Why don't some college guys ever date?

Abject, existential terror.

Ask them out. With this specific type of guy, this will give you a huge advantage over women who never make a move. Less competition for you!

Have you tried some liquid courage? Usually these types of things come out over a few drinks, making it a little easier for shy types. My own personal experience with these kinds of guys has been that they were actually not into me that way and I was reading too much into things.

Oh my god just ask him out. You already know the answer to these questions - they're the answers YOU would give - and fixating on them is just giving you another excuse to avoid asking him out and justify your continued shyness. Seriously, it's not the end of the world to have someone turn you down. Being one of these types, I confess to just being completely oblivious. I've had girls hit on me, make out with me all night, dance with me all night and I still will not clue in that they want to have sex. And hooking up is supposed to be simple in comparison to dating (which leads to me spending the night in the same bed without having sex because we're friends and that'd be awkward and not cluing in that she wanted to).

Shyness, awkwardness, gayness, deciding to focus just on college, asexual, past asking out trauma, imagined asking out trauma, it could just be you (with these particular guys, of course, I'm 99.99% sure there is someone good out there for you) intimidated, crushing on other people, feeling there arent good matches... tons of reasons. I didnt date much in college... but I found a girl online (shocking!) and have been with her for two years now. If you like nerdy guys (which every girl should) they are probably more scared of you than you are of them. Gently ask one of them out :)

knowing how bad I am at reading signals, I am too shy to pursue anything You can get better at reading signals, and the way to get better is...to pursue things. It does sting a bit, though.

Let me add one thing, not because I am more expert than you but rather because it might invite appropriate comments by others. It's my perception, as one a bit (ahem) removed from this scene, that "ask him out" (or anything in response to his failure to "ask her out") has to confront the fact that the "ask out" and "date" lingo and norms are corrupted nowadays. In my view this adds to already paralyzing uncertainties of relationships among the younger set. Hence my advice to give a peck on the cheek or something even rasher. Let me suggest something else. If the dudes in question are relaying to you that they have never asked anyone out and don't know how, that's a pretty broad hint to you that they're stalled out. Coax them into saying that again, then pounce. OP: "What do you mean you don't know how to ask someone out? 'Will you go on a date with me?'" Boy: "Well, duh." OP: "No, idiot. *Will* you go on a date with me?"

