This is more of a warning to guys like me out there than an advice post. It's kinda the opposite, the advice would be to avoid doing what I did.

Last night I was DJing a house party at uni. It was a decent turnout and people seemed to be receptive to my tunes. Though I noticed that a lot of girls will go up and chat to the DJ if they see another girl doing it first. I was talking to one of my housemates (who is female) about something unimportant, and a short while later I noticed quite a few girls came to chat. It felt great to get that social proof (my confidence has plummeted in recent months). But this one girl, holy fuck. She came and spoke to me, took an interest in the whole DJ thing and we ended up chatting for ages about music production, her classical singing career etc. She was absolutely gorgeous too.

This girl (who's name drunk me can't recall, only that her name begins with R) returned several times and seemed genuinely interested in spending time with me. Towards the end of the night I was showing her how to use the decks, doing that cliché thing of guiding her hands with mine. She left to get more alcohol and I didn't see her again.

There were so many times I could have asked for her Facebook or phone number, but I didn't act on them. I have this defeatist mindset where I don't believe she could possibly be interested in me. I put her above me and basically fucking cockblocked myself.

If there's one takeaway from this, it's that I'll be more cautious about getting in my own way when it comes to women. I don't usually get approach anxiety that bad, so it's obvious I have a lower view of myself currently. This experience has shown me exactly why it's worse to never try. Ffs I'm so pissed off at myself for ever doubting me. Never again.

TL;DR: A personal story confirming the widely held beliefs that A) You should always act in the belief that there's interest, and B) You will sometimes regret your decisions, yet the pain of asking "what if" is infinitely worse.