Discrepancy Between the Actual Self and the Ideal Self

     Simply put, the idea of having a girlfriend was central to both the
value systems and the emotional essence of each and every love-shy
man studied for this book. In order for a person to appear genuine, to
converse spontaneously and in a completely free manner without any
sham or pretense, that person's lifestyle must bear at least some degree
of congruency with the things that he thinks about all the time, his
values, the things that matter to him and are important to him.
     In male/male friendships, just as in female/female friendships, peo-
ple "open up" most freely and frequently about the subjects that are
most important to them. And they specifically gravitate towards just
those same-sexed friends whose values, interests and preoccupations
are essentially the same as their own.
     As I have already made clear, romantic male/female interaction
occupied as much as 90 percent of the love-shys' daydream content. In
essence, heterosexual interaction is enormously important to love-shy
men. And for this reason, in order for them to converse on a truly open
and spontaneous basis they would necessarily have to find male friends
whose interests and values are the same as their own. In essence, they
would have to find male friends who are similarly very interested in
male/female interaction and who are themselves actually involved in a
great deal of informal heterosexual interaction. Of course, the rub is that
such a socially successful man would be highly unlikely to be interested
in helping or even in interacting, with someone who has seldom or never
dated. The ideal for the love-shy would be male friends who would
somehow take them (the love-shy) by the hands (figuratively speaking)
and directly involve them in the sorts of heterosexual-romantic inter-
action about which they dream.
     Hence, in order for love-shy males to begin having meaningful male
friendships, they must first solve their love-shyness problems as far as het-
erosexual interaction is concerned. In order for a love-shy man to have
and to keep a male friend, he must first be actively involved in a romantic
love relationship with a woman.
     Some of the interview material I obtained from the love-shys pro-
vides some very useful insights in this regard. Please consider the fol-
lowing quotations:
   
    "Well, I've given a lot of thought to the idea of male friendships. I
     suppose it would be nice. I mean, it might help me. See, if I were
     going with someone (a girl) it would be just so damned much easier
     for me to have male friends. I'd have something to talk about with
     them. But right now, what the hell would I talk about with a male
     friend? I mean, everything I think about concerns woman! And I
     haven't got one! If I ever found a male friend who was anything like
     me, it would make me even more depressed because he wouldn't
     be able to help me. The guys I would really like to have as friends--
     I mean the guys who are engaged or going with someone--well,
     they're not interested in having me as a friend. Like at work, some
     of those guys think I'm a homo. They don't think I have anything
     in common with them--which is ridiculous because I bet I do a lot
     more thinking and dreaming about women than any of them do!"
     (24-year old love-shy. man.)

      "This may sound stupid. But I don't feel as though I'm the real me!
      Like I sometimes feel totally detached from the person I am because
      the person I am is not able to do the things that are really important
      to the real me. It's like the person that I am manifesting behaviorally
      is a total stranger to the real me, the me that includes the things in
      life that are really important to me. I have no control over the person
      I'm presenting to the world because my anxieties prevent me from
      doing the things I would really like to do. If I had any male friends
      how would I be able to maintain a straight face with them? I mean,
      what I would want to talk about with them and how I actually behave
      in real life are two drastically different things. I'd be seen as a hyp-
      ocrite. The type of male friend I'd like to have would be bored with
      me because I wouldn't have anything to offer him. I wouldn't even
      have the nerve to confess my extremely strong desire to have a
      woman to love." (23-year old love-shy man.)

      More succinctly, how can the love-shys be expected to develop
male friendships when all they ever think about is women and their
deprivation of same?! There can be no doubt that all the painful hazing
and bullying and forced involvement in baseball, basketball and football
which plagued the love-shys in the past continues to have a bearing
upon alienating them from the idea of male-to-male interaction in the
present. But even if the love-shys could discipline their minds to forget
their pasts, they would still have to deal with the problem of having a
personality/temperament that is at drastic variance with their most deeply
cherished values, interests, and secret goals.
       To be sure, the love-shys could grit their teeth and change their
values, interests, goals, etc. But it is seldom realistic to ask a person to
do such a thing. To change deeply held values and interests is usually
tantamount to giving up one's whole sense of personal identity and ego-
structure. Values and interests represent the only grip on reality some
of the love-shy men have. For them to give these up (very central com-
ponents of the personal ego) could very easily threaten sanity itself.