Intimidation and Introduction

To start out this post, I want to give you a back story for why I am writing about it. And I don’t think I’m the only one who’s experienced this.

So there is this guy that I see EVERYWHERE. No exaggeration, I see him an average of 3 times a day in random places. Obviously, I do not know this person. I do not know his name or anything about him save for where he is at a few times during the day. With only awkward eye contact as my evidence, I have a hard time believing he hasn’t noticed me and/or thought I’m stalking him. Regardless of the fact that I think he’s pretty attractive, I feel like we see each other enough in a day that the only logical thing to do would be to introduce myself. However, I have no idea how to go about this.

If you talk to basically any guy on campus, they will say that they would absolutely love if a girl just randomly walked up to them and introduced herself. And while most girls realize that, we still are very uncomfortable with the idea of starting up a conversation with a guy we don’t even know.

There’s so much that I don’t understand about this phenomenon. Why is it that girls can go up to a random girl and say how much they love her hair/scarf/shoes/whatever and yet can’t introduce themselves to a guy? What do we expect? I don’t think any guy is going to respond poorly to a girl talking to him unsolicited. Sure, it might be awkward, but does it really matter?

Now, some people may say that guys are in the same boat, seeing as guys are often hesitant to introduce themselves to girls. But there’s some sense to that. At least on this campus, girls have a tendency to assume that any guy that takes 12 seconds to have a conversation with her is trying to sleep with her, and respond accordingly. Most of the guys I know have plenty of stories where they do something as simple as ask a girl a question about class and have her respond with a snip about having a boyfriend. Regardless of how presumptuous a reaction this is to have, it happens. And I understand that it can be humiliating. So guys, I can see how you would be hesitant to introduce yourself to a girl. But girls, what’s our excuse?

Now, I don’t have any sort of an answer to this problem. I’m just as awkward as everyone else. So to this, I ask you, fellow classmates, what is the big stigma with introductions? Is it our tendency to fall back on technology that deters us from real honest-to-God conversation? And additionally, if you are a guy, would you be okay with a girl randomly walking up to you and starting a conversation? What is the best way to go about it? Is it creepy to say that you’ve noticed someone around? Why do I have so many questions? Why is this so awkward? Help?