Ask Anahit: Making a Move

In this month's advice column, one newly out woman isn't sure how to get a girlfriend

Feature by Anahit Behrooz | 13 Jan 2025
  • Ask Anahit

I am a newly out wlw that is trying hard to get a girlfriend and failing horribly. It feels like I am never brave enough to just fully ask someone out. I always hang out informally a couple of times and then tell myself I'll ask them out, but end up friendzoned. How do I get out of this cycle?

The beauty of the advice column genre, or indeed the broader genre of Telling People What To Do, is that I don’t necessarily need to be able to do the thing in order to tell you – with authority! – how to do the thing. In the same way that you could say to me that “[redacted] is obviously [redacted redacted redacted]” and I would be like “ok :) interesting :)” and then proceed to do whatever I wanted, there exists a huge gap between knowledge and action when it comes to taking control of our lives. That gap, that being free from the responsibility of risk, provides a certain clarity that is great for advice giving, and terrible for self-actualisation.

I guess I’m saying all this because there is such an obvious solution here (seize life by the cojones and go for it!) but there is clearly something that is obstructing it beyond… me not having already told you. You mention your lack of bravery – I wonder if instead of berating yourself for your inability to overcome the fear, you could dig into the fear itself (omg yes, thank you, I am in weekly therapy). Are you scared of rejection? Of inexperience? Of failure?

I personally am scared of all of these things which sometimes makes me feel like I have no agency over my life, because I ultimately have no power in not making those fears come true. But maybe it’s less about controlling the outcome and more about controlling the correlation between this fear and your actions. Is there any way of holding it all more lightly; less “I need to get a girlfriend” and more “this person seems cool and what if I took one tiny step in their direction.” Relationships are such organic things, born out of desire and attachment and chemistry, and you simply cannot game your way into them. And yeah, there’s a kind of helplessness in that, but also a kind of freedom. Forget about all your aching, desperate yearnings. Who is the person in front of you right now? And what do you want to say to them?


Got a question to Ask Anahit? Submit it anonymously via NGL