Reddit mentions of Rejection Proof: How I Beat Fear and Became Invincible Through 100 Days of Rejection

Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy by David D. Burns is a great choice. It doesn't focus on SA but rather on anxiety and depression more generally but you can use the methods to approach social anxiety just as well.

There are a couple others which could help you muster up the strength ideologically, like Rejection Proof or The Charisma Myth

It all comes down to being consistent and getting a bit stronger, a bit less anxious day by day. I wish you the very best!

> I guess I'm afraid of rejection

You, me, and everyone here. At least to start with.

> Should I just message him?

You can. I don't, as a guy, as most women just ignore random hellos on Facebook. You haven't built attraction yet. If you have a pretty profile pic, this may work for you. Rules are slightly different for ladies.

Face to face is more interesting, and works better, IMHO. Especially for a "good looking" woman. Guys don't generally get the "stalker" feeling when a women talks to us. So it's easier to approach a guy.

There's two things I want you to know:

The first: Rejection won't kill you.

The ability to face rejection will make you a better person with more control of their life. You should talk to him, because, win or lose, it will put you on a path to a better life. Here's a book that talks about it. But don't wait for the book, talk to him soon.

Second, the less you need, the less you can be rejected.
BAD: "I wanna have your babies" :-)
GOOD: "It's a beautiful day, isn't it?"

Or the classic "Excuse me, do you know where the <slightly obscure building> is?". Of course, you'll want a reason why you need to go there.

Don't put a lot of need into your conversation, just talk. Don't make the goal to get a date, just to have a conversation. I wouldn't mention the Facebook stalking :-) But, after you make some real life connection, a friend request is reasonable. Then you have an excuse to say "you like <Band>, too!?".

> How would you feel if a good looking and relatively outgoing woman you've never met initiated the conversation out of the blue?

Like I won the lottery. We don't like rejection either. If we get to talk to an interesting woman, and don't have to face rejection, it's great.

For the how do you join one, I've always have this thing I do when my friend are talking and I'll walk up, say hi and then ask what did i missed?

Where as meeting strangers or new people I always treat groups event like reddit, just walk up to anyone and say hi stay for a small talk and see if it clicks, and go from there, it might be hard as first but once you get the hang of it you will be good. I initially try it after reading "Rejection Proof" by Jia Jiang and this book helped out pretty much, he also setup a blog on all his attempt to get people reject him which got me started.

There's a little known book called "Rejection Proof", I've met the author, Jia Jiang, an unassuming chinese guy that one day said 'fuck it' and challenged himself. He has a youtube channel that documents a lot of his experiment. He basically would ask people for ridiculous things that most people would EXPECT someone to say no to. A surprisingly large amount of people would say yes.

The book is not manosphere or Red Pill related, but should be.

If you don't want to read the book or watch the videos for inspiration then the short practical answer is: just do it with detachment to the outcome.

Personally, there's been periods in my life where I needed retraining in approaching. I would go somewhere public (like a mall), or throughout the day at various places, and say hi to any girl that was not accompanied by someone else. I'd say hi (or whatever), if they responded then I'd strike up a short conversation (intended to only last a minute or so), then once I noticed there was eye contact and a smile, I'd say something along the lines of "Hey, I gotta run and meet some friends, give me your number and I'll hit you up later" (or whatever phrasing you're comfortable with) then just hold your phone out (or hand them a receipt and a pen).

Later I'd just throw the numbers away to practice detachment.

The next level up is to say hi to pairs of girls and do the same thing.

You need to get over your anxiety, and the only way you can do that is to embrace it. Get out of your comfort zone and face the fear head on. This way you will expand your comfort zone and you will learn to use fear to your advantage. This might sound scary but its the only way out and trust me, you dont want to live the rest of your life inside your comfort zone. That is no way of living.

This book and this book are quite helpful on the topic of getting over the fear of anything really. Dont get me wrong, just reading these two books wont help you get over your anxiety, you need to go out and apply it to your life.

This may not be the solution you want to hear, but its the only way out of an anxiety :) Good luck with it