Most People Know What Is In Their Best Interests

      Most love-shy men seem to know what would have been in their
best interests. All children absolutely require a copious abundance of
opportunities for socializing with peers. And these opportunities must
be looked forward to by all. Sociability must be associated with pleasure
and not with anxiety, fear and pain. Sports participation at all ages
throughout the formative years must be genuinely FRIENDLY and NOT
HOSTILE.
     Before I review my suggestions for remedying the shyness-
generating situations with which all boys in contemporary America are
required to contend, let me first present some attitude data. I asked each
respondent to react to the following statement:

     "Requiring all boys to play touch football, baseball and basketball in
     physical education class provides an open invitation to all the bullies
     and rough necks to gang up on shy and retiring boys who are not
     interested in and do not desire to play at rough and tumble contact
     sports."

      Only 27 percent of the non-shy men agreed with this statement.
And that included many men who very much enjoyed contact sports,
but who had long been fully cognizant of the counterproductive con-
sequences which forced involvement in such activities holds for the
withdrawn and noncompetitive child. On the other hand, a majority of
the non-shy men had taken some pleasure in the overt psychoemotional
suffering which these "rough and tumble" sports had caused their more
"tender-hearted" classmates. This is reflected in the fact that 80 percent
of the non-shy men admitted that when they were school children they
had at least occasionally bullied their more withdrawn and inhibited
peers.
      Whereas only 27 percent of the non-shys agreed with the above
statement, fully 95 percent of the older love-shys and 86 percent of the
younger love-shys agreed with it. Simply put, most love-shy adults fully
realize the deleterious impact that a certain type of required "physical
education" activity had had upon them.
   In a related question I asked each man to respond to this statement:

     "Ideally, every elementary school and junior high school ought to
     have its own miniature golf course, bowling alley, and ping pong
     tables for children of both sexes who prefer to play at gentle sports
     while their more aggressive classmates play at the more aggressive
     contact sports and games."

      Here again, fully 100 percent of the older love-shys and 92 percent
of the younger ones agreed with this statement. In contrast, only 43
percent of the non-shy men agreed. And whereas 43 percent is certainly
a much lower figure than 92 percent, it nevertheless suggests that as
many as half the people in most local communities might be willing to
support the above idea.
    I then asked each respondent to react to this telltale statement:

    "During my childhood years, I am sure that I would have had many
    more friends if sports and games a great deal gentler than baseball,
    basketball and football had been more readily available to me."

     Fully 87 percent of the older love-shy men along with 76 percent
of the younger love-shys agreed with this statement. In contrast, zero
percent (nobody) of the self-confident non-shys saw fit to agree with it.
And as a check for consistency and reliability, I asked each respondent
to react to this very similar item:

     "During my childhood years I am sure that I would have been much
     happier if sports and games a great deal gentler than baseball, bas-
     ketball and football had been more readily available to me."

     And again there were huge differences in the amount of agreement
between the non-shys and the love-shy men. Fully 78 percent of the
older love-shys together with 65 percent of the younger love-shys agreed
with this statement. On the other hand, nobody among the ranks of the
non-shy men saw fit to agree with it.
     In order to round out the picture, each respondent also reacted to
the following statement:

     "My sense of self-confidence and my social skills would both be a
     great deal better today if sports substantially more gentle than base-
     ball, basketball and football, had been more readily available to me
     when I was growing up."

     Fully 64 percent of the older love-shys together with 52 percent of
the younger ones agreed with the statement. Zero percent of the non-
shy men agreed with it. Of course, no one can be completely sure as to
how his development might have proceeded had certain past experi-
ences been different. We are dealing here with a form of speculation.
Nevertheless, the differences between the three research groups were
so strong and consistent on all of these items that it seems highly prob-
able that a message is being conveyed here which deserves to be taken
seriously by parents, educators, and community leaders.2