Is it better if you approach someone, or they approach you?

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Right. This engaging in hobbies and building non romantic relationships will also help with the obsessive issue. Will that work forever? Probably not, but it's a good place from which to build. It helps you keep in mind who you are, not what a possible obsession might cause you to feel, and do, that you wouldn't ordinarily.



You can, but I don't think it should immediately be done with just the purpose of asking her out two seconds later, unless you're mainly intending to get some dating practice in. (Which practice dating is fine.) For something more long term though, you're going to need to be friends. Yes, I know being in the friend zone sucks. You're preaching to the choir on that one. But getting her name doesn't have to mean you are dating that night either. Get her name and number, do some light texting, and then go out in about a week. Light is in bold, because you don't want to text her to death. If you're too available, it's bound to make her wonder why, and it potentially means you're obsessing about the texts themselves (maybe even more than about her).

Either way, it's the guy who usually has to make the first asking out because most girls wouldn't do it.

Brother, The Hulkster can tell you this. Unless you have 24 inch pythons like the Hulkster, most women will not come approach you. You need to start training, saying your prayers and eating your vitamins, or you will end up like The Earthquake.

24 inch pythons? I didn't know they could be as small as that. Are yours only babies? They average 12 feet long but can be up to 19 feet long.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burmese_Python

Maybe you are feeding yours the wrong vitamins?

NLP may help, but in one out of 20 attempts. It is just a small part of our interaction. And keep in mind, even Ross Jeffries went for an advice to Mystery with Style

This is definitely the way to go. If you can do it. I couldn't for instance. What I did was to establish contacts by net. But not with the aim of date or anything. NO. I was simply really interested in women. I wanted to know everything about them - any of them. I listened (well, did read) about anything they wanted to share, verbally supported them, made them smile. It took like 2-3 months and THEY wanted to meet. Almost all of them (10). It was crazy. And all I wanted was just to understand them and help them cope with their problems.

So. My advice is not to try approach strangers. Little chance there. You need to build up mutual contact BEFORE you show your interest. You go to college? Great, go for sports and activities with many women around. Any stuff at least a bit interesting for you will be just fine, as long as you can neg few women there
Or try my way, be really interested in them. Not with your little John, but with brain. Do not aim at the most beautiful ones, but any. First you build mutual ties with them and their friends, then you should try to make the real move.

I don't know if I can explain this right, but here goes. It would make a specific interaction more succesful, but the passive role demands higher social skills, not lesser, to be succesful in terms of finding someone that you're compatible with. Women have mainly been in the passive role for many, many generations; if not for the entire history of civilization, then the overwhelming majority of it. Natural selection has been more kind to women who have higher social ability, a selective pressure that is not as strongly evident in men. It is not less demanding in terms of social skills, it is in fact more demanding.

This is not a choice to be made on the basis of what's easier or more succesful, but depends largely on temperament and personality - it is choice you might make because it's natural to you, and trying to conform to something else will eventually cause you to sour and become toxic. Some individuals are well-suited and natural to the opposite role as envisioned by society, some are not, most fall somewhere inbetween.



I think this is an indication you are not naturally inclined to the passive role. One of the things I've observed in both men and women for whom the passive role is more natural and healthy, is a lower level of motivation to find a mate, and a higher level of motivation to interact with the opposite sex at a genuinely platonic level. A degree of demisexuality seems to be evident among those suited to this, as well.

Of course, you may fall somewhere in the middle, as many people do.

I get what you are saying. I guess I just want to stop getting depressed about not being able to find a date. I try to pacify my time with projects, but its seems like just when I am on fire and not thinking about women, some women comes along and screws up the balance of things. And when I finally come to my senses, I get kind of depressed. I hate this cycle. I would like to just focus on my goals, but this keeps coming up. Any thoughts?

+999

In my experience, being approached by a woman does happen.

But it is

A. Very rare
B. Always takes you off guard and is disorienting even if you realize what's happening.
C. Is not generally the person you expect/want

For all the anxiety involved in taking initiative, at least you know when you're doing it and can do some mental preparation/planning.

I can think of only about 4 times that this ever really happened to me, and I wasn't able to respond to any of them effectively (especially because I had no experience in those situations).

I've concluded that learning to take initiative is by far the wiser course of action. It isn't the easier thing to do, but it is the easier way to get anywhere.

B & C go for getting approached as a woman too, totally agree with what you've said, just saying

I also think being the approacher is the way to go, it's the only way to exert your will on who you spend time interacting with else you're stuck trying to navigate the flotsam and jetsam that floats your way to pick the least offending piece or end up with nothing.

Approachers get to chose who to approach, but the act itself can be challenging and there is no guarantee of success
Approachees get to chose to reject or accept approaches, but have to be patient and tactful and there is no guarantee of success.

Dating is a challenge for most of us.

They wanted to meet, did anything actually come out of these meetings? Sounds like you were more likely setting yourself up to be an emotional tampon to be honest.

I think there is a relationship between agency and risk, that could be said to exist on a spectrum. Somewhere in the middle there's a tipping point, which divides approachers from approachees, but agency and risk are present on both sides of this point.

There is even a sort of grey area between the two, when the levels of agency and risk assumed begin to approach equivalent levels on both sides, and it becomes difficult to tell who is on what side of the spectrum. People who experience this seem to experience an illusion that there was little or no agency or risk present at all (although obviously it was), and sometimes describe the progress of things as something that simply happened (even though obviously it didn't).

Yes, I was and I wanted that.
We have met few times, but were friends only, well maybe with a little benefits. Mostly because of the distance issues. And we still meet once in a while.
But the last one of them, the most persistent one and living nearbyt became my BF (of course not for that reasons only ). It lasted for two years and we are now the best friends. Yes and she is aspie too

I've had a similar experience, although not to anything like that degree.

For some reason the internet just doesn't really cut it for me, with regards to this. I used to have a few really good female friends, and you get to listening them and you learn a lot about how they see things, and about yourself even. It's kind of ideal if you have real trouble assessing social cues and navigating relationships, it's like getting insider information - and you learn to get comfortable with everything that goes along with being around women, except that which has to do directly with interest, rather than having to learn from the ground up in a more anxious/sexually tense scenario. Plus they can be great fun, as with any friend you get along with.

Unfortunately, between a jealous girlfriend and moving to another city, I lost these friends. Could've really used their input in dealing with that person, too.

I've found that I'm not able to get this back. I don't seem to be able to connect with anyone at a platonic level, or when I do, things take turns in a different direction than intended. Maybe I don't need it anymore and that's why, but still, I miss it.



Says the human dildo.

No, I didn't really mean that, but it's not fun when someone uses an insulting term to describe your choices, is it? It shows a lack of respect. I can think of a host of reasons why you wouldn't choose to seek what Askperger did, some valid, some not, but I try not to make any presumptions.

I find that actively searching is the best way to go and fate will put you in the right place. As for approaching or being approached by someone, definitely approach them. If they turn you down just think of it as a learning experience.