I've been working on myself for the last 6 months after a bad, bad breakup. I've taken a bunch of advice such as join sports leagues, go to meetups and classes...I've done all of that. I'm busy enough now where I've got something going on 5 nights a week, up to weeks in advance. I've even ventured into the online dating world to supplement all of the things I find fun and interesting. I'm meeting a lot of new people and making friends. Between that, being stylish, attractive and interesting (so I'm told by men and women alike), it should all be working, but it's not. So far all of the things I've wanted to do, I have only met 1 girl who I found attractive and intelligent enough for me, and that didn't pan out. It seems to be that the only girls I find attractive are strangers - I can't seem to find any girls I'd want to date through my circle of friends or the activities I'm in.

With a club/class or a friend's party - I have no trouble meeting strangers. I'm a great conversationalist and we all have a common thread: the host and/or activity. Out at a bar/club? All bets are off. I'm a total chump with raging AA. So the one place I seem to find attractive girls are the places where I'm surrounded by total strangers and the only common thread seems to be alcohol/the venue, and I'm not looking for that to be our crutch of a conversation.

I've done a ton of digging into my personal beliefs as to why I feel this way, and I think it's a combination of two things: social conditioning and wrong assumptions. I feel like I was raised to not interrupt conversations and that you can come off as rude or "butting in." Again, not a problem at clubs/parties because there's always someone there asking "how did your game go?" or "how do you know the host?" or the host introduces us. But with strangers, I feel rude butting into the middle of their conversation, which brings me to part B...because I assume that by butting in, everyone in that group believes I have some M.O. Either I want something from the guys, or I want to hit on one of the girls. Like if someone asked me "who are you?" or "do we know you?" or "where are your friends / why aren't you talking to them?" I wouldn't have an answer. Granted, if someone asked that it would make them a huge asshole, and I wouldn't want to be friends with them...but my assumption is everyone feels this way.

And I fully admit that these assumptions are likely brought about by (A) over-thinking and (B) because I assumed that when I had a girlfriend, and thus I am an asshole. I get it and it sucks, but I want to fix these assumptions and knock down this last piece of AA I have.

I've read a ton of material and studied a bunch and tried a few times, and I will say that the only times I don't feel nervous is when I'm already talking to a group and I ask a group of strangers a question. For example, I was talking to this girl a few weeks ago and she thought I was older, so I immediately turned to the first group of women to my right and I said "do I look [age]?" And they all engaged me...all of my assumptions were wrong. Granted, there were no guys in the group, which probably would have made me uncomfortable.

Another example of a time that it did work was this guy had an Epic Meal Time t-shirt on, so I just had to introduce myself to his crew of 7-8 and compliment his shirt. Everyone again was nice and friendly, but I had an obvious in which was to compliment on something we had a mutual interest in. I do enjoy fashion, but women don't generally wear obvious pieces like that which can instantly connect us.

I apologize for dragging this out, but I wanted to show you examples and do my homework so I can really focus on the exact problem and work on that so I can move forward. Thanks guys.

TL,DR: I'm taking a lot of advice about doing the things you love and still not meeting the women I'm interested in. The ones I'm interested in all happen to be strangers. I can chat with someone if we have 1 common thread, but out "in the wild" at a bar or club, I retreat to pretty extreme AA, despite having "everything going for me" as my friends (both male and female) seem to tell me. How do you find common ground with strangers so they don't dismiss you as "who is this guy?" or "is he trying to hit on one of the girls in our group?"