[RoarOfTheMemphisBelle]

I know I know, the thread title is unimaginative and sounds like some 1940's instruction manual, but yes.

I do not explicitly identify as lesbian/bisexual/straight, but I do understand and embrace my attraction to women as something that has been present from a very young age.

Having social anxiety, depression and mild paranoia doesn't exactly help matters. I'm shy enough as it is for starters. With men or women, whenever I feel attracted to someone my weapon of choice is to - do nothing. I simply cant. Maybe the odd look that lingers too long and ends with me awkwardly looking away when they catch me staring.

I guess my question is this. Does anyone have any genuine, experienced-based advice on how best to deal with same-sex attraction in the sense of how to ask girls out, and find out whether they're even into women too?

 

[Things Unsaid]

The only steady girlfriend I had was back in high school, so I'm not really the lesbian love guru or any kind of love guru, really. I will say that it's not rocket science any more than heterosexual dating is, and anything you hear about LGBT dating doesn't apply to about as many women as it does apply to, so your biggest worry is meeting women who are into women in the first place. Worry about wooing techniques if you're meeting potential dates, you're past the worst of your problems, and you're still not getting any bites.

I think ideally you'd just have a very open-minded social circle like I did in high school, but you could also try online dating or any appropriate groups in the area. I don't really have "gaydar," as they put it, but I can fairly easily gauge people's social and political opinions after a few conversations and guess at whether or not they're friendly towards the idea of same-sex relationships. Developing the skills to quickly learn about someone's stance on things like this is useful if you don't care much about your "out" status when you flirt/ask them out, but beyond that any formula for figuring out whether or not someone is bi/gay/whatever is guesswork as far as I know.

You can apply most generic advice about developing the confidence to flirt and ask people out, in my experience. It's probably the most straightforward approach.

 

[RoarOfTheMemphisBelle]

Thank you for taking the time to reply.

My understanding of the kind of manner I have to take when approaching women doesn't really extend that far beyond my understanding of how to deal with men. Either way, it always feels like a chore, a nuisance, something that needs to be nipped in the bud even though I know it doesn't.