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CS Lewis, in the Screwtape Letters, remarks that cowardice is the only sin that is purely painful, painful to contemplate, painful to choose, painful to remember. He also remarked, elsewhere, that courage is a necessary condition for any virtue.
The primary failing in our relationships with women comes from this failing I think. When women say they want a man with “confidence”, aren’t courage and confidence related? How many times do we shut ourselves down before we even get started? If you’re not doing anything wrong by talking to a girl and asking her out, then what is holding you back?
Now, this is not an excuse to stop using your head. But, I think, on a heart level, we all know the difference between cowardice and prudence. If you don’t walk over and talk to her because she’s with her boyfriend, that’s just prudence, no reason to feel guilty. But, we all have had those moments where we knew it was the right thing, it was something we wanted to do and nothing was wrong with it, that we failed to step up to the plate.
Why do men do this? It’s not just pure cravenness. What if she says no? Has a boyfriend? Is insulting? (that last one, a real fear for many guys, pretty much never happens in real life, by the way) The answer to these fears is common sense. If she says no? You don’t know why she is saying that, no reason to judge her or yourself harshly. Has a boyfriend? Is it strange that another man wanted what you want? Is insulting? She can’t possibly know you well enough to be justified in insulting you, if you meet one of these statistical outliers, move on, she’s probably not what you really want anyway.
God wants you to freely choose the right thing. What causes conflict is double-mindedness. You know you need to do something, yet you also believe that doing that thing is too painful. The truth of the matter is that the pain of not doing is always far worse. Regret lasts longer and cuts deeper than rejection. You also know that cowardice hasn’t worked out for you so far.
This may feel like a pep talk, but the principle goes deeper. Every time you deliberately back down when you know you should step forward you move farther and farther away from the thing you want most. A useful exercise is, “Take 3 Steps”. Once you’ve taken three steps towards a girl, you know you can’t back down without looking stupid. Once you’ve committed, the tendency is for a lot of the anxiety to go away as well (part of the reason for this is spiritual, but we’ll have to go more into that later).
3 steps, don’t focus on anything else, just take 3 steps forward,
Michael D.