There are a lot of lonely people out there, desperately hoping/wishing that someone would take a moment to acknowledge them.

I would hazard a guess it's mostly Men being affected, although it is now being framed as a Women's issue because they are currently experiencing the swing of the pendulum in their direction, and they do not like it.

Men are branded with a lot of, mostly, negative labels by Feminists. It is difficult to reconcile that International Mens Day https://internationalmensday.com/ is shared with World Toilet Day https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Toilet_Day and still feel valued by Society as a whole and Women in particular.

I'm glad to be Married, if for no other reason than it meaning I don't have to face the challenge of trying to find a friendly Female face in a crowd and be branded.

I got out of a LTR recently and decided a few weeks ago to get back into the game. Saw this girl on her own on campus today, I cold approached her before about a year ago during a short break with my LTR but didn't pursue further. After that we didn't speak much but I know I was on her radar the whole time, she gave me looks etc.

We did about 10 minutes of small talk, she was friendly, no shittests or much tension. I was going to ask her out for the next day, but then she brought up her plans for the weekend (some stuff with her friends) and that threw me off. Then she brought up that she'll probably not be on campus tomorrow but study at home, so I said "so I won't see you here tomorrow then" and she backtracked a bit "probably not, but maybe" (here I messed up again, should have just asked her to do something off-campus but I was in her frame). Then I mentioned I'll be there tomorrow for sure due to some stuff I have to work on, stood up to leave, and I smiled and said to her "by the way, I find you not bad" (maybe this sounds a bit awkward in English). She said something and laughed and I left saying "see you tomorrow, maybe".

I feel a bit bad about how it went, when I cold approached her last year I was more cocky and there was some tension, and I had strong frame with her the whole year in between (I was in a LTR and didn't care about her) which I think I have now lost. On the other hand I feel like I established a bit of frame and tension with the compliment at the end. I later found out she is in a LTR, at least she didn't mention that to me.

How would you say this went, what do I need to adjust about my approach? I have a few other prospects where I'm worried it will end up the same way - friendly conversations but no tingles and me hesitating too much.

Attempt to answer own question: I would say I need to be more polarising and cocky to give her tingles instead of just boring everyday small talk. Asking her if I can see her on campus tomorrow was bad for my frame.

said to her "by the way, I find you not bad" (maybe this sounds a bit awkward in English).

Yes, it does. Were you two speaking English to each other? Or did you translate something that makes total sense in your language, but not so much in English?

If you two were speaking English, but you have an adorable foreign accent, she might be forgiving of that odd turn of phrase.

Anyway, I'm getting too bogged down in something likely inconsequential.

How would you say this went, what do I need to adjust about my approach?

It's hard to say based only on text.

What a lot of people new to this sort of thing (or just rusty) is that a lot of the calibrating will be on your own, from a lot of trial and error.

me hesitating too much.

That's most likely it. I had a similar problem back when I was first starting out as a burgeoning young player-to-be.

Boldness is always better than hesitation.

If she's going to reject you anyway, you find out sooner and stop wasting your time and effort on someone just soaking up the attention.

If she's receptive, hesitation can kill her receptiveness (if that's even a word).