Am i shy?

[n3wbr33d]

OK so growing up, i was outgoing i hang out with my friends playing games and gambled playing pools. I came to USA to live with my dad when i was 15, so that is when i think i started becoming shy. I don't know if it was me adjusting to the new society, but i started staying home watching TV and sometime play video game when i was bored. I think coming to US made me become an introvert, since i was pretty much outgoing till i came to US.

Now about girls, when i was 8, i kissed a girl i liked showed her my thing she showed me hers. Not knowing my sister was watching us, she snitched on me, and my mom beat the shit outter me since she thought i was too young to be mingling with girls. She warned me about how bad girls are, telling me how i can get HIV and die by just having sex one time with any girls. So basically, i got scared of sex and only wanted to be friends with any girl i met. I'm 22 now and I'm too picky on girls i would like to interact with. I'm still single, and i never hit on girls and i don't even know how to flirt. So am i shy? or do i still have the believe that all girls will give me HIV like my mom told me? I think her words change my perception of girls and my personality.

[gaia]

Doesn't sound like you're shy to me really, I think you'd know if you were.
Sorry to hear you had an experience like that though. You sound quite emotionally scarred by it (understandably so).
I think you might benefit from trying to work through this stuff though, even if you're not "shy". You ever opened up about this to anyone offline?

[n3wbr33d]

This is actually the first time im talking about it so no.

[gaia]

It sounds to me like you've got a decent amount of self-awareness and you can see how previous events have affected you, which is good. People can spend a lot of time in therapy just getting some perspective.
Anyway, it's true when people say you can't change past events, but you can change your perception/thoughts/feelings on them.
Moving at 15 to live with a different parent would challenge even the most confident outgoing person. Staying indoors and not socialising much was the easiest/most comfortable thing for you to do at the time, it's keeping within your safety zone... it's understandable.
With reguards to the other incident.. when you're 8 years old, what your a parent says is law. You're not at a point where you'd think to question what you're being told (obviously when it's enforced with violence, you seriously aren't going to challenge it).
Have you (adult self) ever thought about what you would say to your (child) self given the change? Now you've got a wider view of the world, can you see how unfair and irrational the things you were told about girls are?

Oh and I know this is being nosey, but do you still talk to your mother regularly? You mentioned you moved to the USA with your Dad at 15, which made me wonder if she's in the picture much these days.

[n3wbr33d]

She's very well still in the picture, and problem is even now that i'm an adult, i still believe i can catch something mingling with girls since condoms are not 100% safe. I like girls but im just scared of them. I'm not attracted to guys so i don't have problem talking to them.

[gaia]

Ok. Has she ever commented since that you should get a girlfriend? It says on your profile you're 22, and I know some parents would interfere if their son/daughter had never had a partner by then (i'm not saying that's right, I know my brother's single at 24 and all my mother can think of is grandchildren).

But anyway, nothing is 100% safe, really. You have to take a risk in order to gain something. There are measures you can take to reduce your chance of catching something, whether it's using condoms or dating a virgin. But sometimes life/love doesn't work like that.
As an aside, I have good faith that if someone (was aware of the fact they) had something you could 'catch', they would tell someone.

Do you think it's just this single issue that's preventing you from talking to girls? Could there be other things too?

[n3wbr33d]

Yea i think you summed it up perfectly. You have to take risk in order to gain something that's probably what i have to do. I think it's the single issue preventing me from opening up since it changed my personality. ill try an open up a bit, that's the only thing i think can help with my shy symptom.

[arizona]

Oct 4, 2009 5:59:50 GMT -5 gaia said:

Ok. Has she ever commented since that you should get a girlfriend? It says on your profile you're 22, and I know some parents would interfere if their son/daughter had never had a partner by then (i'm not saying that's right, I know my brother's single at 24 and all my mother can think of is grandchildren).

Not all parents are like that. My mother (still living) is one of those people who thinks it is a mortal sin to bring children into such a horrifying world as this, and she is generally content that it never happened for me.

[timarends]

It sounds to me like, yes, you are shy. I think the explanation of how you were flirting with the girl at the age of eight is a bogus explanation for why you have trouble talking to girls today.

So many things are blamed on our parents that aren't their fault. Sigmund Freud was responsible for a lot of this, but now Sigmund Freud is largely discredited, because a lot of the stuff that he came out with was just total BS.

I actually agree with your mother that showing off your "equipment" at the age of eight was a little too young. She was right in telling you at an early age about sexually transmitted diseases. What was wrong with that?

It is true that you can get sexually transmitted diseases. Was she lying when she said that AIDS can be fatal? Besides this, I don't think that merely knowing about sexual diseases will cause anybody to swear off sex. I certainly don't see any evidence of this around me.

Stop blaming your mother for something that happened so far in the past. I would recommend a good book by Dr. Albert Ellis who talks about how we, not our parents, cause many of our own psychological problems.

