Approaching her...

theJorge551

Hello everyone, i'm a high school sophomore, and have a small dilemna..i've become very distracted by this gorgeous girl, who appears to be quite intelligent (and happens to be a junior), and have never spoken a word to her in my life. Just wondering how i should tone down my nerd-iness (i sit with a table of nerds and rejects), because she is constantly surrounded by her friends, and don't know how she'd react to someone from a completely different realm approaching her and initiating some sort of conversation..

Also, i've spoken with a friend of hers, who happens to be a nerdy-yet-accepted member of her peers, so i think that may be a window to approaching her?

Any thoughts?

lisab

You could find out what common interests you have. For example, is she in any clubs that you have an interest in joining? Does she do any sports that you like?

TheStatutoryApe

I would not suggest acting any other way than yourself. You may want to consider that she would not be interested in the same things as your peers and so not jump right into a conversation about the merits of star trek over star wars (or vice versa). But you also have to consider what sort of enjoyment you would get out of spending time with someone who is not interested in the things that you are.

If you are yourself when you approach her and she is not interested it is no loss.

theJorge551

Thank you, StatutoryApe and lisab. As for what Ape has informed me of, I'm much more receptive to the personality of the person I'm interested in, I've had many a relationship in which we've shared few common hobbies or interests (like science, math or the like), so it'll be easy for me to identify a lost cause in that situation.

rootX

I like this song:

leroyjenkens

Don't use the word "quite" quite so much.

zoobyshoe

I will offer a variation of the advice I gave 27Thousand:

It isn't possible to suddenly acquire the social skills needed to approach a specific girl who has gotten your attention. That would be a miracle akin to figuring out how to solve a specific calculus problem with only the four elementary math operations under your belt.

The only authentically good advice anyone can give you is that you have to become conversant with all the maths leading up to calculus, and then calculus, itself, to solve any given calculus problem.

That is:

You have to make friends with girls, girls in general, girls as a species, first. This is the only way to become comfortable approaching them, especially the hot ones. Give up on any hope of romantic or sexual involvement at first and shoot for baseline comfort in their presence. You have to learn girls well enough to eventually arrive at a point where you're at ease with them, at ease enough around them to comfortably and successfully joke around and tease them just as you can with your male friends.

So:

Make friends with as many girls as possible, and critically observe, up close, how they think, act, interact, and communicate.

If you're friends with a girl you'll be able to see how she interacts with you, interacts with other girls, and, interacts with other guys. You can learn multitudes of useful things. For instance: when you perceive she is attracted to one guy or another you can then start to analyze that guy's behavior and sort out what parts of it are the attractive parts and what aspects are neither here nor there.

If you're not friends with any girls, they'll all just bewilder you, like very attractive but inexplicable alien life forms.

GeorginaS

And all of that is excellent advice.

lisab

Zooby, you make it sound like he has to use the same approach an anthropologist would use when observing a new tribe .

But I have to agree...that's good advice.

zoobyshoe

That's pretty much what he needs to do. By simply asking how he should approach this girl he's red flagged himself as neither speaking the language nor understanding the culture.

On top of that the adoption of a somewhat "removed" attitude of objective observation can free a person of the sweaty palms and pounding heart an attractive member of the opposite sex can elicit. It shifts the focus from hoping they approve of you to observing them, and interacting with them, to see what they're about.

I got that from a zen koan about how to tame a wild horse:

Question: How do you tame a wild horse?

Answer: Watch the horse.

turbo

Zooby's advice is good. If you have friends who are girls, you are in! They don't have to be the most attractive or the most popular girls around. Girls are natural match-makers, and they will break ice and they will watch your back. Just be honest and dependable, and you are on a fast-track.

Hang with guys, watch from the sidelines, and you are doomed.

cronxeh

I think you should not go after her.

If you go after her, you either compete with other 'suitors' or will have to change yourself, your friends, and learn things you had no interest in in order to adopt, and even then you may not even be competing on the same level.

On the other hand, if you absorb yourself in yourself, follow your own hobbies and continue the course, perhaps someday you will meet someone really interesting. There is a downside for going after your infatuation. You can become obsessed, depressed, hopeless, and worst yet, irrational.

turbo

Don't try, because you will fail? Pretty stupid advice, IMO. Then again, I'm pushing 60 and probably don't have the enlightenment or perspective that a younger person might have.

cronxeh

Dont patronize me, I speak from experience. High school is the worst time to fall for someone, besides she is going to graduate a year before him. She will go to college and hump everything that moves in her zipcode in first year of school. You want this kid to go through this? You want him to ruin his senior year in high school and not get into college? Guess what, no college girl wants to date a high schooler

rootX

I have seen a person who felt for a girl during his high school. He was smart and nice but the girl was not. He went to the university but couldn't survive for more than 6 months because of the girl who did not go to the university. So, he dropped out and never completed his degree.

zoobyshoe

So do I. I have been shot down by the girl of my dreams about 300 times. (The "girl of my dreams" changed every month or so).

What I learned from this is that there is a direct correlation between a girl sensing you think she is the girl of your dreams and how fast she'll shoot you down. Girls hate it when guys become solicitous, overly fawning, too nice, too needy of their approval.

Yes, "be yourself". However, you have to do that in the context of availability. You can't shut yourself up in a personal bubble hoping girls will come knocking. They won't. Too many guys are always making themselves accessible to girls all the time for girls to go looking under rocks, or venturing over to the nerd table, for good guys. Make friends with a multitude of girls. Then, you might meet someone really interesting some day.

turbo

I am not patronizing you. Your "advice" is ill-advised and wrong-headed, IMO. A year or two in age at HS may seem huge to immature people, but how does that translate to a couple that are about 30 or 40 years old? Catch a clue! There was a very attractive lady almost 4 years ahead of me that kept singling me out at dances in HS, and I wasn't smart enough to see her as more than a friend. My parents hired her as a babysitter on the rare times when they could afford to go out to a party, etc, and because all my sisters were younger, she and I would stay up late and watch horror movies, etc, and cuddle up on the couch when it was cold.