The Luv Doc: The Sleeping Beauty Syndrome

Luv Doc,

My brother is painfully shy and hasn’t had a girlfriend in a very, very long time. I invite him to parties and other events, but he never comes. I have suggested that he should try online dating, but he won’t do that because he thinks that people who do online dating are losers. And yet he rarely does anything other than sit in front of his computer (he works from home) or play video games on his Wii. He will sometimes go to a movie, but that’s about it. How do I help him break out of his shell?
- Big Sis

That’s a tough one Sis. It’s very hard to get people to be who they don’t want to be – or more specifically – who they don’t think they can be. It’s true that not everyone can look like Paul Walker or Halle Berry but I think it would be extra creepy if everyone actually did. Eventually you would get tired of dating guys who look exactly like Paul Walker, and as unimaginable as it seems, all those Paul Walker look-alikes would get sick of people like yourself who look exactly like Halle Berry. Same-sex relationships? They would become … well … very masturbatory in nature. As much as we like to fight against it, variety really is the spice of life. Everybody really does have something to offer – even the losers who, as Tom Petty assures us, “get lucky sometimes.” There’s a little ray of hope for all those online dating folks, eh? I don’t know about your brother, but I would rather get lucky sometimes than not at all.

However, I think your brother’s problem with meeting women might be a little too complicated to be solved by simply dropping some coin on an online dating site. Yes, there is a lid for every kettle and if, like Sleeping Beauty, your brother wants to wait for an eternity for someone to come miraculously wake him up with a kiss, well, there is a statistical probability of that. He might also win the Powerball and be able to afford some really great actresses. Being content with that scenario takes a huge amount of optimism – optimism, in my opinion, much better spent on personal growth.

There are plenty of fish in the sea, yes, but to catch one, you have to drag your ass out of the house and actually go to the sea. You have to get over your fear of rejection and hurt and go make it happen. That takes a certain amount of optimism too, but the odds are way better than the Sleeping Beauty scenario. Bottom line: Your brother needs to be brave and go try and do different shit. Shit that he’s bad at. Shit that he looks like a complete dork doing. Here’s a huge secret that your brother needs to internalize: You can’t be good at something until you’re bad at it. That includes a million things up to and including meeting and dating women. The best way not to suck at something is to not do it at all. Tell your brother he needs to get out there and start sucking.