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I was thinking about this last night. I was kinda going back to my past with this in a way.

I was debating on whether or not to talk about this. I had a second thought of, Nobody wants to here about you struggling with relationship or dating crap, but I really wanted to get this off my chest. It's not my primary problem though. My best friend and I both have this problem, and we're both thinking that it's not a big deal...I-I don't know. Is it though?

See I usually joke about the whole dating thing. I'm usually like "Pffft, yeah like that's ever going to happen me". As much as I joke about it, I'm still hurt about it. Why is it such a big deal? I can go my whole life by myself can't I? I've talked about this to my mother and said, "Who would want to be with me. I'm never going to date anybody". She replied with, "Bull ♥♥♥♥. That's not true at all. You know that you want be loved by someone." I could not argue against because, yeah I didn't care, but a part of me actually did care about it.

I explained it on my post in the "Who are you?" topic, but what happened was I talked to a girl 10th grade, and, imo, it was bad. The second girl I talked to was already dating. The third girl I talked to: I pretty just gave up and went "I just want to be friends". Now granted she wasn't comfortable about it too, but I didn't have a lot of confidence in myself.

Okay I moved on. No big deal right? That is until I see a couple smiling at each other or kissing in the hallway. Then I feel very depressed, or I might hide my head in shame.

If I wasn't so shy, this wouldn't be such a huge issue for me, but there's not a lot I can do about that. That's just who I am. Also, according to my parents, I am oblivious. I can't really tell if someone is flirting with me or not. A girl smiling and saying "Hi" or waving at me is probably just a friendly gesture for all I know. I can't assume they like me. Or if a girl sends a friend request to me on Facebook: that's probably just...I don't know...that doesn't really mean anything.

I can't get myself to do it. I hate rejection, and pretty much every girl I see already had a boyfriend anyway or are always interested in the big and bad boys who try to act cool (or the stupid and immature boys) or the boys who play footballl. What's the point?

Anyway, I guess I'm done ranting because now I've got nothing.
Also, at some point, I need to stop talking about my problems here. Nobody wants to constantly hear me acting all negative and ♥♥♥♥.

you and me both. Whenever I meet someone for the first time I naturally have trouble talking to them. But girls especially so. I just cannot get the fear out of my head that I'll say something completely wrong and it'll be taken the wrong way.

Not like I have any interest in relationships period because eh. Who would want to date a short tempered coward who spends most of his time making music at home?

You're not alone with this. If I was to summarise my "attempts" or almost any kind of social approach it would be as it follows: be shy and fear not to ♥♥♥♥ up -> delay the moment of actual interraction -> overanalyse possibilities, ways, consequences -> pick the best (or in my case, least worse) choice -> decide it's already a ♥♥♥♥ up situation -> give up without doing anything and go back to drowning in ethanol.

I've been in your situation a few times. First attempt, got politely refused 'cause she had someone and didn't really talked to be after, for about a few months, then everything went back to normal. Second attempt, get pathetically refused (seriously, a straight "Not interested" would feel better, even brutally honest with "Maybe sometime"), but that didn't ruin our friendship, I still meet her periodically and talk like friends. Third attempt was pretty indirect and I tried to "drop hints", but again my Level 20 Subtility ♥♥♥♥ on me and ended on a scenario similar to first attempt (except she is single, was single, but still won't talk to me, fun stuff (-: ). Right now I've gived up mostly and it's not like the previous attempts were made entirely by me, but mostly some friends poked me around so i'd just give it shot, otherwise I'd never try.

But I've thought about it for a bit. There are several folks around who didn't really got a partner, for instance a math teacher I know is literally the stereotypical crazy-cat lady. I mean she has around 12 cats, never been merried, around 60 or so year old, but damn she has an impressitive library and knoweledge in a lot of domains. Maths (well obviously), history, languages (english, romanian, german, french), physics (quantum seem to be her favourite), even saw plenty of programming books (C++, HTML, SQL) around. She also travelled a lot ("It's a shame I only saw two continents"). Conclusion? She focused on herself and if she managed to put all the relationship and lack of parner/love aside and could focus on other aspects of her life that made her happy, everybody can do it. True, everyone will say that "sea is full of fish" and "someone outthere loves you"; "there is surely someone for you", but if there is not, then too bad, I'll focus on other aspects.

