Advice Goddess: Another brick in the wallow

I’ve missed countless opportunities because I fail to speak up in the moment. A pretty girl smiles at me on the bus. Ten minutes later, I will wish I’d stayed on the bus and struck up a conversation. The same thing happens with business opportunities. At the critical moment I need to act, I go into a fog of some kind, weighing my options. Much later, I’ll realize that gold was put in my lap, and I’ll endure a lot of shame from not being present enough to recognize that. I’m all man when I have a girlfriend (which I don’t now) and will do anything to make her feel secure. But because of my problem with seizing opportunity, I’m much lonelier than I need to be. I’m realizing that I’m an irretrievable mental defective.

You’ve heard that 80 percent of success is just showing up? Well, the other 20 percent is not acting like you got glued to the toilet seat shortly afterward. You diagnose yourself: “I’m an irretrievable mental defective.” Um, no — probably just a drama queen with risk aversion jets set a little high. Your freezing in the face of opportunity is probably due to an “approach-avoidance conflict,” a type of inaction-producing psychological stress that occurs when an opportunity has both positive and negative aspects that make it simultaneously appealing and off-putting.For example, with the girl on the bus, there’s a possible date versus a possible rejection. The closer (and more possible) the opportunity, the larger the negative aspects loom. This leads to indecision and, in turn, inaction. When you have some distance (say, a few hours after you get off the pretty girl express bus), the positive aspects take center stage, and going for it seems the thing to do. Only then, this no longer takes a nervous “hello” across the bus aisle; you need one of those “missed connection” ads and $3,000 for a private detective. You need to practice opportunity-spotting and preplan what you’ll do when it knocks so you won’t respond like a bratty preteen girl: “Go away! Nobody’s home. I hate you!”Recognizing opportunity takes knowing your goals. Articulate them, and then identify five opportunities a day and seize at least two of them. This requires simply taking action despite your indecision.Assuming you aren’t weighing the opportunity to blow through a bunch of stop signs, what are the likely damages?Step back and do a little cost-benefit analysis. If, say, you’d talked to the girl on the bus, worst-case scenario, she might’ve glared back at you, giving you an ouchie in the ego for what, 10 minutes?Doing nothing leaves you with lasting regret, shame, and self-loathing. Doing nothing repeatedly should help you get a headstart on becoming a bitter old man, thanks to all the years you’ve invested standing near the ladder of success yet never once having a woman in a bikini shinny down and hand you a mai tai.

“I love you more than you love me!” is just the thing to say to a boyfriend — if you want him to take you in his arms so he can look over your shoulder for your replacement. The problem with the subtext — “You know, you could probably do better” — is the “principle of least interest,” sociologist Willard Waller’s 1938 theory that the relationship partner who is less emotionally invested calls the shots.Even if that less committed partner isn’t an exploitative creep, he’s likely to get his way in ways he wouldn’t in a more equal partnership, and Waller felt this didn’t bode well for the relationship. Current research supports this. Social psychologist Susan Sprecher, for example, found that unequally involved partners were less satisfied with their relationship and more likely to break up. If you aren’t already eyeing the door, ask your girlfriend whether there’s a problem — maybe something she needs that she isn’t getting from you. If she’s just playfully needling you, tell her you need her to stop. It’s okay, in a relationship, to ask that a phrase or two be a no-go zone.This “I love you more than you love me!” business, for example, is a cousin of the lose-lose question, “Do I look fat in this dress?” There is a right response to that question, and it isn’t “Yes, come to think of it,” “No!” or “No, you look like a cow landing with the world’s largest parachute”; it’s hiring somebody to be there to clock you with a tire iron before you can answer.

I broke up with a boyfriend a few years ago because I wasn’t getting what I wanted from him. I’d give him subtle cues, and when he didn’t respond in the ways I was hoping for, I blamed him for being thickheaded. I’ve ended many a relationship because of this. The dudes didn’t have a chance. I now see that we women can skip years of frustration by getting clear with our partners about what we need from them. Understanding this now, you’d think it would be simple for me to follow through. Yet, I’m continually surprised at how strong my “have him guess!” impulse can be. Letting a man in on my feelings actually takes a lot of courage and stretches me like nothing else.

It isn’t hard for a boyfriend to make a woman happy instead of pissed off for days. He just needs the right answer to “Hey, honey, guess what it means when I put my hair in a ponytail and walk out of the room!”A guy gets to the point where he can’t be sure whether he’s in a relationship or a really, really long game of charades. (Either way, it helps if there are occasional breaks for angry sex.) Although men and women are psychologically similar in many ways, studies by social psychologist Judith A. Hall and others find that women are more accurate in sussing out the meaning of nonverbal cues.The problem is, we humans all have a tendency to assume others’ minds work just like our own. So, you conclude that a guy is withholding and mean when he seems to ignore what you think should be obvious — that your left nostril flaring is code for “Tell me you love me right this second!” (Not to be mistaken for the flaring right nostril’s “Take out the trash or I’ll kill myself!”)To your credit, you took a hard look at yourself and admitted that you were wrong. As for why you’re having difficulty putting what you now understand into practice, Yale psychology professor Alan E. Kazdin explained on my radio show, “Knowing doesn’t control doing.” Doing actually takes doing -- in your case, repeatedly pushing yourself to express your feelings, despite how uncomfortably vulnerable it makes you feel.Repeating behavior over time actually rewires the brain and, in Kazdin’s words, “locks” the new behaviors in. Eventually, healthier behavior should come more naturally to you -- like recognizing, without animus, that the way to get your boyfriend to admire your sexy new haircut is by telling him you’ve gotten one, not by glaring out at him from under the subtly different slant of your bangs. (As every woman needs to understand, his not noticing your new do doesn’t mean he’s stopped loving you; it means you haven’t shaved your head.)