Men on the online forum Reddit have shared their candid reactions to active female flirting in the AskReddit section, admitting that female initiative often causes them anxiety.
Many forum members stated that female initiative causes anxiety because they fear something bad will follow, such as theft or an effort to profit from them. One Reddit user noted that when an unfamiliar woman approaches him, he assumes she intends to sell something, request a social media subscription, ask for a petition signature, or invite him to join her Jin-roh cult.
Unrecognized compliments and awkward timing
Multiple users admitted that they frequently fail to recognize female flirting right away, though they remember instances of female initiative for years. Reddit user paranoid_giraffe recalled that the only time he realized someone was flirting with him occurred at age 16 in high school, when a female classmate said he had an amazing smile and liked his haircut, calling it one of the few genuine compliments about his appearance he ever received.
Other contributors shared that female romantic advances occurred at highly inconvenient moments. Reddit user Sargent_Duck85 described standing in front of his boss while a female customer flirted with him, leaving him unable to reciprocate and only able to thank her for shopping at the store.
The discussion follows a previous online thread where users identified sexual fetishes they considered strange and repulsive, noting that recently popular sexual practices felt off-putting to many people.
