The Pride thing

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Why does it feel that showing any romantic interest to an acquaintance/friend (or anyone you knew earlier for a while) in real life hurts your pride?
It feels always there's a kind of ice that I cannot break and if I feel like I would be degrading myself for her (or their) sake if I show any obvious romantic interest.

(That's why I had better chance dating strangers on dating apps rather than people I knew IRL.

Anyone like that?

If I understand you right I think I get why you feel that way. Later I'll say why I'm the opposite. When you tell someone/anyone (on or offline) you're taking a risk by putting your heart out there and making your feelings for the other person known. You're making yourself emotionally vulnerable and that risk always exists in this kind of situation. I can't comment on online dating except to say that I get it that there's no previous history there and maybe little to no feelings for the other person if s/he shows no interest or whatever. I'm sure others more experienced than I can/will have more to say about online dating.

If it's someone you already know offline there's the added risk of jeopardizing what you may already have w/the person whether friendship acquaintanceship professional relationship or whatever. You're worried/afraid that things may go south w/the person in any of a variety of different ways and one of the effects could be that you get embarrassed or whatever and if the person reacts negatively/pejoratively s/he could kind of walk over your heart on top of that. So you may either lose what you've had w/her/him or things otherwise go in a different direction in a bad way. As I've said it's always a risk and yeah if it goes badly I can see why that'd hurt your pride and hence part of why you and maybe most other people (especially those under 40) now mainly date online.

Despite being inexperienced I'm more old school and basically an emotional window b/c I totally wear my heart on my sleeve. I haven't had this experience in years but when I like a girl I really can't hide it very well and she almost always ends up finding out one way or another. It's true there's some pride factor going on for me too and atm in my therapy I haven't even started to learn yet how to regulate my emotions/feelings. Maybe in the months ahead I'll learn how to do that and hide at least some of my real feelings a bit better. But thus far in life my gut reaction usually is to basically say to myself "f**k pride!" I wanna be w/her and if a relationship is impossible (say b/c she's involved) then to be with or around her especially if it's one on one as much as possible as friends. I admit it's probably not smart just to show your feelings transparently like a piece of glass if you're trying to maintain your pride let alone to prevent heartbreak. But since I haven't yet learned how to hide my feelings my attraction to her basically takes over and pushes pride aside. It hurts if things REALLY go south but if she's still cool w/me then at least I still have a friend regardless of whether I can't "be w/her" and to me that's better than not having her in my life at all.

Because when you want to be someones friend or date you, and you tell them, they have the authority to, reject you

And they could tell you what they think of you

And it could be bad

^^ I suppose he's right. Putting yourself in a vulnerable position.

It depends on the other person, but yes I have felt like that in the past.

I think it has a lot to do with how I was brought up. I'm not from an affectionate family. Stereotypically stiff upper lip British sort of family.

Also, my Mum is quite uncomfortable with displays of emotion. Her reaction to most things is anger. She can't really regulate her emotions, they seem to make her very uncomfortable and she protects herself by lashing out.she said something nasty to her sister one day and I pointed out to my aunt that she said it because she was deflecting attention away from her (Mums) worry about her (the aunt).

So... I've learned to be very careful about displays of affection in case I get a bad response.

Also, the amount of times I've been cold shouldered by male "friends" when I've shown them even a little romantic interest has put me off. Or the times it's just been a bit of fun for them has left me feeling humiliated, that has also put me off. Especially as it's not my natural default setting to be affectionate unless I'm really comfortable with someone. They need to be special to me to get that kind of attention... but then I'm just another girl to them.

You know why I always do try when I find someone I really like and want to be around, because I think they may feel the same as Boo and may be too uncertain to show their interest because of how they think ill react.

Usually turns out that I'm wrong though and they weren't shy or too proud they just weren't really that into me.