Surely this student is wise in recognizing her problem with shyness and asking for help. Hopefully she is merely going through a normal problem of adjusting to college life, one that can be eased by patience and perseverance in socializing. In response, the advice columnist encouraged her to find a new peer group, perhaps a school activities group, where she doesn't have to be the focus and can meet new friends after she continues to just show up time after time. He suggested that having friends is often just a matter of repeatedly showing up and having others get familiar with you and what you offer in relationships. Otherwise, he says, if she remains friendless, she may need to seek some counseling for her shyness.

Indeed, what if her shyness is more severe than a simple adjustment problem? She may have had these problems before, may habitually misread how other people see her, and she may feel so inadequate that all the attention in the world from others may not assuage her loneliness or improve her confidence. She may have a problem--as many of us do--with perpetual avoidance. Such a difficulty may appear minor and go unrecognized but in fact it is a major life issue and deserves attention. Living without participating in life is a real curse.

Perpetual avoidance--where a person avoids socializing to the detriment of embracing comforting human relationships--is a serious personal problem that is on the rise partly because of increasing depersonalization in our culture and disturbing social trends that leave more people to fend for themselves, often with fewer interpersonal skills. People become depressed, develop severe anxiety disorders, and fail to blossom in life when they are persistently shy. Oddly enough, in this age of global technology and telecommunication, personal and social isolation is an increasing problem for many of us and it often goes unrecognized and untreated.

When is avoidance healthy and when is it a problem?
Avoidance is healthy when the needs for doing it far outweigh the costs of not doing it. There are times in our lives when it is advisable to remove ourselves from stressful circumstances and avoid facing overwhelming issues. Many of us may not need to view yet another retake of the two jumbo jets crashing into the World Trade Center and watching it collapse again. We're already so attuned to the horrors of September 11, 2001 and need no more reminders, despite how the media may see it otherwise. However, there are times when avoidance starts interfering with the happiness of our lives. When we persistently put off necessary tasks or life challenges that would substantially benefit our lives, when we're continuously dishonest with our mates for fear of losing them, or when we ourselves continue to put our heads in the sand in an "out of sight, out of mind" mentality, then avoidance is likely a big problem. It is particularly a problem when we avoid knowing ourselves--when we don't grasp why we act the way we do, fail to tolerate unpleasant emotions within ourselves, and are intolerant to others. Addictive behaviors, obligatory optimism, and self-righteousness are all forms of problematic avoidance.

Why men are prone to avoidance
Men who were raised with the warning--"Big boys don't cry"--are unlikely to share their vulnerabilities in adulthood. Also males may lack many of the neuro-biological, evolutionary-based verbal and social skills that come so easily to women and men may feel more inadequate in social situations. Too many males may be trained to adopt a lone-wolf mentality and avoid socializing unless they are connected to a woman. The reality is that men have the same needs and can develop the same skills that women have in socializing.

Signals of problematic avoidance
Ask yourself the following questions to evaluate your difficulties in this area:

• How willing are you to share your inadequacies with friends?
• How difficult is it for you to express disagreement or conflict with others?
• How often do you call on friends for support?
• Are you likely to initiate friendly conversations with strangers in social situations?
• How open are you to unpleasant emotions inside yourself?
• How many people know the real you?
• How worried are you of rejection or criticism by others?
• How much of your life revolves around escaping--watching TV, web-surfing,etc.?
• How often have you felt that life is passing you by?

Disturbing social trends
In his reputable research study, Bowling Alone (Simon and Schuster, 2000), Harvard Professor Robert D. Putnam found that in the last 30 years American culture has become increasingly disengaged on personal, social and civic levels. People vote less, are less active in community organizations, are less financially generous and volunteer less, involve themselves less frequently in neighborly interactions, are less involved in civic and community action groups, attend church less often and volunteer less often for Sunday school teaching, and they eat dinner less often as a family or entertain friends at the family home less often than they did several decades ago. Bowling leagues, family vacations, company toy drives, bridge groups, and the Rotary Club are on the endangered species list. People seem to pursue private happiness and family interests at the expense of social interconnectedness and civic-mindedness. Too many of us mistakenly believe we can live happily on our own private islands apart from our neighbors and believe what we don't see, won't hurt us.

Why are we avoiding?
Some research has also shown that we avoid socializing because of excessive escapism (TV watching, computer surfing, etc.), leading pressured lives in dual-career families, joining suburban sprawl with less local community identification, having the torch passed from aging, civic-minded generation of elders to less involved youth, and the dampening of community spirit at the workplace due to financial stress and workplace disunity. At the end of a hectic day, many of us just want to curl up at home and avoid our neighbors. I also think we avoid because we are scared of ourselves and we get habituated to patterns of avoidance. Some of us are rather unsure of our own likableness and would just rather pack it in than take risks being close to people, only reinforcing our inadequacies.

Guidelines for facing life
When it comes to socializing, balance is best. Sometimes we need time alone; sometimes we need to force ourselves to be around caring people as we will feel better later. It's wise to see ourselves like other people rather than being eternally unique. All of us need the cuddling of a support group –like a good men's group– prior to making giant leaps in life. Read Shyness by Bernardo J. Carducci (Perennial Books, 1999). Life is too short to not fully face it.

John H. Driggs LICSW is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in private practice in St. Paul and co-author of "Intimacy Between Men." (Penguin Books, 1990) . He can be reached at (651) 699-4573.