Dag, I've been guilty of this, with female coworkers I know are lesbians. Is that weird? To be like "check out the girl over there in the green top"?

You sure they werent just looking for cameras?

Cause any time a woman approaches me in public (which isnt very often, before i sound like some bragging fool), especially if its to say something nice/complimentary, my immediate thought is someones trying to record my reaction to put on some tiktok bullshit video.

I dont even register their appearance, I just quickly look for the Camera, mutter something quietly, and get the fuck away as quick as I can.

Not tryin to say assholes don't exist, there is an overabundance of assholes in the world afterall.

Or could they be looking for what you want? A lot of us almost never get compliments so our first thought is what do you want from me.

Men so starved for positive attention they think a compliment from a random girl means they want to hook up

Im a dude, but I lost weight in college and panicked when a couple girls in my friend group were suddenly all touchy and treating me like the dudes they were in to. It wasn't sudden, but them all noticing I lost weight did happen all at once with one person noticing it. I panic gained weight, just started munching everyday like I used to, I still don't know why. Barely starting to lose weight again years later. Maybe I was scared that every look based validation thing I was told was bs and personality is what really mattered wasn't actually true for most people. I'm not gonna lie and say I pick purely personality > looks, it's definitely looks first with personality being the final decider so It's not like I was upset with them or anything. Just freaked me out experiencing it firsthand.

Sometimes I wish I could just go away somewhere for a year to not be perceived while I lose weight and get used to it.

Tried Online-Dating? There you will be approached by men for sure.

Eh, I'm there. It's nothing special

I've always been in that weird space of apparently hella attractive to some and then the complete polar opposite to others, so I've experienced both.

I'm a man, but in a similar boat. In terms of physical appearance I've been unconventionally attractive/ugly hot most of my adult life. The way some people react to, like, Adam Driver or Benedict Cumberbatch or Cillian Murphy.

It took my entire 20's to learn to steer my dating life towards wanting to be with people who already found me attractive rather than trying to convince someone to find me attractive, and finally learning to deal with higher rejection rates than the typical person, while sorting through the people who found me to be ugly, without necessarily knowing in advance who would be in which category.

I also learned that there were people who were embarrassed at their own preference of finding me attractive, and that was its own minefield. Or those who wanted more external validation of their choice in me and didn't necessarily find it in their friends who thought I was ugly.

I came out of that roller coaster of a decade for the better, and ended up picking up from that experience a certain amount of confidence, the kind that says "I already know I'm attractive whether you think so or not," and having less patience for certain types of relationship insecurities, either from myself or my partner.

And then I met my wife shortly after that revelation. She still teases me that I have the confidence of a much taller man (a riff on a 30 Rock line we both love), but I don't think I could've gotten her attention if I didn't learn lessons from a series of failed relationships.