I just found this forum recently while trying to gain some insight into a man I really like and would like to develop more of a relationship with. After reading quite a bit, I think he may be love shy. Would you be willing to help me understand this further and know what more I can do that he would be comfortable with? I don't know if that's acceptable to you guys here or not, but I figure you're my best shot at understanding this wonderful man. Please let me know.

You should post more data about this man and the nature of your relationship.

I'd be happy to. I wanted to make sure it was okay first. Okay..here's the story:
He is 47 and we have worked together for 5 years. He has always been an extremely pleasant man, with ethics, integrity, sense of humor...many good qualities. He's attractive too. If you were to ask anyone in the office, they would tell you 'he's such a nice guy'. Frankly, I had just assumed he was married since he never flirted with anyone and seemed to be a devoted family man type person. I had a boyfriend most of the time we've worked together until about last March. When he found out I didn't have a boyfriend anymore, he seemed to start coming by my work area more often for what seemed rather contrived reasons. Without boring you with details, one afternoon I had a rather embarrassing messy accident in my office and was staying to clean it late one night. He dropped by and tried to help me solve the problem to no avail. When i came in the next morning, it was totally perfectly cleaned up. He had had a brilliant idea on how to do it and came in before everyone else and did that for me. I went over to his office and thanked him, hugged him and told him he was my hero. He turned purple he blushed so hard, but was smiling. That was about 3-4 months ago. Since then, I have initiated more conversations with him and learned we have tons in common. We've now had about 8 3-hour conversations after work in the parking lot and he started going to group activities (that he'd never joined in before) he knew I'd be at and he would look at me all the time, but seemed to find it hard to come up and talk to me. I have initiated conversations and e-mails, then shook his hand and have hugged him several times. He seems to enjoy all these things and responds readily, but doesn't initiate. He also seems to have gotten more nervous being around me than he was before things got on a more personal level-he blushes a lot, or chokes on his words, but he doesn't run away usually, he seems to want that contact. I have found out that he has never been married, and people who've known him since high school have never known him to have a girlfriend or even officially 'date' anyone, yet he is most definitely not gay according to the guys that know him. Because I was initiating so much I asked him if I was bugging him and he responded (this is via text) that he valued my friendship and is it okay if we're friends.... I took this to be the 'i just like you as a friend' speech, so I told him, yes that was okay, but that I would need to distance myself from him for awhile to process the rejection because I liked him more than as simply a friend. He did not respond at all to that. In the days that followed, one of his buddies came up to me and said 'what did you do to him? He's lost the spring in his step.' The friend advised me to e-mail him something friendly and let him know everything was fine.......so I did that...he responded immediately in a positive way, and we'd been e-mailing back and forth in a friendly manner as 'friends' like I thought he wanted.
Well, i recently was moved to an office in another building. On the morning i was to move, he was visibly upset about the move when i went to say goodbye to him. His eyes were misty. I asked him for a hug and he gave me a great good close hug (previously he'd been very 'proper'). I told him I was going to miss him and he said he'd miss me too. First day in my new office i sent him mail with my new phone number and he called me late in the day. I was heading to a fast food joint to get a bite since i hadn't had lunch and asked him if he'd like to join me..... so even though he wasn't hungry, he met me there and had a tea, and we talked again for another 3 hours. When we were leaving, I asked to hug him again and probably held it longer than polite, so I said 'you're probably wondering why I'm still hugging you...that's because I LIKE to hug you'...and I also touched the back of his hair........he was scarlet..but didn't flinch or pull away or vomit or anything to indicate he was repulsed by me. There are other details, but i'm trying to not be too long winded here. The indicators seem to be that he likes me and enjoys my company and that when I touch him, he looks like he was electrified. But he doesn't generally do anything assertive to propel the relationship forward at all. When I thought..well, he's just not that into you.......and backed off, that seemed to have a negative effect on him. I'm at a loss as to what to do that let's him know I'm interested in him, but that doesn't make him uncomfortable........ it's really hard since he doesn't give me super direct information like most men are known to do. I'm totally willing to take it slow, but I don't want to feel that I'm forcing myself on him either. He's a wonderful man. I think it's entirely possible he's a 47 year old virgin though. (not that that's bad, it's just a really foreign concept to me). I"m 46 by the way. If there's any information I can give you to help clarify anything, please let me know. I have just noticed that he relates very differently to a woman who might be a romantic interest as opposed to the married women in the office. Your thoughts??

This is a man you should have dated/married in your 20's before he became too damaged to reciprocate.

The only chance now is to be patient, deliberate, and clear in regards to your intentions. Maybe he is capable of forming a relationship or maybe not, but in any case playing any games (such as hard to get or ambiguous) will ensure that nothing will ever happen. It sounds like you made a couple of correct moves, but it may take some persistence to get through the barriers he's built up.

Thanks SmoothRide for responding! I wish I would have known him in my 20's...but then again, I'm not sure I was a good enough woman at that time to fully appreciate a good guy like him. At this age though, I am direct, not a game player and wear my true intentions on my sleeves, so that's advantageous I would think. I'm way past all that stupid girlie stuff. But do you think it sounds like he likes me or is interested? It seems like he is to me, but I don't want to assume, nor do I want to be a pest to him or make him uncomfortable. I was taught as a child not to 'chase' boys - that they wouldn't like/respect you if you did, but I do understand that there's nothing wrong with being assertive somewhat in this situation, and that he probably needs a bit of that. It is hard to reconcile that though with the formative 'training' that it's not right to do so. Even though he isn't verbally really encouraging it, his actions lead me to believe that he is. Is my thinking on point do you suppose? I don't want a 'bad boy'. I want a real man with values, integrity, thoughtfulness and sincerity. I believe that's what he's all about and it's incredibly wonderful to find. I don't want to blow it.

