Exactly. I mean, he didn't apologize when he saw it didn't have the desired effect and said that it's just a hard subject to broach, at which point I was silently "uhm...surely you can think of something to say to the girl browsing the sff section"-as that was probably what caught his attention-"before that." (He did mention "you looked cute, so I thought I'd ask," which was flattering, but...)

It doesn't help that I'm jittery around people in RL when I meet them at first just because. I was even a bit nervous when I met rachelmanija and telophase when I went to a-kon, and I've known them for over a year. Surface "have you read/seen this" stuff with a complete stranger I can do. But random personal interaction? A bit of buildup is needed.