Despite being known for “being really good at talking to women”, women give me panic attacks nearly daily

I always gotten insanely nervous around girls, but yet am better at talking to women than 90% of men

I have this problem where I get insanely nervous and borderline panicky when I’m attracted to a woman, but when I DO break the ice and talk to them, it goes away immediately.

I’ll give a few examples

My current long term girlfriend

When I was 21, my girlfriend was in the same class as me at a community college. She would make flirty eyes with me, and by this age I had kind of mastered “the glance”, which is what I call when you or a person attracted to you make eye contact and smile or kind of flirtatiously exchange looks. I should mention, even though I can do this, it makes me extremely anxious and panicky.

We exchanged flirty eyes, but I basically zoned out the entire class. I began overthinking her, was having a panic attack, and was hyper focused on body language for both of us.

After class, I saw her sitting on a bench in the sun. I knew I wanted to talk to her, but I was SO fucking anxious. I was almost hyperventilating. I walked over with my legs like jello, feeling sweaty, and sat down across from her.

Now, once I actually start talking, it’s like a calm comes over me. We ended up talking so much, and so well, we skipped our next class to converse. By the end we had even talked about our deceased moms and previous relations. The rest is history and we’re still together in our early 30’s.

Big deal, you may be wondering. That’s actually sweet!

Yes, but the problem is this happens with every woman I find attractive even to this day.

At my job, I got a new boss. She was in her early 20’s and at this point I was 30. The first two days, I was fucking panicky. I know how to hide my panic attacks, and can even come off as calm when I’m nervous. But it was there. She was pretty, and I was hardly able to focus on work.

However, once I broke the ice with her, we had a wonderful relationship. I taught her a lot about our industry, she told me about her personal life, and as soon as I “broke the ice”, we became super tight coworkers. She left the company to take care of her father, and even texted me for how thankful she was that I taught her so much about the ins and outs of our industry.

Another example, I go to AA. Have gone for a while. Even recently, I started going to co-ed meetings after going to men’s groups for a while (again, because I get panicky around girls). This woman sat close to me, no flirting just sat around me, and I panicked. I couldn’t focus on meeting, I kept overthinking her, could barely make eye contact. I was freaking out holding her hand during the serenity prayer after the meeting. But again: I knew if I talked to her, I would calm down. So I introduced myself, very platonically, and we talked about sobriety, god, our partners, and even hugged and wished one another well. Ever since then, when I see her at meetings, were very friendly and get along.

I have had co-workers who are women approach me, and tell me about other male coworkers who are creeping them out. I help them sort out the feelings, talk them through it, and recommend they go to HR.

I’ve had multiple women say they feel comfortable around me, and I even had a boss once say “aw yes, Redditor has a gift. He’s very good at taking to women. He has a way with them”.

The thing is though, I fucking have panic attacks with damn near any girl I find attractive. It’s the weirdest fucking thing. It’s like when I’m around women, I’m fucking freaking out and stressed, but once I actually talk to them: I’m really good at conversing with them and becoming at the very least friendly with them and all the anxiety goes away. Once I talk to them, the nervous feelings goes away forever.

This makes me upset because:

1: I have a girlfriend. I would never cheat on her. We’re waiting for her to get her PHD before we get married. She’s my soulmate.

Feeling nervous around girls makes me feel like I’m doing something wrong.

2: its overwhelming. I hate how panicky I become. I thought it would go away with age. It hasn’t. It makes me avoid certain situations (like in AA), where I will generally co to a “men’s meeting” even if something can be Co-ed.

I often feel like I’m creepy because I get so nervous, but it’s the opposite. I have better relations with women than most men. I have women friends who I can trust platonically. I have received comments from male friends about how “Redditor is so good at talking to girls”.

I’ll never forget what my best friend said when I was 17.

“Idk how my dawg gets so nervous about girls but then talks to them better than anyone I know”

It’s exhausting