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> It's admirable how hard you're trying not to be a part of the problem, but don't make yourself a martyr.

I find myself sceptical of whether this is altruism, or a justifying righteousness to explain fear of embarrassment or rejection.

It doesn't have to be either/or. I myself have dealt with a crippling fear of being a bad person in other arenas. It's a cyclical complex of self-distrust with a sense of righteousness as the driving force pushing you downward, which makes it very hard to uproot.

On that note: therapy is great, too.

It is as simple as you ask a woman out who you are interested in. If she ignores you or says no, you move on. If she keeps saying yes to your date invitations it means she likes you. Avoiding or being scared of making the first move is very unattractive and shows extreme lack of confidence and confidence is the most attractive trait.

>It is as simple as you ask a woman out who you are interested in

No it's not that simple. Some women are propositioned so often that it becomes a trial just to be out. Time and place are important too.

Which women and how often?

Do you have women friends? Ask them.

I have a woman, as well as I have talked to women and if I have picked up anything it is that many of them consider modern men to lack initiative. It is actually easy to stand out by being straight forward and confident. Just don't be pushy and accept rejections gracefully.

I rarely admit this to people, but when I was 19, I paid $700 to go to a weekend "PUA convention" like what Tom Cruise caricaturizes in the movie Magnolia.

The eye-opening part for me was when we broke out in small groups, went downtown in Austin, and the group leader (employees of the event) cold-approached women with a level of success I only thought was possible in Hugh Grant movies and reserved for nobody other than Hugh Grant in real life. And my group leader was a 39yo bald guy.

Most of the "wisdom" around approaching women are simply superstition and self-sabotage. "No, there's no way that could work so I won't even try."

See, this kind of thing seems like it would actually start to enter the territory that the OP is terrified of. Confidence is essential, yes, but you can be confident and also be considerate. Setting aside the plethora of things wrong with a "PUA convention", your group leader probably made lots of women very uncomfortable. There's a difference between taking initiative in a context where women are actively looking for those kinds of interactions, and taking initiative randomly on the street.

I think your post demonstrates my point of sabotage. You took a general explanation of a scenario ("guy talks to women with great success") and assumed the worst, that this guy must have made women uncomfortable by approaching them, as if discomfort is an intrinsic part of human interaction.

If you trot out this self-sabotage enough, you won't even leave your house because you might inconvenience someone by taking up the sidewalk tile they might've wanted to occupy. Yet this is the kind of thought process you see in men all the time when it comes to women and dating. As if women are anti-social automatons that don't actually like meeting new people much less single men who find them attractive and interesting. Or maybe they're just putting on their makeup and high-heels to meet everyone but you with your +discomfort debuff aura.

I recommend trying to not just talk to women in the wild, but anyone. Just strike up some quick convo instead of assuming you're making them uncomfortable.

I think you've come into this comments section with quite a lot of baggage about how you think these things need to play out.

You misunderstand; I don't have any trouble with human interaction, including strangers.

But I've heard many women describe being exhausted by getting hit on constantly, in situations where they really just don't care and just want to get their coffee, or get to work, or be out in the world for literally any other reason. If you're at a bar or on a dating app: go for it. In that context, people are actively soliciting that kind of interaction. There's an implied social contract: "we are here to flirt". You may still be rejected, but you're invited to put yourself out there. In most other contexts, jumping straight into romantic interactions out of the blue is probably going to be unwanted. Being friendly to all people is great, sure. But read the room.

And, from others' anecdotes, those annoying interactions are the best case scenario. Some (a minority, but not so small it doesn't matter) men don't handle rejection well. They get persistent, or pushy, or sometimes even irate or violent. Even if it only happens one out of one hundred times, it's enough to put someone on edge when a stranger approaches them and compliments their hair. Just another reason to keep unprompted amorous interactions within the appropriate contexts.

> You took a general explanation of a scenario ("guy talks to women with great success") and assumed the worst, that this guy must have made women uncomfortable by approaching them, as if discomfort is an intrinsic part of human interaction.

I find this whole mindset to infantilize and encourage shitty women to lean on that. Not all women are massively scare to communicate with men.

> probably made lots of women very uncomfortable.

Did you ask them?/How do you know they were?

I find this admirable. You realized you had an issue, you tried something to address it. You might even have had some success at it. Awesome! It's weird that you're getting downvoted for this.

Several things you just said are dramatically oversimplified.

That's unavoidable when you tackle such a complex topic in two lines. But he's right that confidence is attractive. Of course that can be dangerous too; it's what con-men rely on. So it's a balance. But too much lack of confidence is a problem too.

You can have infinite confidence and still be kind/sensitive/considerate. The two are independent axes, and both are important (and attractive).

> You can have infinite confidence and still be kind/sensitive/considerate.

How is this possible? Infinite confidence would mean that you think it is impossible that you aren't right and therefore others must be wrong when they disagree or reject you. I can't see such a person being kind, sensitive or considerate.

Confidence means you aren't pushed around by the world; sensitivity means you willingly open yourself up and pay attention to the world around you, and take it into consideration. The difference is nuanced, but very important.

In some ways confidence empowers a person to be kinder and more considerate. Not that they will be automatically, but they have more opportunity to be. Someone who lacks true confidence is naturally on the defensive, always having to think about how to prop up their own standing. More often than not, people who come off as brash and pushy are actually doing so out of a deep insecurity that they're trying to satisfy.

There's a difference between the confidence that you're absolutely, undeniably correct and it's inconceivable that you might be wrong, and the confidence that you deserve to be present and involved, and that your views are valid and defensible, and that you're willing to reconsider those views when faced with a sufficiently convincing argument that it's wrong.

Taking initiative is exhausting, especially if you are very introverted like a lot of people are in tech. This means that you are unlikely to try a lot of girls, so you'll go with the first one who says yes, thus very likely ending up in a horrible relationship.

There are of course some very introverted men who end up in good loving relationships, but I believe they are a tiny minority. Your odds could get improved if you were exceptional in some way, but if you are just a typical person then good luck.

>Taking initiative is exhausting, especially if you are very introverted like a lot of people are in tech.

This reads like an indictment of... Something. But what? Should there be public policy that helps socially awkward men mate like there's public policy that helps disabled people access public services?

Yes it's challenging to be different from normal. Welcome to the privilege discussion. Now that you're here what do you think our priorities should be?

It isn't an indictment, it is just an observation.

> Now that you're here what do you think our priorities should be?

Personally I'm fine being alone, both my parents were in multiple extremely toxic marriages so I feel no need to get into one myself.

A reasonable ask seems to be for society to provide resources to help people learn to overcome the challenge and an environment where they are able to. After all, the point of society is to allow its members to meet their needs.

you're not wrong. i can't help but wonder whether you (and anyone else who agrees) extends this kind of consideration to all of the abnormal people that move through the world.

i posted the comment that you responded to because it's an opportunity for people to sympathize.

> This reads like an indictment of... Something. But what? Should there be public policy that helps socially awkward men mate like there's public policy that helps disabled people access public services?

That's kind of what the "pickup artist" businesses addressed and helped with.

To put it more delicately than a sibling comment, yes, that's a real problem and there's no singular solution to it. But even if taking initiative is hard, I honestly think it's essential. It may take practice, it may be draining, but relationships aren't going to fall out of the sky.