Shyness & Love

Shyness & Love covers the only major study conducted to date on social anxiety disorder as it is manifested in informal, unstructured, male/female dating and courtship situations. It focuses on the causes-both biomedical as well as situational-of "love-shyness" and the consequences for those afflicted with it. Gilmartin also discusses promising treatment modalities and what schools and communities can do to prevent severe love-shyness from developing in the first place.
Shyness & Love examines the early family life as well as the peer group interactions of love-shy men. The book provides many statistical comparisons between the sampled love-shys and a comparison group of non-love-shy males of normal (but not superior) social self-confidence levels. These statistical comparisons allow for some informed speculations regarding the numerous interacting causes that underlie social phobia in informal, unstructured, heterosexual social situations. These statistical comparisons also provide the reader with some powerful suggestions regarding ways the American social structure (e.g., schools, family life, and communities) might be rearranged so that severe and intractable forms of love-shyness would never have an opportunity to develop in growing boys and teenagers in the first place.
Since the publication of the first edition of this book, it has been determined that as many as forty percent of men afflicted with love-shyness are simultaneously comorbid for Asperger's Syndrome, also known as high-functioning autism. As many as half of all love-shy males are comorbid for the "male lesbian syndrome," sometimes also referred to as the "passive, non-competitive male syndrome." This second edition contains a new foreword that presents the latest findings in love-shyness research. It is more concise than the original Shyness & Love, yet retains the most significant chapters.

Brian G. Gilmartin was born in Newark, New Jersey. He has taught at three campuses in the California State University system as well as at Virginia Tech, Auburn University, and East Tennessee State University. He retired from full-time teaching in 2010 after having taught at Montana State University-Northern for twenty-three years. His most recent book is How to Excel at Parenting: 33 Proven Success Strategies.

List of Figures
Foreword
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1: Introduction
What Is Love-Shyness?
Love-Shyness is a Serious Problem
Viewing Someone to Love as a Cure-All
Normative Timetables of Self-Revelation
Why This Book?
Love-Shyness Costs Society Money
Plan of the Book
PART ONE: THE BIOLOGICAL UNDERPINNINGS OF LOVE-SHYNESS
Chapter 2: Love-Shyness and the Nature versus Nurture Debate
The Phenomenon of Inborn Temperament
The Work of Hans J. Eysenck
Love-Shyness and the Inborn Anxiety Threshold
The Importance of Social Stimulus Value
The Work of Alexander Thomas
The Jerome Kagan Work
The Importance of Enzymes
Some Related Work on Depression
Biogenic Amines
Anxiety Disease
Dopamine
Schizophrenia
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorders
Conclusions
Chapter 3: Societal Reactions and Elastic Limits
The "Wish Bone Effect"
The Sociological Perspective
Every Group Needs a Deviant
The "Apperceptive Mass" Concept
Conclusions
PART TWO: THE RESEARCH STUDY AND THE DATA IT UNCOVERED
Chapter 4: How the Information Was Obtained
Who is "Love-Shy?"
Why Study Men Only?
The "Felt Deprivation" Concept
The "Closet Heterosexual" Concept
The "Male Lesbian" Concept
The Prevalence of Love-Shyness
How the Respondents Were Obtained
The Importance of LOVE-Shyness
Summary
Chapter 5: Love-Shyness: Its Intrauterine Beginnings
The East German Research
My Own Findings
Love-Shys as Quiet Babies
Chapter 6: Family Composition
Brothers and Sisters
Quality of Parents' Marriages
Conclusions
Chapter 7: Love-Shyness and the All-Male Peer Group
The Key Importance for Dating of Friendship Networks
The Harlow Research
The Polish Peasant
Bullying
Frailness of Body Build
Masculine Toys
The Baseball, Basketball and Football Syndrome
Most People Know What Is in Their Best Interests
Current Peer Group Interaction
Chapter 8: Beauty and the Love-Shy
The Need for Beauty
The Love-Shys' Own Esthetic Attributes
Beauty and the Older Love-Shys
Cloning as a Future Option
Accentuating the Positive
Summary
PART THREE: THERAPY AND PREVENTION
Chapter 9: Practice-Dating Therapy
Behaviour Therapy Approaches
The "Practice-Dating" Model
Chapter 10: Some Therapeutic Adjuncts
The Nude Jacuzzi Experience
Therapy Employing Sexual Surrogates
Bibliotherapy
Why Not Simply Use Commercial Dating Services?
Self-Image Psychology as a Therapeutic Adjunct
Self-Image Therapy
Some Rejoinders for Traditional Psychotherapists
Chapter 11: Some Recommendations Concerning Prevention
Research on Gene Splicing
Bullying
The Cruellest Bully of All
Some Recommendations Concerning Dogs
Coeducational Dormitories: Their Limitations
The "Harrad" Dormitory Option
The Psychic Healing of Important Enzymes
The Effect of Increasing Social Interaction
The High School Curriculum
Ballroom Dancing
Religion
Encounter Groups
Might Fraternity Membership Help?
Use of Autistic Adolescent Girls
Chapter 12: Some Final Thoughts
A Different Philosophy
What Is Needed
Judging a Person by Their Actions
Elementary School Children
Postscript