I guess I ask for other peoples experiences because I move around often and work in a male dominated field, thus if I want to meet women I pretty much have to approach random people and I have maybe 3 minutes to make an impression, find some common ground, and determine if I'd like to meet them again. In this situation, I'm going to be shot down, repeatedly. The problem is, the constant rejection hurts my self esteem, and thus I probably appear anxious in my approach, which makes me even less successful. Negative feedback.

Hopefully now that I live in a stable place and am beginning to develop friendships, I'll meet some people who I can connect with and have better success. A little success will really help my confidence regarding relationships. In every other area of my life, my self esteem is high. I'd like to get a 50% success rate for a first date if I know the women I ask out are single; of course, sometimes you can't tell.