Honestly, rejection hasn't been my main fear with regards to approaching. Rejection has often felt kind of nice. You get focused on one person and preoccupied with the question "would they feel the same way", that even if that answer is "no", it's nice to have it answered so I can move on.
My main fear has been that trying to approach or flirt with women makes them feel unsafe. I don't want that. What I want is for it to be a generally positive, flattering experience for her, even if she doesn't share the feelings.
As a boy, I didn't view girls as weak, dumb, or inferior. But when I was taught about women's issues, it was done on the assumption that I was some die-hard sexist at age 10. So while this may not have been the intended message, what I learned was "however ashamed you are to be male, it isn't enough. Especially regarding sexuality." So I grew up on the idea that respecting women meant hiding my interest and feeling ashamed of my sexuality.
This started to fade until college, when I asked a friend of mine out, and her friends didn't like this, so they started spreading rumors of sexual assault that led to me receiving death threats. The issue got sorted out when I got security involved, but it still solidified the thing I had feared: She had flirted with me hard leading up to this, but me reciprocating that interest was already treated as a bridge too far. Even if that's not how it went down, that's ultimately how I had received it.
Understanding my past experiences, my main problem hasn't been women being disinterested in me, but mostly that I don't put myself out there much.
So say there's a cute girl across the room. A friend says "go talk to her". But my experience ranges from the girl jumping all over me to me getting death threats and being assaulted. So I don't have much to pull from. Does it seem stalker-ish to go say hi to her when we didn't naturally bump into each other? Stuff like that. I'd be interested in women's take on this.
My main fear has been that trying to approach or flirt with women makes them feel unsafe. I don't want that. What I want is for it to be a generally positive, flattering experience for her, even if she doesn't share the feelings.
As a boy, I didn't view girls as weak, dumb, or inferior. But when I was taught about women's issues, it was done on the assumption that I was some die-hard sexist at age 10. So while this may not have been the intended message, what I learned was "however ashamed you are to be male, it isn't enough. Especially regarding sexuality." So I grew up on the idea that respecting women meant hiding my interest and feeling ashamed of my sexuality.
This started to fade until college, when I asked a friend of mine out, and her friends didn't like this, so they started spreading rumors of sexual assault that led to me receiving death threats. The issue got sorted out when I got security involved, but it still solidified the thing I had feared: She had flirted with me hard leading up to this, but me reciprocating that interest was already treated as a bridge too far. Even if that's not how it went down, that's ultimately how I had received it.
Understanding my past experiences, my main problem hasn't been women being disinterested in me, but mostly that I don't put myself out there much.
So say there's a cute girl across the room. A friend says "go talk to her". But my experience ranges from the girl jumping all over me to me getting death threats and being assaulted. So I don't have much to pull from. Does it seem stalker-ish to go say hi to her when we didn't naturally bump into each other? Stuff like that. I'd be interested in women's take on this.
