Family Composition

        One of the premises upon which this book is based is that it is
possible to learn a great deal about the underlying causes of love-shyness
by contrasting the backgrounds of men who are severely affected by it
with the backgrounds of men who are not affected. For example, if a
characteristic is very prevalent in the backgrounds of the self-confident,
non-shy men, but very rare in the backgrounds of those who are love-
shy, we might reasonably deduce that the absence of that characteristic
may have some bearing upon the development of love-shyness. Con-
trariwise, if a characteristic is found to be very commonplace among the
love-shys and rare among the non-shys, we might similarly deduce that
the characteristic might have something to do with the development of
love-shyness.
     No characteristic or experience could, by itself, cause severe love-
shyness to develop. However, with a certain number of the wrong char-
acteristics or experiences prevalent in a person's background, severe and
intractable love-shyness might be deemed quite likely to develop and
to remain dominant over a person's life. Experiences and characteristics
add up not in a mechanical way, but in a cumulative, synergistic, "chem-
ical" kind of way. In essence, with the right complex of deleterious
factors in a person's background, seriously debilitating love-shyness is
highly likely to eventuate.