Love-Shyness and the All-Male
Peer Group

     Throughout their lives the love-shys had experienced significantly
fewer friendships than had the non-shys; and the few friendships that
a minority of them had experienced had been very shallow. In fact, most
of the love-shy men I interviewed for this book had been social isolates
or "loners" throughout most periods of their lives. For example, I asked
each man: "When you were growing up, how many people close to your
own age, and whom you felt free to contact, did you have readily available
to you to help you deal with school and the various other problems and
anxieties associated with growing up?" The differences in the pattern
of responses between the three groups of men were quite substantial.
      Fully 83 percent of the older love-shy men and 65 percent of the
younger love-shys indicated that they had had no one. In contrast, this
had been the case for zero percent (nobody) of the self-confident non-shy
men studied. In fact, 57 percent of the non-shys indicated that they had
had at least three or more close friends throughout their formative years.
Only 11 percent of the younger love-shys and zero percent of the older
love-shys could say that they had had three or more close friends
throughout the duration of their formative years. In addition, 73 percent
of the older love-shys together with 53 percent of the younger ones
agreed with the much more extreme statement: "Throughout most of
my life, I never had any friends." Nobody among the non-shy men agreed
with that statement.
      In order to tap the level of satisfaction each respondent felt with
his current situation I simply asked the following: "In general, do you
feel that you have as many friends of the various kinds as you would
like?" And 94 percent of the non-shy men indicated "yes", compared
to a mere 8 percent of the university love-shys, and zero percent of the
older love-shy men.
     This social distance which the love-shy feel vis-a-vis the human
race apparently extends even to relatives and kin. I asked each man:
"How many relatives do you see often and consider close friends?" And
84 percent of the older love-shys together with 68 percent of the younger
ones said "zero" or "nobody", compared to just 26 percent of the self-
confident non-shys. In stark contrast, fully 45 percent of the non-shys
saw "four or more" relatives often and considered them close friends.
This was the case for zero percent of both the older and the younger love-
shy men.
      The basic premise of this chapter is that love-shy men learn very
early in life to associate feelings of fear, anxiety and physical pain, with
the mere idea of informal interaction amid an all-male peer group. The
data which I shall review in this chapter strongly support this basic
premise. Moreover, they point to a most pathetic poignancy in the lives
of the love-shy.
      Most human beings look forward with considerable enthusiasm to
opportunities for friendly, informal interaction with peers. In fact, most
people learn very early in life to associate friendly socializing with keen
pleasure. Being placed in solitary confinement has long been recognized
as the most cruel and extreme of all punishments. When all other pleas-
ures have been removed, most people still manage to experience con-
siderable positive feelings from talking with and from sharing ideas with
their friends.
      Over the years numerous psychologists have focused upon the
determinants of happiness. And the one common denominator to emerge
from most of these studies is that satisfaction with informal friendships
constitutes for most people the single, most important predictor of hap-
piness. The feeling that one is "in the driver's seat" of one's own life
has been found by a minority of researchers to surpass "friendships" as
a determinant of happiness. But most studies of happiness have clearly
demonstrated that involvement in meaningful roles and relationships with
friends and family constitutes the single, most important determinant of
happiness.
       Given the fact that most of us associate the idea of friendly peer
 group interaction with feelings of pleasure, it is doubtless of formidable
 significance that the love-shy associate the idea of male peers with pain,
 fear and anxiety. Indeed, the very idea of play within the all-male peer
 group often conjures up so many strongly displeasureable feelings for
 the love-shy that they quite commonly take special pains to avoid peers.
 Simply put, the love-shy often deliberately choose a life of solitary
 confinement.
       Of course, the love-shys' prison is an internal, self-imposed one.
 But that observation only scratches the surface. In order for us to truly
 understand the love-shy we first need to comprehend why they found
 it necessary to erect their internal prisons (defensive walls) in the first
place. This is important, socially valuable knowledge. Armed with this
knowledge it may become possible to engineer a kind of elementary
school environment which inspires no child into building an insur-
mountable wall around himself.
     The peer group is of enormous importance from the standpoint of
ensuring propitious growth and development. This appears to be espe-
cially true for males. There is evidence that the same-sexed peer group
is of considerably less importance for females than it is for males. For
example, women who are unpopular among their same-sexed peers
often become highly popular with men. By contrast, males who are
unpopular among members of their own sex virtually never become pop-
ular or even mildly successful with women. The social requirement that
males must be the ones to make the first move vis-a-vis the female gender
may partially account for this. Males without a network of same-sexed
friendships have nothing to support them in their natural strivings to
become assertive in a positive, friendly way vis-a-vis potentially eligible
female dating partners. Simply put, a reasonable level of success within
the all-male peer group constitutes a prime prerequisite for a male's
ability to attain even a very mild degree of success in securing female
companionship.