Causes of love-shyness

Gilmartin estimates that love-shyness afflicts approximately 1.5 percent of American males. According to Gilmartin, love-shyness is, like most human psychological characteristics, the result of some combination of biological (genetic/developmental) and environmental (cultural, familial, religious, etc.) factors (see also: nature versus nurture). Gilmartin believes that shyness is a condition which needs to be cured. He claims that "SHYNESS IS NEVER HEALTHY" (his capitalization).

He mentions several possible biological causes of love-shyness, most notably low maternal testosterone during fetal development, nasal polyps and hypoglycemia.

Crucial factors exacerbating negative development during the love-shy male's childhood are:
School bullying. Love-shy boys are vulnerable to bullying from their peer group, due to their shyness and inhibition. Non-conformism to peer group norms also makes the boy a target through no fault of his own.
Parental upbringing. Where a child receives primarily negative stimuli from his parents (e.g. corporal punishment, verbal abuse, criticism, 'put-downs', negative comparisons, indifference) this will most likely cause the boy to retreat further and further into his 'shell'.

With so many negative stimuli from crucial relationships in one's childhood, the love-shy boy becomes a social isolate. He learns to associate these crucial interactions (i.e. with parents, peer group) with hurt feelings and is likely to avoid social interaction. Social isolation becomes a 'vicious circle' for the love-shy individual as the years go by, and inhibits his chances in interaction with the opposite sex, as well as in other crucial areas of life such as his career.

Love-shyness, sexual orientation, and gender

Gilmartin believes that love-shyness would have the most severe effect on heterosexual males, because of gender roles. He claims that it may be possible for both shy women and homosexual men to become involved in intimate relationships without needing to take any initiative, simply by waiting for a more assertive man to initiate the relationship. According to Gilmartin, shy women are as likely or even more likely due to their love-shyness as non-shy women to date, to marry, and to have children, while this is not the case for heterosexual men. Love-shy heterosexual men normally have no informal social contact with women (virtually by definition). They cannot date, marry, or have children, and many of these men never experience any form of intimate sexual contact. Gilmartin found that third parties such as parents and friends are often inconsiderate of the difficulties of love-shy men, and are reluctant to aid them in finding girlfriends.

Gilmartin notes that love-shy men are frequently assumed to be homosexual, because of their perceived lack of interest in women and this would also cause homosexual men to make advances to them but the love-shy men would reject them. Interestingly, a small number of the non-shy men admitted to have experimenting with homosexual acts though none of the love-shy men had any sort of sexual activity in their life besides masturbation. Additionally, Gilmartin noted that many love-shy men are not interested in friendships with other men. This, combined with their lack of success in initiating contact with women, causes feelings of loneliness, alienation, and depression.