Greetings TRP. This is my first post in TRP and it's my first successful cold approach as well.

I live in India, where sex is a taboo topic in most if not all parts of the country. This means unlike the west, girls don't expect men to hit on them. If they do, its usually trouble and the wrong kind of man. Families are conservative and arranged marriages is the major player responsible for this country's population.

I always had this stop me from exploring and talking to girls. I was scared of being misunderstood, possibly ganged upon by people surrounding us, as our societies are very feminist and consider the female's word always right in a situation like this. All it takes is one woman to say out loud "this guy is harassing me" and undoubtedly the public will seldom let you go without a beating. Period.

Anyways 2hrs ago I'm on a bus back to home. It's raining outside and I see these two girls board and sit in the next row. I assume they're friends and notice one of them(HB6) taking peripheral looks at me. I'm aware of girls doing - they avoid direct eye contact. The other girl becomes invisible to me while this one is trying to grab my attention. I've been working on my body so that my shirt fits perfect and make sure no matter what I have a straight posture and I take up space when I sit. Most likely she noticed these signs. A few minutes later this girl gets off at her stop and I become aware of the second girl who's an HB6. All the seats next to her are empty with just a man sitting right in front of her. I say to myself "I'll make up my mind to sit next to her when he gets up". That was unlikely to happen but my brain kept on making excuses. Then I get a rush of adrenaline to just stand up and sit next to her no matter what. I suppress this feeling at first unsuccessfully. My desire to break out of my bubble is strong and I can't see a better opportunity so I take the first steps and sit next to her.

At first when I begin talking she's very defensive and doesn't understand my words. She had her headphones on and it made a little more difficult. I'm a little nervous but I show no signs of panic. We continue to talk and I make sure I look deep into her eyes. I tried to talk with a deep voice but that didn't happen. (trying too hard would've been creepy) At one moment though I said "this is random but can I have your number" to which she replied "why" instead of no and was laughing while doing so. Wrong. Don't ask for a girls number before you impress her. It comes off as being needy. Your confidence will impress her. That's exactly what I did. And then she gave her number to me without questioning further.

Tbh it feels great right now. I know she wasn't extremely attractive which might have made it a little easier on me but I guess we can call this a start. I have no clue as to what to do with her number now but I'm happy with what happened today. All because I took a small risk instead of sitting back doing nothing.