Sample Heterogeneity

     The younger love-shys would be described in social science lingo
as a more heterogeneous group of men than the older love-shys. This
means that the younger love-shys include among their ranks men of a
wider range of different prognoses than is the case for the older love-
shy men. Simply put, many of the younger love-shys will eventually
solve their love-shyness problem (or somehow have it solved for them).
And they will consequently manage to marry and have children as per
their very strong desires.
     On the other hand, we may rightly suspect that very few of the
older love-shys will ever be able to marry and have children according
to their desires. United States Government statistics indicate that only
about 5 percent of men still "single, never married" after age 35, will ever
marry. Thus it would seem to be a good guess that for the severely and
chronically love-shy single, never married, the percent ever marrying
beyond the age of 35 is most probably a good deal lower than 5!
     In essence, we may speculate that the younger love-shy men include
among their ranks some individuals who will go on to become 35 to 50
year old "single, never married" love-shys. On the other hand, it is also
quite likely that at least half of these younger love-shy men will even-
tually work out a way of getting their love-shyness problem solved before
becoming old enough to qualify for entrance into a group of 35 to 50
year old heterosexual love-shy virgins.
     Because the younger love-shys represent a more heterogeneous
group than the older love-shys do, we may reasonably expect that most
facets of their backgrounds are probably less extreme than those of the
older love-shys. In other words, we can expect that most of the behav-
ioral and background differences between the non-shys and the love-
shys will be substantially less for the younger love-shys than for the older
ones. Thus when the love-shy men are compared to the non-shy men,
the younger love-shys can be expected to be a lot more similar to the
non-shys than the older love-shy men can be expected to be. And this
is exactly what was found as will become clear to the reader as he/she
makes his/her way through this book.
      Hence, the younger (university) love-shy men probably include
significantly fewer intractable cases. All of these younger men do indeed
suffer from severe and chronic love-shyness. But for many of them it is
likely that events will ultimately conspire at some future time to relieve
their painful inability to obtain meaningful and rewarding female com-
panionship. Much of the young lives of these men had already been
wasted as far as their not having been able to experience or enjoy any
kind of a social life was concerned. Again, for many of the younger love-
shys this inability and lack might ultimately prove quite temporary; for
the older love-shys it will ultimately prove tragically permanent.