Warren Farrell Quotes

I have never dated. I have no experience. It's terrible, and I'm scared to death of it, too, at the same time.

Everyone fears rejection.

Loneliness is, I think, people's biggest fear, whether they are conscious of it or not.

I have never had a social life, don't ever want one because it's boring. I'm just not very good with people, and you meet people every night who expect you to be this rock star with these developed social skills, which I don't have.

I think, for a shy person - and I was very shy until my mid-20s - having been to an all-girls' school is not brilliant on the boyfriend front later. Because when I went to university, it was definitely like meeting a new species of people. Suddenly, at age 19, I was thinking: 'Can you speak to these people?' I was very, very nervous.

I'm amazed at the number of young women who tell me they can't find men to talk to them.

I'm a small-town kid from Winnsboro, La., who grew up not really being comfortable talking to people.

I have experienced loneliness at many, many points in my life and felt this profound sense of shame about it - all the years when I was a child that I struggled with feeling lonely when I was scared to go to school and petrified of walking into the elementary school cafeteria because I was worried I wouldn't have anyone to sit with.

I was no Cherokee. I was no warrior. I was nobody special. I was just a girl, scared and angry. When I saw myself in Daddy Glen's eyes, I wanted to die. No, I wanted to be already dead, cold and gone. Everything felt hopeless. He looked at me and I was ashamed of myself. It was like sliding down an endless hole, seeing myself at the bottom, dirty, ragged, poor, stupid.

I was really, really shy. My dad used to drive me for an hour and a half to go training. I used to finish school, jump in the car, come back, and go to bed. I missed out on socialising with my friends when I was a shy child anyway.

Growing up, I always took things too personal and was very emotional, and I got made fun of for it.

I had this fear of rejection. I had this inner unworthiness.

I hate being rejected.

I didn't know how to socialize. I wasn't able to date. I felt like I was missing out on life. When I stopped diving, I started living.

I have tremendous social anxiety.

Bullying made me feel insecure, alone, ugly, powerless, and hopeless at times.

Boxing gave me self-confidence that I didn't have growing up. When I was young, I was super quiet and I didn't trust anybody. I didn't like having friends.

Growing up, I was the awkward, chubby kid. I had a few close friends, but I was the first one to be bullied.

Having money didn't make me less of a socially incapable loser; it just made me a socially incapable loser who wasn't in debt.

As an adult I've developed better social skills; I know how to do a conversation, I know how to do a party. I find them wearying, though, and I like that in lockdown no one expects me to go to them.

I am afraid I am totally hermetic to social games in general.

On my first night at boarding school, I felt entirely alone. I was shocked, frightened and intensely homesick, but I soon discovered that expressing these emotions, instead of bringing help and consolation, attracted a gloating, predatory fascination.

There's a tremendous sense of shame that people who are lonely feel. I say that as someone who felt ashamed of being lonely as a child and even at points during adulthood.

I just don't have that natural instinct to be able to let my guard down and start speaking to people. I never have - I've always been a bit socially awkward, even with people I've known for a long time.

We can experience an erosion of self-esteem when we're lonely, as we come to believe that it's because we're not likable or because something is broken inside of us. And that can just compound that loneliness further and further.