Hey lemmos, and lemmettes. Just got off jury duty for a 3 day civil trial. First time juror, had a BLAST despite my expectations, really enjoyable to see a functioning justice system in person, and I also met cute gal also early 20s who was on the jury.
Now some context, I have not had a date since my ex cheated back around the begining of COVID so ive basically lost any sembelece of self-confidence when it comes to flirting. I’m confident in myself as a person, I’m pretty rad if I’m not being modest, but when it comes to chatting up the ladies, I mentally only can visualize rejection.
Now I was planning on asking her out for dinner or drinks this weekend following the case, but on the way out she was caught behind walking and talking with some other peeps. I got caught up in my anxious brain and just ended up bailing. Sent a FB messenger pm on the metra ride home but the profile is inactive so I think I missed my chance at a genuine connection.
Why is my monke brain like this. Why cant I let myself be happy. **All I want is to give somebody the love I can no longer seem to give myself. **
UPDATE: Connected over linkedin and gave it a shot. In a relationship :( . Still, glad that I tried, and thank you to all the commenters who helped settle my anxiety.
I have a similar problem to you. I’m definitely not afraid of talking to others, but my brain is hardwired against being good at it. Whenever I strike a conversation, it lasts maybe three lines because I’m always struggling to decide what exactly is best to say, and then by the time I say it, the conversation ends.
That said, we women are all different and so flirting is going to work differently for everyone. I’m just open-minded, so when someone flirts with me, even if it’s something completely random or awkward, I’ll play along in my typical way (while hoping the other person doesn’t ask for anything passionate, for one thing I’m asexual and many friendships have died due to this). However, other women will have other things they’ll wish to judge and focus on. Ironic as it may seem for someone like me to say it due to my struggles, there are no “inherent cues” to go by. The only real rule of thumb is, the more legroom you have to be yourself in the short term, the less stressful it will be over time.
We need to develop a universally agreed upon, unmistakable gesture or signal to gauge interest in others. Like flashing a peace sign but with 3 fingers instead so you can indicate like “hey you cute, mind if I consensually put the moves on?”