Love-shyness is a degree of social inhibition and timidity regarding the opposite sex that it is so severe it prevents participation in courtship, marriage, and family roles. It is estimated that 1.7 million American males suffer from love-shyness. These virginal, heterosexual men desire an intimate, committed relationship with a woman, but their acute timidity in informal social situations prevents them from asserting themselves.

The Shy Man Syndrome is the first book aimed at a general audience to address this problem and offer ways to overcome it. Dr. Brian Gilmartin uses landmark text, Shyness and Love, as a basis for this work. For it, more than 300 chronically-shy, virginal men, between the ages of 19 and 50, were interviewed and tested. A second group, consisting of 200 non-shy men, was also studied. The Shy Man Syndrome contains the findings of this research, as well as therapeutic and preventative approaches for dealing with this debilitating affliction.

We learn about the past family life of the love-shy mean; their school life during formative years; sexual development; medical symptoms; and psychological traits. We then witness treatments such as practice-dating therapy; psychodrama; role playing; visualization; and self-image therapy. The results of the study are presented in an absorbing manner that makes for fascinating, illuminating, and instructive reading.