A short YouTube Q&A where Dr. Aziz answers a viewer (Isaac) who freezes up around a woman he likes. Dr. Aziz attributes the problem to social anxiety rooted in low self-esteem and recommends focused self-esteem work (books, journaling, exercises) over the next 3–6 months, paired with gradual exposure to social risks. He frames the issue as part of broader personal development toward greater confidence.
Chapters
Hey, Dr. Aziz here. Best selling author and the founder of the center for Social Confidence. And this is an episode where I'm going to answer a question from a viewer and I'm going to be doing more of these in the, in the weeks to come. This one comes from Isaac in South America. It's long, so I'm just going to get to the core essence of the question so we can dive right into it. He thanks me for the work that I'm doing and let's get to the question. So he says doc. I love that when people say doc. It makes me think of Bugs Bunny. What's up, doc? Doc. I really love one girl. We're just perfect. We like almost all the same things. We hear the same music. He met her in college and they texted and they started connecting. But after a few weeks, I make things weird. First, I couldn't talk to her in person. And second, I stopped texting her. All because social anxiety and social approach. And the interesting part is that I feel that we had a good connection. But then I freeze up and I can't talk to her. Freeze up like an ice cube. And his mind speeds up like a race car. He's got the metaphors down. So here's his question. I guess he kind of pulled back. When should I go talk to her again? This happened to me. I've been doing a lot more gradual exposure, but I feel so anxious and I have these tics, like verbal or nonverbal kind of motions with my eyes and my neck. I feel so tense. What can I do? Okay, and there's more here, but let's just get into it, Isaac, because I don't want to spend the whole time reading the question. We got the gist of it. So nervous around her. You get close and then you pull back. And this is something that I'm sure a lot, if you're watching this, you relate to. I know I related to this a lot. And it continued for a long time. Even if I got better and more charming at approaching and attracting and getting building attraction, then we'd really connect and then I'd pull back like a month or two into the relationship. I'd freak out. So this is definitely something that you want to address. So there's a number of things here that all point to a lot of anxiety and a lot of low self esteem. That there's this fear that you have about connecting with her because on some level you feel like the more she sees of me, the less she's going to like me. That's a common belief that we have if we have low self esteem, the more this person sees of me, the less they're going to like me as opposed to the more they're going to like me. So in terms of this woman, I think you got bigger fish to fry. Isaac, there is a process that you need to develop in yourself to be able to have relationships that goes way beyond this woman. This is about you becoming a strong, solid, powerful, masculine man. And that requires you to heal the way that you treat yourself and your relationship with yourself. So finding stuff about self esteem, I'd say is your top priority because a lot of the anxiety and the fear around other people and what are people going to judge me? It comes back to a core sense that I am no good, there's something wrong with me and there's tons of tools. My program, the confidence code, goes deep into self esteem. So if that's something that you or someone else wants to check out, by all means do that. But there are a million ways I would just make like my focus for the next like three or six months is to maximize my self esteem. Find books, find articles, do exercises, do journaling, do writing. Finding out what makes you think that you're not valuable and not good enough for her. And maybe you're conscious of it and maybe you're not fully conscious of it. I have a couple of books here. By I mean, if you look back there, there's like six or seven self esteem books that I read over the years. So you got to make a study of this. That is your core issue. And when you start to heal that and your self esteem grows, then you're going to find that your anxiety starts to decre significantly because you don't think so poorly of yourself. So in your case, you know, maybe getting yourself out there to take risks and do the gradual exposure is good. I think that's a part of what you need to do. But I would focus all of my energy on core self esteem work. That would be my recommendation for you, Isaac, for the next three to six months. Then as you start to feel better about yourself, you can start going out there and approaching women. So share comments or questions that you have below. Maybe you disagree with my perspective and if so, how dare you? Do you know who I am? No. Maybe you disagree. Share your opinion, share your perspective. Maybe you know Isaac, he'll read those comments and benefit from whatever you have to say. Maybe you identify with his experience. Let's all support each other and help each other out. And until we speak again. May you have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome. Talk to you soon.
