Approach Anxiety - I tried

Hey, so the other day I woke up with this intense urge to go outside and talk to some random cute Japanese girl. And I have no idea why I felt like this, but I felt really good about it. I felt really positive and optimistic about it. I had all these ideas in my head that I was gonna

go outside and I was gonna approach some cute girl and then ask her a question. And for some reason I thought it'd be really easy. I thought it would be a walk in the park. I thought it'd be a piece of cake. But I got onto the train and I got into the city center, and as soon

as I started walking around, I suddenly felt like I couldn't do this. I kept repeating the phrase in my head, I can't do this, I can't do this, I can't do this. And I livestreamed the whole thing on Twitch. It was about 3 hours of me walking walking around trying to talk to girls and failing. So if

you don't believe me, you can check Twitch. And the whole point of doing this wasn't to try and get laid. It wasn't to try and hook up with someone, although that would have been nice. No, the reason why I wanted to do this was because I wanted to be able to gain the ability to talk to strangers,

talk to a cute girl that I see on the street, and At first,

the plan was to try and ask a simple question like, do you know where the train station is? So I went into the city center and I walked around for about 3 hours trying to find someone, trying to find a suitable target, someone that I could just approach and ask them where the train station was. And after

3 hours, I didn't even manage— I couldn't even manage to ask one person. The best I could manage was when I bumped into someone, I managed to say sorry, and when I was trying to get past someone, I managed to say excuse me. Usually I wouldn't say anything and I would just squeeze my way past. For some

reason, the idea of walking up to a complete stranger and just asking them a question was just impossible. It felt so embarrassing. Just the idea, just thinking about doing it made my heart start racing. I wasn't afraid of being rejected or being turned down. I think the thing I was most scared about was being ignored, or trying

to say something and then the person doesn't realize I'm talking to them, or the person just completely ignores me and carries on walking away. That's what scared me the most. I knew I was going to be rejected. I knew there's like a 90% chance of being rejected even if I did try to approach a girl, even if

I did approach a girl and start talking to her. But that wasn't the point. The point of doing it, the reason why I wanted to do it, was because I want to get over this fear of being unable to talk to strangers. I thought it'd be easy to just walk up to someone and say, excuse me, do

you know where the train station is? But it wasn't. It was— in the end, I wasn't even capable of doing it. And after the whole experience, I felt so shit. I felt like I failed, like I was defeated, like I let the fear defeat me. So my initial plan was to ask a few girls where the train

station was, try and build up some confidence, and then I wanted to try asking some embarrassing questions to just completely embarrass myself, to see what that felt like, and to try and get over the fact that feeling embarrassed isn't the end of the world. I wanted to try asking random girls if they had boyfriends or if they

were single. That was my ultimate goal. I don't have any problems going into a shop or store and asking them if they have a certain product. I don't have any problems going into a train station and asking them for directions or how to get somewhere. But for some reason, walking up to a complete stranger and asking them

a question and saying excuse me is something that I find extremely difficult to do. For example, when I went to the supermarket to buy the penis cream antifungal cream, I didn't have any problems asking the pharmacist guy if they sold that cream or not. If I'm asking someone who's working in a shop, then I don't feel embarrassed

about asking those people because they're working there. They're there to help people. That's their job, to answer questions from customers. So I don't feel awkward walking up to someone like a store clerk or someone who works at a train station and asking them for help. But it— but, but, but But when it comes to asking a complete

stranger, it's a completely different story because number one, I have to stop them from doing whatever they're doing and then ask them the question and then take time away from them, from their day or whatever they're doing. I really don't like bothering people or being a nuisance. I don't like disturbing people, and if I go up to

a stranger and ask them a question or ask them for help, then I'm disturbing them, aren't I?

Every time I saw a girl that I could approach, I kept making up these excuses like, oh, she's on her phone, she's walking too fast, which means she's in a hurry to get somewhere, or she's with other people, or she's standing too close to other people. My suitable ideal target that I would have liked to, to have

approached would have been just someone who's standing there by themselves, not really doing anything, just looking at their phone maybe. In Japan, you usually get a lot of people just standing around on the roads handing out pamphlets or handing out tissue paper, and I really wanted to find someone who was doing that so I could ask them.

