MY EXPERIENCE IS NOT TYPICAL. Do not be afraid to flirt with girls or ask them out.

I didn't ask anyone out or try to flirt with girls until I was 18, I had always heard about how girls don't like getting hit on and it's especially disgusting when they are still a minor teen, don't ask out girls at school, at work, a gym, at bar, etc., yada yada. Asking out in person is inherently threating too because of pressure to say yes/not hurt feelings when around other people, and also if asking out alone is threatening because then you could hurt them, so I'm like I guess I'll ask out over text. I spent too much fucking time reading all the bullshit on /r/twoxchromosomes and /r/feminism and such, basically saying you should not ever interact with women to flirt or ask out. I was getting over that and ask a girl out eventually, and I'm fucking 18 or almost 18 already at that point.

I'm friends with said girl already, and we are both friends with someone else, who is also friends with my sister. I ask the girl out and she says no, and I hear from my sister that apparently she was mortified when I ask her out. What the fuck. I literally just asked if she would go on a date. She ignored me in classes and stopped being my friend at that point too.

So yeah, it's still hard to ask anyone out. I can only imagine that girl had a very atypical response, but that fucked me up man. I take all the precautions and don't even ask anyone out for so long. I've only ever asked like maybe ten girls out (I'm 22 now) and only "dated"/talked/predated to one for a month or so. None else have had bad reactions, though one also stopped being my friend afterwards.

Side rant. I've managed some hookups, planned dates that were cancelled, planned hookups that were cancelled, and 1 extended online videocall (like >1hr) (during pandemic) from dating apps. No success. This is from probably literally thousands of swipes on tinder and other apps.

Side rant part 2. Also, I get much better match success when it's with people who aren't close to me. Whether that be 40 miles instead of 5, or around the world. But it doesn't matter to me that I can get like a 10 or 20% match rate when I'm looking in China or Philippines or Ecuador, I'll never meet those people. I just did that to see what happens, maybe something good idk. So maybe they are too and are like ooh foreigner is interesting and match.