I had a client say that he was afraid of being sexy!

This might sound a little ridiculous on the surface, but he's actually expressing a fairly common fear: that you will mistakenly lead someone on by attracting them and causing them to feel interested in you against your will. They will then develop feelings for you without your encouragement, and burden you with those feelings.

You're worried about this because you're scared you won't be able to reject them.

Nice Guys in particular are afraid of rejecting as much as they fear rejection. Their greatest fear is being the one who hurts other people's feelings - being seen as the Bad Guy.

Because they lack internal permission to reject people, they're very afraid of commitment and intimacy. They can’t let something begin to be intimate if they’re not yet sure they want a long term relationship.

They're afraid of someone even being interested in them because they fear they won't be able to stop that train from leaving the station. They won't be able to say No, and therefore they’ll end up saying Yes to something permanent that they don't want.

Nice guys are bad enders.

They secretly hope to get through life without ever hurting someone’s feelings. They are deluded. To live is to hurt people. It’s inevitable.

Good people are those who do the minimal possible harm, but no one is capable of causing zero harm.

The key is to get good at giving people negative feedback as often as it occurs to you, at the lower levels (e.g. minor disagreement and dislike), so that you acclimatize yourself to hurting people’s feelings with honesty.

For more on this topic, check out my podcast episode “Honesty vs Truthfulness: How to Avoid Hurting Peoples Feelings”:

https://theinspirationallifestyle.com/podcast/honesty-vs-truthfulness-how-to-avoid-hurting-peoples-feelings/

‍