Guys Who Struggle to Approach Girls: The Stages of Approach Problems & Abilities

Why is it so hard for you to talk to girls? There’s more than one reason men struggle to approach girls. From anxiety to trauma, the causes vary – as do the solutions.

This post written by COCPORN and edited by Carousal originally appeared on our forum here.

This is a draft. I want this to be a helpful article over time, please contribute. This article draws on information from Levine and Berceli, and makes assumptions that they’re right. I’m looking for more clearly defined stages and overall correctness. I hope this can help diagnose problems and make it easier to prescribe the correct remedies for different situations.

A personal note from me to you: If you decide to comment or answer to this, reflect on where you’re currently at personally in terms of opening.

Carousel: This is a post written by COCPORN in 2014. Much of it is still valid. I have made comments some places with my 2020 understanding of the topic. The topic is that AA is not just one thing, hence there is a lot of confusion about what it is on how to solve it. Note that this is advanced material, so please take time to try to understand us before you disagree. Also please read THIS thread explaining TRE and other therapies before you read this post, otherwise you won't understand the terminology.

Intention: To create a helpful tool for escaping problems related to approaching. This tool will work by identifying the stages of approach problems and presenting solutions to them. At this point there might not be solutions to all stages. I’ll try to present the solutions I’ve personally seen for the different stages. I’ll also try to theorize around some solutions to different stages, but these will be clearly marked. I’m not necessarily looking for new techniques with this article, old and proven methods are welcome as suggestions to solving the different stages of approach problems.

Problem: People have problems approaching. These problems range from deeply rooted to superficial. Even without deeply rooted problems related to approaching, there often seems to emerge a pattern of avoidance or forceful exposure.

Carousel: This is why you see so much disagreement on causes and remedies to AA - people are in different stages and some of the more advanced guys may never have even been in the worst stages described here, while the hardcases have only been in the worst stages. Of course these guys will have zero understanding of each other both in terms of perception of the problem and devising an useful solution. I have personally gone through all of them so I can relate to most of the perspectives.