they were very good at chatting up women at the bar. Like they went up to one woman not interested, so what? Move on to the next. So what? Okay, now I've got someone who's interested in me. Then I have some friends who were like very nervous, and they'd be kind of looking at a woman throughout the night, be like, I really like her, I really like her, and then finally, like, must drop the car, should go and talk to her, and might be a little bit nervous, but like that is an investment. He's in it because that took a lot for him to do that. And so, yeah, how many times really good point?

SPEAKER_01 12:27

Cut him a break. That is a sneaky, really good point in the sense that, like, if a shy guy, a guy who seems shy, does talk to you, you're probably his one shot. Yeah, he all night, like he was waiting this whole time, and like he was only gonna do this once, and he worked up the courage to pick you as the one. Oh my gosh, like what a higher compliment that is than the guy who's flooding the zone, basically spreading his resume all around the room to see who's willing to, you know, hire him, so so to speak, right? Whereas this shy guy is like he he was he's been thinking about it for a solid half an hour, probably longer. He's been scanning, he's been plotting, he's been planning, and he like actually took the steps. Gosh, I love it. I love those dudes. So great, such a soft spot in my heart. All right. So the other piece of the second piece of this is you have to know the difference between attention and affection. We're all suckers for attention. We like attention, we like compliments, we like people, you know, telling us funny stories and joking around, but we have to realize that with a lot of the guys that approach, and even on first dates, it's prepared, it's a little canned. They try to redirect attention back to themselves. Their compliments to you are even a little performative, they're a little self-serving because they're trying to win favor. Now, it still feels good, but you have to make sure you're you're kind of keeping your wits about you to separate the two. Like, yes, this is nice, but like let's not give it too much credit because the shy guy is not going to give a lot of those superficial things. He's gonna give more affection or sincere attention because he wants actual conversation. He's not looking to land punchy little jokes and like canned lines and like little prepared statements. He's actually trying to get to know you. He's not trying to impress you necessarily, he's trying to understand you, trying to get a sense for how you think about the world. And again, kind of going back to something I said before, like, isn't this what we want in long-term love? And so his affection is gonna look a little different. He's gonna remember little details, things that you said earlier. He's gonna call back to earlier parts of the conversation. He's gonna ask thoughtful questions. He'll actually have follow-up questions. Like he's gonna pick up on subtleties that other people miss. He's gonna ask about things that other people don't ask about. He's gonna notice, you know, if you've dated him a couple times, he'll notice little changes. Oh, today you feel a little, you feel a little down today. Is everything okay? What? Like who what is going on with this guy? This is what we want. And so, you know, really look and measure his curiosity. And and any guy is like, is he remembering things? Is he following up? Is he asking questions about you that aren't designed to make him look better? Like, these are the things that are important that the shy guys will be good at, but they're not the things that most people are actually paying attention to on first dates.

SPEAKER_00 15:30

Yeah, this this difference between attention and affection, I think, is so important for women because attention tends to be very loud. It's very loud. You can you can like when you feel it, it's there. And we can we're all uh attention-seeking creatures and human, it's part of human nature. Like we don't like to feel like we're not being noticed. But uh affection, on the other hand, can feel very soft. It's like a softer feel, it's deeper. A deep is a better word, I think. It's a deeper feeling. And when we are looking for short-term flings, seek attention because attention is cheap. When you are looking for a long-term, healthy, committed relationship, seek affection. This is much deeper, it's much more long-lasting. And people tend not to give affection to those where they don't have an emotional connection. Better said, people will give you affection when they're emotionally connected to you. And so really look out for those little things. And my personal experience working with a lot of introverted people. I mean, at this point, we've coached over 40,000 people around the world through love strategies and when I was previously coaching men. And I've found my personal experience is that introverted people tend to be better at giving deeper affection than extroverted people. I don't know. I think extroverted people naturally gravitate towards giving attention or getting attention. And so beware of those differences when you're meeting these different types of guys. I'm not saying that you should only go for introverted guys. I mean, I think it just kind of depends on who you're dating and what fits. But that's been my personal experience. And I think that's really important. And for those who are listening and want to learn how to build a little bit deeper emotional affection and to really captivate someone on an emotional level, whether they're extroverted or introvert, it doesn't matter. We have a special resource for you. It's something Dr. Gary and I put together. It's called the Love Captivation Code. And on this special seminar, we spend about 45 minutes teaching you how to really build that deeper emotional affection with guys. And for the podcast listeners, anyone watching right now, you can head on over to lovecaptivation.com or leave a link in the description. Register for that seminar, stay to the end. It's gonna really open your eyes on how to really connect with any of these guys on a much deeper level. I think it's gonna help you out a lot. So go check it out.

SPEAKER_01 18:03

Awesome. So the last piece for identifying, not missing out on these shyer guys. I bet most of you dating, if not every single one of you are dating, are online dating. And when it comes to shy guys, great relationship partners don't always make great first impressions, especially online. Because these guys that are shy are looking for something different and they feel they're a little bit reluctant to be online. They're not gonna put as much effort in in many ways, because I think a lot of times these guys are slightly embarrassed. And I think it really comes down to with a lot of like these high character, good, solid guys, what he's really thinking to himself is none of this that I'm putting into this online profile really matters for the kind of relationship I want. So his profile is not gonna be polished. His pictures, I mean, where is he getting those from? Right? Like, where is this guy gonna like? He's not gonna like go out with his buddies, like, hey Bill, it's golden hour. Take my picture. Like, it's just not just not gonna happen. It's just gonna be hard. And so, like, when he's gotten terrible pictures and he's got a picture with him and you know, a dead deer that he killed or a fish that he caught, it's like, okay, fine. Like, it's not ideal, but fine.

