I know a lot of women who say it's never okay and will make the blanket statement 'Women don't want to be approached when we're out.' Some even claim that men who successfully approach women only have success because of fawn reaction because the woman is afraid.
Other women tell me to ignore that advice and look at body language, but I can't shake the idea that I'm being some toxic POS and ignoring the women's voices who hate being approached. There are plenty of women who say "It's never okay, just because I smile or make eye contact doesn't mean I want you to come talk to me." and just as many women saying it's okay in certain situations.
I've always been taught that as a man if I'm doing something that might make a woman feel uncomfortable or unsafe I should stop, so I stopped.
Most men seem to think they're the exception to the rule, should I be doing that? Isn't it fucked up for me to hear all of these women's voices saying they're uncomfortable and ignore them? Sometimes I feel like I'm the only guy at the function who even thinks this way. If you're going to assume this is an incel rant, it's not. I only interact with women who swipe right on me or approach me in person. I have a lot of self confidence, I'm attractive and excel at plenty of hobbies. The women in my life all say I'm really calming to be around and they love my energy.
My love life is 'successful' but I hate when I'm interested in a woman and see some other guy cold approach her & they spark up a conversation. It ends up being a painful experience because I know I'm not allowed to do that. I can't rationalize why I'm not allowed to do something but I see other men doing it all the time. It's like an episode of the twilight zone because I seem to be getting a very different message from other men.
Update: Stop giving me advice on getting girls lol. This is about the discomfort I feel knowing that approaching women means ignoring the ones telling me it makes them feel unsafe or uncomfortable.
Also stop with the lvl1 socialization advice I know how to read a room. I'm talking about the times when things are more ideal and I still don't act because I don't want to risk making a woman feel unsafe just because she smiled or made eye contact. Someone pointed out that women will do that because they're afraid of what men will do if they don't acknowledge us, so smiles and eye contact are out.
Update 2: There are women here saying they don't want to be approached and their voice counts just as much as any other womans. The entire point of this post is that I don't feel comfortable ignoring them. Even if it's only 10% of women does that make it OK to ignore them? Even if there's a 10% chance of making a woman feel unsafe isn't that enough? Shouldn't a man stop doing something if it makes women feel unsafe X% of the time?