Hello??? Anyone out here?? I'm feeling pretty depressed here. I e-mailed him today and asked if he'd like to get together after work (we're both off tomorrow) and he said he'd have to take a rain check as he was having dinner with his mother. He didn't suggest another time or anything. I wrote back and told him the ball was in his court. I'm so confused by the positive signs he shows and then the total lack of initiative. I feel like I'm humiliating myself here...........Should I just give up and let it lie?

Just stop expecting any initiative from him and do everything yourself. I don't care about your previous experiences, paradigm, expectations or your own self-esteem. If he's LS you have to do everything yourself. Don't be bothered by any reaction except for outright rejection expressed multiple times. In that case, move on.

He maybe love-shy. Love-shys aren't always able to respond and because of lack of experiance doesn't know what the next step is. He said he would have to take a rain check. So he would like to get together with you. Because of his lack of experiance in these situations it's likely that suggesting another time never even crossed his mind. If you leave the ball in his court it might stay there. For a love-shy fear and anxiety will often prevent him from initiating. Plus not knowing what to do or what he should do. You are getting positive signs from him which is a good thing. Some love-shys aren't even capable of that much.

help

Lets not forget that this guy doesn't know about love-shyness and doesn't know that he could be a love-shy. That being the case he doesn't know why he is the way he is and why he's been alone all his life.

It sounds like he has been making some progress. But things are going to go slow. He doesn't know about love-shyness or have a forum of people with the same problem to help him. He problably thinks that he is the only one with his problems and doesn't know that there are others like him. Now that he's getting some female attention he is likely confused and doesn't have a clue what to do.

Oh! I'm so excited you guys are talking to me now!! Thank you so much. I would bet he is not aware of love-shyness, but he has given me clues to his personality. He has indicated that he is 'different' and just born that way. He told me that he was never married because he saw his mother go through two bad marriages at his own young age and has seen friends made miserable by lying cheating women, so he just gave up and figured it was easier to just forget it. The last time we spent time together he sort of told me some stuff that he's angry with his mother about. She lives near him and seems quite controlling and demanding. Also, his younger brother who's (according to him) an ex drug addict, lazy and a leech, lives with her (and off of her) and she is totally enabling and co-dependent with him while treating him (my guy) like crap..and he's always been the 'good' son. Another thing that happened, he allowed me to come over to his house to pick up something he was giving me, and he showed me all his cool stuff in his garage and we talked for hours - outside the house. I met his dog, and his dog is very afraid of strangers. I guess he doesn't meet many new people. The dog kept circling me, coming closer, running away, then coming back......and this went on for awhile until he was laying on my feet allowing me to scratch his belly. At that point he was watching this whole ritual intently and remarked how much he and his dog's personalities were alike. I feel like he's trying to tell me something in an indirect way, but I just don't want to assume that's what's happening either. He played a song for me on a CD - by Allison Krause called 'You say it best, when you say nothing at all'... very nice romantic ballad..... he was staring at me a lot while it was on. He has also mentioned quite a few movies he likes which are romance type movies such as French Kiss.....etc. so he seems to be a romantic at heart. I have felt reading this forum that he seems to fit tons of what you guys are talking about. Just wish I knew for sure. I told him I liked him more than friends - was that super scary for him do you think? or did he like it?..... if he didn't like me, do you think he would just be completely avoiding me at this point, or would he think that was impolite? I know you guys don't know him, but you're the best hope I have for insight. I believe he's worth putting time, patience in effort into if there's positive signals happening. It just seems that his type of positive signals may be something foreign to me that I need to learn about so I don't just give up.

You can give up at any time, that part is quick and easy, even if not exactly painless for the parties involved. Personally I would think that a 47 year old man can reschedule a dinner with his mother, but that may depend on varying degrees of love shyness.

You also need to remember this: you are not a 20 year old nubile so the feelings that men have for you are buffered through a lot of evolutionary conditioning, which tell them that aging women are of little to no use. I think that your love shy man may be struggling with the dichotomy of being attracted to you and realizing that some things have passed him by. He never got to experience the youthful females as his peers, and while he has some genuine feelings for you, it is difficult for him to disassociate with the dreams of his sexually formative years.

There you go... it's as honest as honest can be.

[quote][/quote]What I'm going to say is harsh but it's also realistic. . . you're tried a lot and you're already tired about dealing with a helpless love-shy guy for 3 months!

Does the working together for 5 years count at all in this scenario??

Sorry... I don 't seem to be able to do the quote thing correctly:

Smoothride said:
"You also need to remember this: you are not a 20 year old nubile so the feelings that men have for you are buffered through a lot of evolutionary conditioning, which tell them that aging women are of little to no use. I think that your love shy man may be struggling with the dichotomy of being attracted to you and realizing that some things have passed him by. He never got to experience the youthful females as his peers, and while he has some genuine feelings for you, it is difficult for him to disassociate with the dreams of his sexually formative years.

There you go... it's as honest as honest can be."

I can see your point; does that mean he'd be happy to live in a fantasy world the rest of his life though? That must be an awful mental/emotional place to be in I would think. Are any of you ever able to break through that? Does a LS ever bust out of it? Should I just grab him and kiss him?

Press the quote button and you should be set. Other than that, you can put all formatting in square brackets. For example:





No! I don't think that he'd be happy with that, but it may be what he's most inclined to do at this point.



Yes, he's been in it for at least a quarter of a century. Go figure.



To some extent, yes. I don't think that people seriously affected can ever completely overcome, but they can make huge strides, sufficient to live normal lives.



It might be the best idea.