I took the bus downtown and walked around crowded areas and through malls for about 90 minutes, 5pm to 6:30. My intention was to speak to as many women as possible, but in the end I only worked up the nerve to ask three women the time, which they all politely provided, before attempting to casually walk away without letting on my mild internal panic.

My actual emotional state isn't even that intense, but there is a nigh impenetrable barrier of rationalizations and assumptions that rises up as soon as I see someone I'm attracted to and would like to approach. "Oh, she's with a friend, you would just be a bother," "it just doesn't seem appropriate to interrupt her day," etc. At one point, I walked past two lovely women sitting in the food court looking at their phones. With some struggle I turned around to try a second time to approach them. "They probably saw you the first time. You're being a total creep."

All I want to say is "Hey, may I join you for a moment?" Or "Hey, do you mind if I chat with you for a moment?" Or even just "Hey, how's your day going?" But I have this powerful deep assumption that I'll somehow ruin her day by politely trying to strike up a conversation, a deep unwillingness to deign to possibly make this stranger maybe a bit uncomfortable. Intellectually, it's clear to me that the absolute worst case scenario, realistically, is she tells me to piss off and I feel bad for bothering her, no big deal, but I just can't bring myself to approach.