Women unhappy with an aspect of society

Women push for societal change

Women unhappy with the change they inflicted upon society

The supposed happy medium she's looking for is a fantasy starring herself as the main character, where all the hot men are written to be smitten by and motivated to cold approach her, while the ugly ones instinctively know their place as background props.

In reality, those top 10% hot guys that catch her eye at the coffee shop seldom approach a complete stranger these days because they're usually already getting pussy flung at them just from acquaintances they meet organically through work, hobbies, and other aspects of their life. Even if they happen to have room for an extra fuck buddy or two in their weekly rotation, Tinder delivers much more reliable results when you're that hot, compared to rolling the dice on any random stranger.

The song and dance she's daydreaming about is an outdated custom that doesn't make sense anymore. The most attractive men no longer need it, and for the others, it has become a humiliation ritual. She can approach men herself if she's that desperate to be Chad's Tuesday fallback option.

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.

but then she brought up her plans for the weekend (some stuff with her friends) and that threw me off.

"Aww that's a shame, we could have gone and done ". The trick here is not to immediately agree to any rescheduling if she's interested.... it's a throwaway line and you don't immediately convert it into scheduling hell as she tries to line up both options.

not, but maybe" (here I messed up again, should have just asked her to do something off-campus but I was in her frame).

nah..... if she's busy for the next day or two, you don't push it. Stay aloof. No trying to agree for "three weeks on Tuesday if you find yourself free"

Then I mentioned I'll be there tomorrow for sure due to some stuff I have to work on, stood up to leave,

Ok, agreeing to be around tomorrow sucks. You are killing your mystery at this point.

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".

Well, not sure if that's a good line or not. But "see you tomorrow maybe" is terrible - you're just committing yourself and she isn't doing the same. It sounds like you're too attached.

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)

Yeah, IDGAF is easy when you really don't give a fuck. It's harder when you're single.

which I think I have now lost. On the other hand I feel like I established a bit of frame

not much frame tbh.

and tension with the compliment at the end.

No tension. Compliment is cute, but all your other comments are showing your desire to attachment, commitment to an outcome, etc. This kills attraction because you're getting towards being a sure thing. You need to maintain distance, control, ambiguity, options. Or you date and fuck her. Avoid the bit in between because it costs you everything, gets you nothing, and kills attraction / fear of loss.

I later found out she is in a LTR, at least she didn't mention that to me.

They never do my dude...... they never do. Not until you push for a date. Not even then.

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.

Ok, don't worry about it. You want to have a LOAD of these interactions.

It's campus, so you can't escalate too hard.

I'd suggest: Smiles. Find excuses to touch her. Talk about plans and the cool stuff you've done and/or are doing next. Be aloof if you're not actually going on a date. No more "see you around". No "hope to see you soon please maybe". You want to be mysterious, distant, UNATTACHED. You interact and then you say "bye", not even "see ya" (which sub communicated a desire to see her again).

When you're there you're smiles and touching and friendly and maybe escalating to seeing her again, but other than that do not kill your mystery with attempts to get future contact with her.

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.

Polarising and cocky can work, maybe this is your vibe, maybe not, I don't know. If 80% of women hate you and 20% are fucking you then you're doing it right.