[n3wbr33d]

Maybe that's what you think, but i don't want to die from aids or anything. I started working out when i was 19 just so i can be healthy and fit when i'm old. My life is pretty much based on protecting myself. My mom telling me the truth about getting HIV isn't bad but the fact that she beat the crap outter me and told me those stuff which is true really changed me because i stopped talking to girls after that incident and truth is it made me shy. When girls approach me i don't open up since i'm too picky or maybe im still trying to tell myself that i wouldn't catch something.

[strawberrysweetie]

Oct 8, 2009 15:28:25 GMT -5 timarends said:

It sounds to me like, yes, you are shy. I think the explanation of how you were flirting with the girl at the age of eight is a bogus explanation for why you have trouble talking to girls today.

So many things are blamed on our parents that aren't their fault. Sigmund Freud was responsible for a lot of this, but now Sigmund Freud is largely discredited, because a lot of the stuff that he came out with was just total BS.

I actually agree with your mother that showing off your "equipment" at the age of eight was a little too young. She was right in telling you at an early age about sexually transmitted diseases. What was wrong with that?

It is true that you can get sexually transmitted diseases. Was she lying when she said that AIDS can be fatal? Besides this, I don't think that merely knowing about sexual diseases will cause anybody to swear off sex. I certainly don't see any evidence of this around me.

Stop blaming your mother for something that happened so far in the past. I would recommend a good book by Dr. Albert Ellis who talks about how we, not our parents, cause many of our own psychological problems.

This comes across as rather harsh and accusatory.

Freud is not the only one who thinks 'nurture' plays a role in development. Actually, most of what I hear about him is his focus on unconscious thoughts, weird thoughts he presumed everyone has...and I think that's a big reason why much of what he said was discredited.

But really, what you seem to be getting at is the whole "nurture vs. nature" debate....and these days it seems that most psychologists will agree that our development occurs from both. Many will stress how important it is to nurture properly, as to avoid as many future possible problems for a child as possible. I mean really....think of a child who had an overly critical mother who only criticized him only provided the basic needs to survive (food, water, shelter, clothes..) and no real love compared to the child who was not only given those basic needs, but had a mother who constantly praised him, supported him, and told him she loved him every day. One's upbringing can make a huge impact on who they become.

I do agree with you to an extent, though, that sometimes parents are blamed waaaay too much. But I don't think you are in a position to judge this person's particular situation based on the few posts of his on this thread.

What can be taken from this, though, I think, is the last part (minus the harsh tone). Once you realize your past and come to terms with it, it becomes essential to be able to stop focusing on the past. Perhaps it is your mother's fault for you being scared of girls, that seems very likely, but, there's no going back to that time and making her being a loving, caring mother. What happened, happened. Unfortunately. The only thing you can do now is to try to move past this and look forward...focus on what you can do to change how you feel about girls now.

Oct 2, 2009 19:17:18 GMT -5 n3wbr33d said:

She's very well still in the picture, and problem is even now that i'm an adult, i still believe i can catch something mingling with girls since condoms are not 100% safe. I like girls but im just scared of them. I'm not attracted to guys so i don't have problem talking to them.

Something that I doubt many people actually do, but I think would be a very good thing to do...is to have discussion about sex before actually engaging in it. Perhaps, whenever you meet a girl you want to be with, you could both agree to get tested and share your results. Even if she claims she's a virgin and you're a virgin. (I realize that may sound strange, but it is the only sure way to know she's truthful, if you have trust issues regarding this). I know I've heard that suggestion somewhere before. Would that make you feel any better knowing that that option, to get tested, is always available?

I think that someone who's really into you will be understanding about it. If there's nothing to hide, it shouldn't be a problem.

[madiocre]

I think it's im[portant that you know where a fear comes from. Truth is most parent will do something that will screw their children up in one way or another. there is no such thing as a perfect parent. but once you get to a certain age it's your job to realise what is wrong and why. then you do something about it. knowing that your fear of girls and sex come from that experience gives you nsight to the fear you now have to take the next step and fight it.

[tylo]

It's hard to say if your shy. But it does sound like you are what is called "love shy".

[collegeshy]

Oct 8, 2009 15:28:25 GMT -5 timarends said:

I actually agree with your mother that showing off your "equipment" at the age of eight was a little too young. She was right in telling you at an early age about sexually transmitted diseases. What was wrong with that?

It is true that you can get sexually transmitted diseases. Was she lying when she said that AIDS can be fatal? Besides this, I don't think that merely knowing about sexual diseases will cause anybody to swear off sex. I certainly don't see any evidence of this around me.

While I agree that she was right in telling you about these diseases, it sounds to me like she did it in the wrong way - using the fear tactic instead of actually taking the time to explain it all to you.

As to whether or not your shy, I think that is a determination that you, ultimately, have to make on your own. You should take some time and think about that - whether or not you're shy. Are you shy only in certain situations? Is it something that affects your daily life?

For a long time I was resentful of people calling me shy, but when I actually sat down and thought about it, I realized that it was true - and that I hated that it was true.

I guess what I'm saying is that the word "shy" has such a broad definition - there are different degrees of shyness. And I think, in the end, it comes down to how you really feel about yourself; whether or not you believe you're shy.