I have no friends or partner, I’ve been very lonely.
When I go out to try to meet people, no one ever comes up to me and starts talking to me. But if I want to meet someone I have to do exactly that. But like, why should I have to be the one to initiate 100% of the time? Shouldn’t it be 50/50? (And I’m not really talking about societal expectations of the man initiating with the woman, I’d rather have a boyfriend anyway.)
I have such a hard time initiating conversations with people, to the point where I mostly just stress out and sit there alone. If someone initiated with me things might go better. But they just don’t.
The only reasonable explanation I can think of is that literally no one has any interest in me.
I don't know :( It's like that for me too almost all of the time (there have been a couple of exceptions, that were really nice and helped me so much). I'm sorry that it's like that for you too. I've been told by some people that I seemed "intimidating" until they got to know me, so it's probably that for me. It's sad, cuz I am really not trying to be.
I think for some of us this is just the case and for different reasons. Some people will see others standoffish because they think are attractive and will assume them to be dismissive.
I think if you can acknowledge it as your "social role" to some degree, and just try to do your best with it. Try initiating until you become desensitized to it. Ain't going to lie, it's gonna suck for a long time and you have keep an effort up, but it is learnable.
Good advice. I've sort of been doing this, but I should just fully accept this as my role. I've been using dating apps a lot this year, and been always sending the first message and asking them out. And it's been going pretty well tbh. (I LOVE dating apps, for all of their real flaws, they're the only way I've ever dated).