"I can't abide them even now and then"

August 13, 2008 10:28 AM

Strategies for dealing with a fear of men, please.

I have an irrational fear of men and successfully avoid them most of the time. (I'm female, if it needs saying.) My new manager is male and I think I am going to find it hard to work with him - hard to talk to him coherently and hard to meet with him on my own. Has anyone any suggestions about how to deal with this? I haven't been able to find anything via Google.

I realise people will immediately say "therapy" but I'm looking for more of a short-term solution as I have to work with this person. I've thought about treating it as a phobia but find it hard to see how I'd do the classic desensitization thing in this situation.

Apologies if this prejudice hurts anyone's feelings - I do realise it's irrational and stupid.

posted by anonymous to human relations (19 answers total)

The Gift of Fear is a really good book about fear in general that delves into the difference between true threatening situations/people and irrational fears.
posted by xo at 10:35 AM on August 13, 2008

Treat it as a phobia. Desensitization is not the only way to treat phobias. I recommend The Anxiety and Phobia Workbook. It mostly focuses on getting your physiological fear response under control.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 10:35 AM on August 13, 2008

Is it just that - irrational - or is it caused by some erroneous thought process?
posted by kldickson at 10:36 AM on August 13, 2008

I think that this actually is a phobia and you should treat it as such. In the short term, this will mean purposely seeking out men for casual social interaction - such as in the checkout line at the grocers, saying "Good Morning" to the male bus driver, things like that. I'm not really sure it's a great idea to try and tackle deep-seated issues like this on your own, so I would urge you to find a therapist, get a short term plan from them and then follow up with more intensive therapy.
posted by The Light Fantastic at 10:40 AM on August 13, 2008

I struggle with this somewhat myself.

For me it dissipates somewhat once I get to know the man as a person. If you can grit your teeth and hang in there a little while it may ease off for you for this particular person.
posted by konolia at 10:50 AM on August 13, 2008

I wonder if it's a good idea to let him know ahead of time that you're struggling with this, somehow...

I'm just thinking that a lot of people misunderstand behaviors and may attribute it to something else, like disliking the actual person.
posted by Ky at 10:54 AM on August 13, 2008

Your approach might depend on exactly what type of reaction you have. Do you have an urge to flee from the situation? Do you have a classic panic attack - start to sweat, heart races, hyperventilating? If it's the former, for the very short term I'd suggest explaining that you are feeling sick to your stomach and when you get the urge to flee, go to the bathroom whether you intend to use it or not. Minimize your contact with him by using phone and email rather than in-person. For panic attacks, get the book Ambrosia Voyeur suggests and follow the tips on how to head off a panic attack. Deep breathing techniques work best for me.

Do you have any male friends who are not threatening? Perhaps a gay friend? (I'm assuming your fear is based on sexual/physical assault.) Can you hang out with him, maybe with some other female friends present, and roleplay with him as your boss? Maybe imagine that your boss is this friend. When you talk to your boss, visualize him as this completely nonthreatening person.

Also, like the Light Fantastic says, experiment with being interactive with men in totally unthreatening situations, like the clerk at the coffee shop. Men who are likely to be nice to you, or paid to be nice to you. Say, a male hairdresser or a retail salesperson in a busy, well-lit shop.

I'm glad that your long-term plan is therapy. I'm guessing that this stems from some prior assault or abuse and this will need to be dealt with. Until then it's not really an irrational fear - you had a traumatic experience and don't want to repeat it, unlike someone who's never been bitten by a spider yet has arachnophobia.
posted by desjardins at 10:58 AM on August 13, 2008

Also, don't expose yourself to things that trigger your fear, such as movies/documentaries about domestic violence or rape.
posted by desjardins at 11:04 AM on August 13, 2008

Is it all men in general or is it something specific that signals "male" to you (e.g. the way they smell, a certain body type, the way they dress, etc)? I think if you can narrow it down to specifics, it might be a first step toward helping to desensitize yourself. For instance, if the smell of male cologne is a trigger, once you recognize it you can say calmly to yourself, "Okay, I recognize that he smells scary, but I know that I'm safe because..." (and then list the reasons you're safe - e.g. "I know he's a good person," "I'm surrounded by friends," etc). Make a point of mentally telling yourself all the things that signal "not a threat" to counteract your initial reaction.
posted by amyms at 12:33 PM on August 13, 2008

short term: tranquilizers. then, a lot of therapy, you have a serious phobia, it's not like you're afraid of something easy to avoid like aardvarks.
posted by matteo at 2:08 PM on August 13, 2008

Imagine that he is female and dresed as a man.
(I'm just throwing ideas out, it's an irrational fear who knows what might work).
posted by bdc34 at 2:11 PM on August 13, 2008

Is it just that - irrational - or is it caused by some erroneous thought process?
posted by kldickson at 1:36 PM on August 13 [+] [!]

