When we look at the world of romance, we see some people can just have boyfriends and girlfriends without much effort and others of us struggle.
If we struggle, we look at ourselves and either think that we are defective in some way that we might or might not see or otherwise conclude that romance is so strange and mysterious that we have no chance of "finding love".
We might also conclude that the reason we are rubbish in romance is because we are introverts. Extroverts are people persons, of course they can handle other people, us introverts however, we are not people persons so relationships are just hard.
Except I think that is tosh.
I am an introvert - which I believe means that I process things internally and I get recharged by being away from people - but I am very much a people person. I love people, I love hanging out, I love the fact that we are a kaleidoscope of weirdness!
But I had another problem and I think that was my handicap. My main love language is affirmation. People who know me might think that it would be "acts of service" since I do loads of stuff but actually, I think that is an indirect symptom of wanting to be liked - to be affirmed. Don't get me wrong, i was taught well by my parents that serving is good but where does serving end and hunger for people to say, "thanks for that" start?
Not everyone has affirmation as their main love language and I think the others make for less poisoned relationships. If you are a "physical touch" person, sure you could be physically clingy and that might not appeal to some others but in the first instance, it is unlikely to be a problem. If you love "quality time" then you can spend that with people fairly easily, even if the romance is undecided by the other person. "Gifts" might be OK, you do not necessarily expect others to give you gifts, even if you love it when they do. "Acts of service" might be more subtle in a relationship but unless the other person is a complete slob, you also won't have the up-front nervousness of whether the other person likes you.
Affirmation is a different beast and I can only talk about my own experience. I shouldn't be looking for affirmation from a girlfriend to tell me that its OK. My earthly and heavenly fathers should be/have been the source of that affirmation and although a girlfriend/wife should learn to affirm me if that's my love language, if I lack that, even early on in the relationship, it makes me feel all kinds of wrong.
I'll feel that she isn't interested and won't know when to push for more response and when to walk away or wait. I might try and over-compensate by doing or buying things to try and earn enough affirmation. If the girl is not immediately interested in me, it feels awkward. If she doesn't affirm me, I feel unloved and if there is no love, this is never going to work out!
So how do you fix it? What I had to do was to sort out my affirmation channels! For many of us, our experience of dad was probably good in some ways and bad in others. Dads are good at physical touch and acts of service, sometimes at gifts but usually less so with quality time and affirmation. This might be for a genuine reason - they might work away from home etc. - or for a bad reason - they might be reliving their own upbringing - but it is a problem already.
As a Christian, I had a place to go to God and hear what He says about my value and affirmation. Ultimately he is the perfect version of what my dad should be so where my dad might struggle with compliments (and he is better now than before), then I can remind myself of what God thinks of me. This process, using a ministry called Bethel Sozo that we practice at our church was incredibly freeing for me and has completely changed the way I feel towards girls.
If you don't believe in God, maybe you could pray to Him anyway. If He does exist, you benefit massively, if not, you lose nothing. Otherwise, I don't know how to help you except to tell you that you do have value and purpose and a place and that your value is not tied to how many people notice and compliment you but in your identity, your unique personality and your potential.
When I meet girls now, I have no presumption that they should like me. If they do, great, if not, it doesn't matter. If I start hanging out with a girl and she isn't progressing the relationship, that is fine - I don't give my whole heart over and expect it to be affirmed, I can give things space and see what is going on. I don't feel so hurt if something doesn't work out so well or as expected because I am now more solid in my own value and identity.
Rubbish at romance? It might not be because you are an introvert, but because you crave affirmation
