How did you cope with it? Mingling?!

...all..I.. want to know is...
Do you help him pitch up the tent...
Wink.lol..

Yes I know you are a new widow and yet I seem to remember several of your previous threads talking about other men. So maybe because you like him more than you are saying is where this is getting cloudy.

Best wishes in this sticky situation

So basically you gave him a preemptive "Ultimately, you're disposable. I can lose you. You really don't matter that much. Let's just be friends, or at least you're pretty much always in the friend zone and I give you special passes out of it," speech?

Good luck with that.

Is that what you want? A project? What do you want out of the relationship? Short term fun, relive youth, something long term?

If you "help" him with shyness, will that change him?
If that changes him, is he still going to be the same guy that is your "long lost love?"

Does he really want you to help him? Or is he a "nice" shy guy that tells you what you want to hear because he's too shy and nice to tell you the truth?

Do you think it's possible that shyness is just another ploy?
Kinda like "nice guys?"
Where "nice guys" subconsciously adopt the facade of being a "nice guy" as a means to protect a "good" image and rationalize bad behavior? "I'm a nice guy, I'm a gentleman, I'm not like the trash that uses women, like a player, or tries to nail them on the first date, or tells them what they want to hear. I back up what I say, I am nice so I get niceness back, I wait a month until we're both 'ready,' it's just coincidence that all my relationships tend to fall apart right after we first start having sex."

So a "shy" guy is "shy" because they are insecure and need the woman to chase them, to fix them, to be their white knight, to feel valued and loved, because they don't understand "normal" communication that expresses such things?

If he's a "shy" guy now, at the very beginning of dating and a relationship, and you don't want to change him, and he can barely handle this...how is his shyness going to handle even stronger emotions, or more rapidly changing situations reliant upon each other?

Could something else be going on that he, or you, are simply calling "shyness?"
Like he's never had a serious, deeply committed, strong communication based relationship, just kinda found someone that stuck around, so he's not really "shy" he's just out of his depth and has no idea how to handle the emotions and interaction of something meaningful and serious?
In essence dating a teenager with all these new emotions they can't process so "shy" away from them?


How has that worked out for you in general, especially with online dating, when guys "shocked" you with their forwardness (forthwardness?)...did that lead to valuable relationships and continued interaction?

One suggestion..Alcohol..JK

ohh.. !turns out I'm really shy as well...
Maybe you can get me to open up with some of your forwardness as well... be gentle... mybe turn the lights down low might help..lol

What is it with guys who like buying stuff for girls?
As in "spoiling" when they're just starting to date.
It's weird how generous they try to be.
Are they trying to buy me?
Is it a sexual thing?
(Because I've known guys who get off on being forced to buy things for women.)
It baffles me.
Isn't dating about things you can't buy in life?
Mayhaps I should clue them in.

I'm on the Mothers side.

Maybe her reaction was a little OTT


Boobs are like train sets at Christmas, made for kids but the Dad always wants to play with them.

I asked my 24 yr old neighbor, mother of two, " Do you having any writing or tablet paper?"

She tilted her head like a dog, & said, " You want what? "
So I replied, " I need to write a thank you, it is protocol ".

She adamantly shook her head & said ' No, we don't have anything like that, just send a text' & rolled her eyes & laughed.

I held my tongue. Because I was very tempted to ask, 'Do you know what a mailbox is?'

I walked away & went out & brought more ' thank you cards'.

People still appreciate being acknowledged & a personal touch.