AskGaybrosOver30

Hell, this isn't just a gay thing tbh. It's a human thing, but also a guy thing.

Otherwise I wouldn't poke my nose in.

But the key is that there's no single lesson or piece of advice. The road from where someone starts in life to being a relatively capable adult human trying to find romance and/or sex is not linear or easy.

When someone, particularly a guy, gets off the path, it's a process getting back on the good path where they can strike a balance between being self forward and being aggressive, or weird, or creepy, or however their approach gets perceived.

It's a gradual mentorship. There's really no other way to come at the problem. There's almost infinite ways for an individual to approach approaching others. So everyone has to learn not only what works for them but to read when it isn't working. That takes after-action debriefing. Which takes some commitment from the mentor.

I don't know if that's something you want to do, much less have the time, energy, and resources to do it. But that's what it takes to help a guy that hasn't nailed social skills yet. Women without those skills are a little easier to guide just because people don't react the same to women, but they can get off the rails too.

Me? When I've taken a crack at it, my main method was to play wingman. Go into social situations, introduce them (even to strangers we would both be meeting for the first time) and lead by example for a while. In the right settings, you can sometimes even be up front about it. Just roll up and say, "hey, I'm southsamurai, this is my homie Spider, he's a tad socially awkward, but a good dude. Can we join y'all for a bit?" It won't be an option often, but you'd be amazed how open a group of people that feel safe in saying no will actually say yes instead.

And them saying no is a good thing when it happens, because you also get to show how to politely accept rejection and that's a more important skill for a young man to develop.

For now, the best thing you can give him without that kind of attention is honesty. Tell him that you've struggled too, that it isn't some kind of automatic thing that everyone knows and can do. Tell him it isn't just the two of you either, everyone deals with some degree of confusion and anxiety at some point, even if it's minor.

Shit, send him here, to lemmy. Tell him to ask people questions about social situations over at the no stupid questions or other ask communities. Crowd sourcing social skills is actually doable. If he pings me, and I can say anything useful, I'll chime in for sure.

My strategy when I had less confidence was to just sit quietly in a corner and wait for someone to talk to me. That's how I met one of my former long-term partners, and it's also how I ended up in a lot of bar conversations with disappointing outcomes - "why are you in x town?" "why are you still in college?" "why don't you like older men?" etc. There's the cute kind of tism where you keep pokemon plushies and talk like a little girl, which seems to be the most common kind. Then there are the creepy variants, which are products of unpracticed overconfidence.

I think your friend should avoid bothering people in-person until he's been approached enough and had enough partners to not scare people off. Until then, he should be his cute little self, quiet and polite at the gay bar, and save the sexual aggression for apps where it's expected. You could also take him to kink events, which are good social practice for members of the community.