If you haven't done a lot of approaching girls when you get that shitty anxious feeling, the first and easiest answer is that it's a general fear of approaching a stranger or a fear of being rejected. Quite often you'll tell yourself you're being a pussy and just need to go out there and do it. And I absolutely advocate this. I also find it insanely helpful to pinpoint what you're actually worried about because it makes it a hell of a lot easier to face that specific fear.

What I've found is that the more and more you cold approach, this anxiety manifests in a lot of different ways the more you do it. What I mean by that is that you can get really comfortable in one scenario, but then the tiniest variable changes and all of a sudden hitting on girls feel impossible feels impossible.

For example a girl sitting on her own a bench is fine, but then you see a cute girl walking past you. All of a sudden it feels infinitely harder. You'll have all of these excuses:

  • "I don't know how to stop her"
  • "I don't want to bother her, she's probably got somewhere to be"
  • "she's probably too busy and in a rush"

This is approach anxiety.

Some scenarios / situations I've struggled with myself or have heard from mates include: girls in grocery stores, train stations, a girl listening to music, if she's eating lunch, she looks too professional / is in business attire, she's with her friends, there's lots of people around. A really common one is that she's 'too hot', and there's about 100 more I've heard or personally had myself. The unique excuses in different situations are the manifestations of approach anxiety.

I've seen this when I go out with my mates a tonne. They get into a flow, they hit on 5 girls, the 10 then something changes, they can't talk to a particular girl and it feels like they're back to square one. It's very interesting seeing it in another guy. Personally I really struggled hitting on girls that were smoking or girls with tattoos . There was the though she was too 'cool for me'. Quite often there's a deeper reason to it. In my case: 'I'm not a cool guy, therefore I can't hit on cool girls'. But you don't need to dig that deep for the sake of the exercise.

These weird blocks differ from person to person but they're exactly what you need to be aware of when you start approaching girls. The reason I always point this out to guys I approach with is because in the moment, all the rationalisations you come up with as to why you can't hit on a particular girl seem very logical. In reality, almost all of these excuses are bullshit. They're limiting beliefs or forms of approach anxiety and you need to call them out and challenge them. One excuse will turn into two, which becomes 10 and then all of a sudden it seems very logical that you barely hit on any girls. A friend of mine in a different city recently said: 'there's no women in my area to hit on'. I later found out that there's plenty (he's a 30 min walk from Times Square) but he's made a bunch of dumb excuses as to why he can't approach 90% of the girls he sees.

I'm a big fan of going out with a mate because they'll be way better at calling you out when anxiety or dumb excuses come up. Saying it out loud to another person often makes you realise how irrational your excuses sound. If any of this sounds like you, I talk about it WAY more in a YouTube video.

- Andy