SPEAKER_00 19:20

Gary, you're not gonna convince the podcast listeners to go out with a guy with a dead deer in his profile picture. What are you thinking?

SPEAKER_01 19:28

They should. I I stand firm on this. They absolutely should. All right, but no shortlist pictures. Shirtless pictures is a bad, just a bad idea. He's out, he's dead to us. He's a dead deer. It's like I will I had a client just the other day who was like, you know, this guy had terrible pictures. I'm like, okay, well, what kind of terrible pictures? Well, you know, he was taking a picture in his own bathroom mirror. Like, did he have his shirt on? She's like, Well, yeah. I'm like, well, then what's the problem? Right? Like, where else is this guy gonna get pictures? Now, shirtless pictures, a whole other issue. I'm anti-shess pictures, but like this nice guy who's like reluctantly getting online and he doesn't really want to do this. He's like, I need a picture. He's not gonna ask somebody else, so he's gonna go in his bathroom and take a picture. Like, okay, I'd actually be more worried. For all of you listening in our online dating, be more cautious and skeptical of the guys that have immaculate pictures that have immaculate profiles because it's just not a traditional masculine, manly, solid guy thing to do, to be like, I'm gonna craft my perfect profile and I'm gonna catch the right angle and the right light and the right filter and the right all of this stuff in my pictures. It's just not something they're gonna do. And so just know like these guys are not gonna put in the effort in many ways into their profiles. And so it's this untapped resource. And this is I I I want to say half of our clients find their guy by following this one simple piece of advice, which is click on the profiles that seem a little bit sparse, that seem a little bit like you're gonna see them as a little bit lazy. The pictures that aren't that great, click on more of those profiles because those guys, they're a little reluctant to be there in the first place, and they're great relationship partners, but they don't want to do the dating thing. And that's actually a guy you want.

SPEAKER_00 21:21

Totally agree, and I'm gonna back you hard, Gary, because this is one of the most consistent themes we see with our clients who find the man of their dreams, and that is that you will be very pleasantly surprised when you go on a meetup with some of these guys who don't have perfect pictures that have kind of weird pictures or little grainy pictures. I'm not saying, like, obviously, there is a limit to that, and we talk a lot about that when with our clients, and we'll even help them decide whether or not it's worth it. We will we will talk to them individually, but you will be very pleasantly surprised many times. And on the other side of this, you will be very sorely disappointed when you go out with a guy with great pictures, it correlation-wise, like I want Gary to do like a little statistical, you know, this is called regression towards the mean.

SPEAKER_01 22:14

Explain, Gary. Go go know. Your regression towards the mean is like when the picture starts off really good, chances are in person it's gonna be a little less than that amazing, right? And so that like brings you back more towards the middle. When the guy's pictures and profile aren't that great, when you meet them in person, they're almost always better than what you saw in person. Like you're regressing or kind of reconstituting around the mean.

SPEAKER_00 22:34

Definitely. So basically, big picture, it's not a great data point, it's really not like it gives it's one slight data point of like clearly there's some profiles where like, hell no, I'm not going out with a guy. Fine. If it's a heck no, whatever. But if it's uh, I don't know, maybe do you know how many clients are now married to the man of their dreams? What because one of the coaches were like, just do it, and they're like, I don't want to, but I'll do it because you tell me. And I paid you all this money to tell me what to do, so I'm gonna freaking do it. We're like, okay, fine. I don't care how what gets you to go on a stupid date with this stupid guy, just go do it. And then they're like, oh my god, he's the man of my dreams. We're getting married, you know, a year later, we're getting married. So it's just like we have so much of this experience working with clients who've just kind of like overridden that initial uh instinct. It's that initial instinct to say, no, no, no, no, no, I'm not lowering my standards, I'm not doing it. And they do it, and then guess what? Their standards are so much higher than they ever were before. So, for those of you who are listening who are like, you know what, I need some help in this area of my life. Clearly, I've been writing off the shy guys. Clearly, I've been overlooking the men who could be great long-term partners. I've been investing way too much in the men who are just not right for me. I keep wasting my time and repeating the same patterns over and over again. I have a very special resource for all of you today. What we have is a team of love strategists who are waiting to meet with you. We have one specific uh who's available right now to chat with you, who I know will be amazing. Uh, her name is Allison. She would love to speak with you. If you head on over to loveapply.com, you can apply for a complimentary love strategy session with someone on my team who is trained by myself, Dr. Gary, the entire coaching staff who's gonna speak with you directly, understand some of your challenges, the patterns, why we're overlooking certain types of guys and why it is that we're spending so much of our energy on the wrong men. And then we're gonna understand your vision. Where do you want to go in your love life? What is that man in relationship that you really desire? What does he feel like? And then we're gonna bridge the gap. We're gonna give you a strategy that can help you along the way. Now, if at the end of that session, you're like, you know what? I want to work with you guys. I need a support system, I need to make this happen sooner than later. I don't want to waste any more time. We'll open our arms, welcome you into the Love Strategies family. If not, no worries. Either way, you get to speak with someone and get some guidance in your love life. So head on over to loveapply.com. Apply for that complimentary love strategy session. We can't wait to be a part of your journey. Thank you so much, Gary. This was fantastic, and uh, we'll speak to you all very soon.