And being frank, I think there might (not sure at all) have been girls that may have dropped hints on me, but I'm handicapped when it comes to reading between the lines, picking hints and don't even know how to flirt (like seriously), but I'm picky too. First criteria I take is the face (and for some it seems an odd choice, but eh), then go on behaviour, I don't want her to be easy, don't want her to be ultra-shy and awkward, don't want her to be perverted either, so eh.

Arturia wrote:And being frank, I think there might (not sure at all) have been girls that may have dropped hints on me, but I'm handicapped when it comes to reading between the lines, picking hints and don't even know how to flirt (like seriously)

Yeah, it's either that or their not giving any hints at all. Now I'm starting to think that if a girl is constantly looking at me and/or is smiling at me a lot, or a girl I've never seen before smiles and waves at me, then that indicates something...maybe?
The only time I know someone has flirted with me is when my dad points it out, and then I start to act rather confused about it.

I shouldn't be hurt by this. I have shrugged it off and have felt just fine about it. Maybe it's becoming a bigger deal as I get older.

I've gotten to be quite risk adverse with women, after what happened to me a couple of years ago in the 12th grade.

I was in German class and we had a group project; the teacher assigned us into groups of three or four. I happened to be assigned to a group with a girl I was quite attracted to, but I had never talked to before. We did all the group project stuff, but it was quite tedious so we started talking about various things, eventually coming to food. She said she liked Mexican food, so I mentioned that I knew a small Mexican restaurant with excellent food, and asked her if she'd like to eat there with me sometime. She half-laughed and said "I'll pass," and than the conversation moved on smoothly.

After that, I was feeling pretty good about the whole thing, because I'm rather shy and I completely avoided a "big deal" rejection. The conversation just moved on seamlessly, like it never even happened.

Then, two days later, towards the end of first period in the morning, I get called in to see one of the vice principals (my high school was large and we had several), and once I sat down he asked "Do you sexually harass women?" I was visibly shocked and just said "what?" He said "Well, a girl complained that you were sexually harassing her." We talked for a bit until I realized who it was, so I explained what happened to him and he agreed the report was absurd. He told me he'd let me go this time, and that I should avoid her, which I certainly did.

I'm a feminist and consider myself sensitive to these issues, so that really hurt me. I thought about it a lot, sometimes I still do, and I never could understand it. I don't see how she could have felt threatened or anything. It put a major psychological wound on me, ever since then I'm always afraid of something like that happening. Rationally, I understand that certainly most women would never do something like that, but emotions rarely take their leads from logic.

So now I think about the whole thing like investing - in terms of risk. When people say things like "you should ask her out, what's the worst that could happen?" I, of course, now very well what could happen. That's a real risk, I can attest to it because it happened to me, and compared to how most guys approach women I was very subtle and non-confrontational. There was no awkward flirting, she didn't even have to say yes or no directly. So now I think of every possible interaction in terms of investing - never make a bet unless you're sure you'll win. The risk is too great to trust luck.

Now, the problem with this is, unlike an excellent company, it's almost impossible to tell if asking someone out will be a 'success' - and if it isn't, who knows what could happen, except that it would be bad. In other words, I never have a sure bet, so I can't approach anyone because the risk is too great.

So what I try to do is just get to know her well first, which makes sense anyway. I'll try to be friends for at least a few weeks before I make even the slightest move or hint. That way, I can build a risk/reward profile of sorts - basically, how likely it is for her to say yes if I approached her. But like I said, unless you really get close and it sort of just happens, you can never answer that with an acceptable likelihood. And the risk is too great for gambling, so I never do anything. The upside is that I've made many friends I probably wouldn't have had, but I'll probably end up alone otherwise.

Meh.

Maybe this will help you guys, you have it easy

Yeah it did kinda help. I still don't feel ready, but eventually I'll think back to this for aid.

Okay, I'm locking the topic, because these things can be addressed in "Get Things Off of Your Chest" if dating is concerning other people.