Firstly, I considered myself to be a pretty good guy. Attractive, nice, funny etc. Just a general 'good guy'. Both girls and guys seem to be comfortable around me and me around them. However, I can be very shy and awkward sometimes.

There's a girl (HB 8 at least) in my course (we're in our 2nd year) who I've also considered attractive. Every guy in our course would say so and a select few absolutely drool over her. But until about 2 weeks ago I myself had never been attracted to her.

I suddenly became intrigued about her when I answered a class question in which I referred to Les Miserables and she kind of added a bit onto what I had said. I was impressed as it seemed only the teacher, her and me knew what the hell Les Miserables was about. After class I kept thinking about her more and more and was kicking myself about not making an effort to know her sooner. Also, in the past 2 years I had not been the coolest guy around her - sometimes I'd been awkward or shy for no real reason. Point is, by this point my attraction to her had grown and I needed a way to kind of approach her as a fresh person with a clean slate.

I had a class presentation coming up. So I decided that was when I would get her attention. I was going to hijack the group presentation and turn my part into a quasi-comedy routine. The day of the presentation came and I introduced our group. Even though I was nervous as hell I got up and pretended I was really confident. 'Good morning everyone, how are we all today?' I turned to my teacher 'Ms.X lovely to see you'. To my relief people started to laugh. Additionally other groups had presented before us and they were really boring so I think they liked to enthusiasm. I continued making coy fun at the teacher, the college etc. The crucial thing was I still said some quite clever things it wasn't all gags because I wanted to appear smart to her. She was in the front row I kept looking at her, she was looking at me and was laughing more than anyone. Seeing her smile made me stop being nervous. At that moment I knew I had at least sparked some interest in her. So the rest of the speech just flowed.

Anyway, after class we ran into each other by chance walking to our next classes I was just about to say hi to her when, to my surprise, she opened the conversation. I made up something about an essay due date as an excuse to stop walking. We ended up chatting before I invited asked her what she was doing Saturday and invited her to a movie. We had class the next day and sat next to one another for the first time ever and it turns out we are into a lot of the same stuff which I never knew. So there you go....I'm still heaps proud of myself because it's really been the only time I can remember I've had the balls to put myself out there.

TL;DR It's never to late to get to know someone and if you pretend to be confident people won't know it's only an act. Edit: added paragraphs