Not trying to be snarky, kldickson - aren't those the same thing?

Seconding The Anxiety and Phobia Workbook.
posted by IAmBroom at 2:22 PM on August 13, 2008

I understood kdickson's question as asking 'is it fear based on some articulable (if irrational) reason, or completely out of nowhere?'
posted by jacalata at 5:10 PM on August 13, 2008

Yeah, I read it the same as jacalata.

It's an important question; If this is an out-of-nowhere thing with no real identifiable basis (like a girl I know who is afraid of buttons... buttons on your shirt, not buttons on an elevator) then that suggest one sort of approach. If it's a result of repeated violent trauma at the hands of a man or something, that would definitely lead to a different approach.

Without knowing the basis for the fear this is hard to answer.
posted by Justinian at 6:15 PM on August 13, 2008

Seconding trying to get to know him. If you know him as "John" or "Bob" rather than just another terrible male, you'll probably fear him less.

In the long term, therapy. Being seriously afraid of 49% of the population is a big problem. Being afraid of any minority is a problem, but this one is 100% unavoidable, so you'll have to find a way to get over it.
posted by explosion at 7:02 PM on August 13, 2008

I don't want to make assumptions, but just so you know, what you're describing is a pretty common reaction to having been physically or sexually assaulted. For some people, just the fear of this kind of assault can bring on this level of anxiety.

I wonder if there are strategies you can implement to help yourself. For example, if you are having a review meeting tomorrow, you can probably shorten the meeting time by producing a review memo the night before. In the meeting, ask that the door be left open - tell him you have claustrophobia. If you can't do a good job speaking in a meeting or when asked anything, follow up by email.

And yes, please make getting therapy a priority. Not because your life is less fulfilled without men, but because your quality of life will be so much better without the exhausting acrobatics and constant worry of avoiding 1/2 of the population.
posted by DarlingBri at 7:19 PM on August 13, 2008

Can you spend some time preparing by visualising the kinds of interactions you're likely to have with him at work?

eg - you're in the elevator & he gets in, you're the only two passengers, you make some smalltalk about the weather on the weekend, he replies, all goes well, you arrive at your floor & walk to your desk & nothing scary happens. Do similar for being called for a meeting in his office, etc etc etc. Probably the more sensual detail (no, not that kind) the better.
posted by UbuRoivas at 8:37 PM on August 13, 2008

Okay, these are short-term suggestions only.

First option: "Doing goals, not feeling goals." Your goal is to work with your boss, not to feel good about working with your boss. Sometimes just letting yourself be anxious or pissed or sad or whatever makes it easier to go ahead and do what needs to be done anyway.

Second option: Play the movie in your head. If you're afraid of something, it may be because you're anticipating what's going to happen. If you consciously think about this theoretical series of events, it may become easier to accept that it's not going to happen. "He's going to start teasing me because of my freckles and then he's going to call everyone else into his office and they're going to chant 'Freckle-face! Freckle-face!' just like in grade school. Wait a second, that's ludicrous."

Of course, what's helpful for one person might be unhelpful or even extremely unpleasant for another, but maybe one of these will help.
posted by lore at 3:27 PM on August 14, 2008

Disclosure: I'm male. But I too don't usually enjoy direct male company a lot. (Although I do really enjoy what males contribute to society - music, writing, design etc.)

From the way you write the question it sounds like you are ready to deal with this issue.

But I'd like to say that I feel it would be fine to continue avoiding them if you are willing to accept the limitations this would place on your life. This would obviously mean moving on from your current position at work. Perhaps even finding a community where you can live away from men. Just because men are half the population and difficult to avoid doesn't mean that it's not valid to pursue strategies to keep them out of your life.
posted by Sitegeist at 8:06 AM on August 26, 2008