But I walked and I walked for hours and hours and I couldn't find many people like that. Okay, I found a few. There were a few girls just standing outside of shops trying to get customers in, and I could have approached one of them. I should have just approached one of them standing outside of a shop and

I should have said, do you know where the train station is? It's so simple. It's such an easy thing to do and I couldn't do it. I tried drinking alcohol. I got some alcoholic lemon juice and I drank that. I got a bit drunk, but getting drunk doesn't really help me much. I just end up feeling kind

of depressed and tired and I get a headache. I haven't always been like this. For example, a few years ago in a different guest house, I actually approached— I actually approached these 2 Korean girls who were staying at the guest house, and I introduced myself and I asked what their names were. I tried to make conversation, and

it was a horrible experience. I was so nervous, my lips were trembling because I was so anxious and nervous. And I tried sitting with them the next day, I tried making conversation the next day as well, and they just weren't interested. They weren't interested in talking to me at all. I asked them questions, they just gave me

back short replies. They didn't ask me anything, and I felt like a complete idiot for even trying to speak to them. There was this German guy who was at the guest house, and I asked him— I told him that I'm from England and that my name's Daniel, and I asked him, I asked him, where are you from?

What's your name? And he just said David, Germany, and that was it. He didn't even have any interest in having a conversation with me.

It just feels like there's been a lot of times where I've tried talking to people, where I've tried approaching people and starting a conversation, and most of the time, 8 times out of 10, it's been a negative, horrible experience that I really regretted. For some reason, I thought that as I got older, it would get easier. I

thought I would have less anxiety. I thought I would be more confident with talking to strangers or starting conversations, but I feel like the opposite has happened. I've become more negative. I've become more cynical about talking to strangers or starting conversations, and I adopted this way of thinking that if they were interested in talking to me, they

would approach me first.

I seem to have this irrational fear that people are going to be irritated or annoyed if I talk to them or if I bother them. I feel like they're automatically going to dislike me or they're going to want me to go away. And that's the reason why I don't talk to anyone at the guest house. That's the

reason why if you've seen me livestream in the living room, I don't talk to anyone because I feel like I don't have the right to talk to them. I feel like I don't know them enough, or I don't have a good reason to go up to them and start a conversation. Sometimes I'm not sure which one's worse:

letting, letting the fear win and not actually approaching anyone, not even trying, or approaching someone and then having an embarrassing negative experience. I think that I decided that just not even trying to approach anyone is better than having a negative experience.

There was this one time when I was supposed to meet up with this Japanese girl that I met online, and I went to the train station to meet her.

And I have very bad eyesight, even though I'm wearing glasses. These glasses aren't powerful enough. I need stronger glasses. And I find it very difficult to, to recognize people's faces from a distance. From a distance, everyone's faces kind of look blurry. They kind of look like the same. So I got to the train station and I saw

this girl standing there, and I thought that girl was the girl that I was supposed to meet up with. And I walked up to her and I said hello, and she didn't even say anything. She didn't even look up. She completely ignored me. And by the time I was pretty close to her, I realized that it was

a completely different girl. So I didn't say anything. I didn't say sorry. I thought you were someone else. I just turned around and walked away. But that whole experience was so embarrassing. She looked angry. She looked really irritated. I kept imagining that she was thinking things like, who is this guy? Why is he talking to me? I

wish he would go away. And because of that experience, every time I meet a girl online now, before we meet up, I always ask them, what color clothing are you wearing? What clothes are you wearing? Can you send me a photo? Because I can see colors, I can see clothing from a distance, but I find it very

difficult to,

to see their faces from a distance. Even now when I go and meet up with my girlfriend, I can't tell if it's her or not from a distance, and I kind of have to squint, and it's very embarrassing because there's a lot of Japanese women that also look like my girlfriend from a distance. Anyway, that was what

happened yesterday. I still feel like I want to try it again. I still feel like I want to try approaching a girl at least one time before I leave Japan. I think that if I don't at least try to attempt this, I'm going to regret it for a long time. It's just— doing it is so difficult. It

sounds like such an easy thing to do, just walk up to someone and ask them where the train station is, but actually doing it, it's like— the most difficult thing that I could ever have to do, which I know it sounds ridiculous. Sometimes I just wish I could become a confident person that can talk to strangers, that

can have normal interaction with human beings.

I think that life just looks so much more enjoyable if you have the ability to be able to talk to people.