How's your ability at sailing in a regatta? When was your last triple-double in basketball, I would love to see your sketchbook full of lifelike caricatures of celebrities.

What's my point? Just like effective communication, these are skills that must be regularly practiced to achieve any level of aptitude. When you are skilled in an activity, odds are that even under pressure you will be able to perform.

My recommendation would be for you to join Toastmasters, take some improvisational comedy classes, or even join a debate club. Do something to improve your public speaking ability. Train your mind to be quick thinking on your feet. The side benefit to learning a skill is an automatic boost to your self-esteem. Then get out there and fail numerous times until you don't. It may not feel like it, but failure counts as practice so long as you learn something from it.

Just be confident and respectful. It is ok for them to not be interested, be gracious and move on. As wonderful as they are, they are people too.

Well this is interesting....seems like we are proof that the parallel universe theory is correct !!!!....we are both living the same experience in a separate universe

Just tell her she makes you nervous/tongue tied/ etc. Her reaction to that statement will tell you much about her.

You can have any kind of response ready should her reaction be one that indicates she is not interested or not someone you would want to know better.

I'm fine in person or on the phone. I struggle with texting and messaging. These are not the way natural conversations flow, so I tend not to contact people here very often.

I am, in the interest of being polite, eliminatining the option that you are tounge-tied and idiotic all the time.

I think your only option is to make yourself as unattractive to potential mates you can, thus eliminating the stress of them being attracted to you. This technique works well but has limited long term success. Or any success, really.

Or you can see her as a person, someone whose as afraid of you as you are of her. She could very well be feeling "tounge-tied and idiotic" too - especially if she's actually interested. Relax. She's just a person.

It happens to me too, especially when I was newer to the situation. It's getting better with practice.

I feel the same way like you. It's beautiful to feel butterflies around at our mature age, love doesn't have age.
Just be you and be clear how is the real you. Ask for friendship first. In my opinion it's sad when men focus on sex and forget talking about being friends and share funny stories about their life. Before you send your messages to the person that you think match with you, read carefully the profile. You will find a lot of tips.
Don't stop and keep searching for your soulmate.
Don't forget to mention in your profile about your beliefs like political and religion in case you use other dating sites. In my profile I forgot these information and I had bad surprise. Too bad.

Just be a friend to start - ultimately you would want someone who could also be a friend so start there... and work forward.
All else fails you have a friend.

For starters, you can stop taking the words out of my mouth.

It's not just you. But take a deep breath and go for it! We're nervous too!! Lol

Congrats Sir !!! Seriously , congrats ! That means u are Alive and real ! Both good things !!

You are not alone, I am practically a hermit, but at the same time, at my age, I don't give a fuck either, which is a strange combination, because even if I do get to know one, usually it all goes to hell anyway, because they have to many expectations, and my first and only real love is learning . . . . but what you have to think about is if you want to learn advanced math, physics, or some other thing, is, how do you learn it? You fucking read more about it, you get all the fucking books or youtube video, other information you can find and learn as much as you can, and if you want to learn something bad enough, you can. [amazon.com]

But don't take my advise, you'll have to get it from someone who specializes in skirt-chasing, ha ha.

I'm the same way. I suspect it's common for introverts. I think a more interesting question is what does a site that's supposed to be for dating do about it?

Don't fear anyone. It's not easy but it's the only way.

It happens to a lot of us. When we want to talk to the woman we like we stress out because we want to give the best impression on that person. We want to make sure that everything we say is the right thing and not anything awkward. We hate rejection and take it very personal. We also see her as if she's the judge in court or the person in a hiring interview. In fact she might just be a regular woman waiting for something nice or pleasant from us. Not easy to overcome and always try to read her body language & expressions. If she's all for you, she'll give you hints. (Alfa males don't care about rejection and they are too confident).