Some good points above. Since my work brings me in contact with these populations, both college students generally and some likely candidates of either gender in the "don't date" category, let me offer a few factors not yet discussed: 1. What are some reasons a guy (especially one in college) won’t ask someone out, even if he likes her. a) Individual Health (part #1): It's kind of a paradox that while the broader society typically associates the college years with height of good health, the actual situation for many students is way more complicated. And I'm not speaking here about the severe cases of depression and the like that leave some students bed ridden and obviously non-functioning. Rather, I'm talking about the sort of low-level depression that my colleagues in the student health service tell me are much more widespread. Whether these conditions result from biology/brain chemistry, underlying general health problems, or environmental factors, like poor sleep habits or chronically shitty diet, the results can be powerful but hard to pin down, with the consequence that blunt signals of attraction get filtered through waves of low-level paranoia, making them seem directly threatening or at least significantly uncomfortable. Again, we're not talking here about a large-scale freak-out, just the sort of unpleasant associations that can make a person pull back and withdraw, despite all the overt signs to the contrary. And just because the guy in question can hold his own in conversation for a while and otherwise seem at ease doesn't mean this sort of stuff isn't going on under the surface. Like all folks suffering health-related mental health issues, college students find ways to save face and get through the day, even if lived experience feels frequently off-putting, despite the presence of otherwise hot chicks nearby, etc. ;-) FWIW, the downside about the widely-held assumption of college students' "good health" is that it can prevent students or those who care about them from addressing these sort of underlying issues until after the college years, when the subtle effects of aging in early adulthood make folks more attune to their bodies and physical needs, at which point they start to deal more consciously with a host of health issues ignored during adolescence and the young adult years (witness many of the threads around here). b) Individual Health (part #2): Building on the above, there are also more narrow aspects of health regarding sexual performance. Again, mainstream wisdom claims that college-aged men are at the height of virility and capacity for sexual performance, and while that's probably true overall, this assumption misses how health conditions can affect sexual performance for some college guys. Regardless of being horny and stimulated, there's still the matter of getting it up. Then, add to that the more limited range of experience which younger men will bring to bedroom activity, and thus the smaller pool of successful experience to overcome the times when the plumbing doesn't work perfectly, and it can be recipe for hesitance that extends beyond simply "getting up" the nerve, so to speak, to accept an invitation for a date. And also in this regard, the relative inexperience of college girls/women around this sort of thing can make them less than supportive, etc., with the result that only a few such incidents can be traumatic enough to put off such guys on the whole relationship thing at a deep level, despite how they might appear on the surface. c) The "College Scene" (part #1): Youth culture during the college years can be fascinating to observe on a number of levels, not least the process through which relationships, intimate and otherwise, form among students, and equally so, how a more basic sense of community emerges that then allows those sorts of relationships to happen. Again, stereotypes and appearances look one way: there are all these young people around of approximately the same age who seem to share some obvious connections (exposure to a common popular culture, etc.); while lived experience can feel quite different, especially for the kinds of guys you've asked about: that is, feeling enough a part of this overall community such that romantic advances by another individual get construed as somehow plausible, appropriate, or even within the realm of possibility can be a challenge for certain sorts of college students (male or female). To clarify, here I'm not speaking of lack of social skill generally or ability to "pick up on hints," etc., as some have mentioned above. I'm not saying these folks suffer from Tourette's Syndrome or stuff like that (although a few might). Instead, it's a vaguer, more general sense of belonging or affiliation (or lack thereof) through which people decide how to make sense of the behaviors of those around them, particularly things like direct romantic advances. In everyday terms we often distinguish between "strangers" and "friends" without acknowledging the sorts of phases that need to happen in between to get from one category to the other (let alone to "prospective date"or eventually "significant other"). For a lot college students these phases of community affiliation occur without effort or awareness. But for others, like the kind of guys you bring up, this process can get derailed, at least partially. Unfortunately, the result isn't always or typically complete social isolation or alienation. In fact, it's possible, again, to get by quite competently in a range of superficial social encounters without ever bridging this gap and seeing oneself as belonging enough to conceive of the possibility that the pretty girl over there who's been in your calc classes the past three semesters, and is smiling suggestively even, might suddenly ask you out. From the mindset I'm describing here, that scenario can seem about as likely as having the pretty girl over there on the other end of the subway platform, who perhaps you've seen day after day for months or years but don't know at all otherwise, and who also might be smiling a bit at the moment, suddenly come up and ask you out. (Yes, I know, for some people, male or female, with certain personalities/temperaments, the subway example actually happens, but for those folks so does the calc class example as well, and needless to say these ain't the type of guys you asked about anyway.) d) The "College Scene" (part #2): Finally, going along with the previous item, it's worth noting how precarious the social environment of college can be both overall and specifically for the sort of guys you bring up. That is, on many campuses, the types of options for "hanging out" that might function as activities for a date can be seem pretty limited/unappealing to these guys, especially if you rule out of the basic ingredients, like alcohol and such, that many college students take as a given. What I'm getting at here is not that these guys are too anxious to ask you out, or necessarily lack interest in you, but rather that they can struggle to imagine activities they'd be comfortable doing on a potential date ("I can't stand watching movies," "I *hate* video games," etc.). As you can guess, this one's probably lamest of all the factors I've described, since anyone with experience in the dating game knows that when you're with someone cool, it really doesn't matter what's going on; you're having fun just be around that person. But lack of experience can cause these basic misunderstandings of the process, as other have mentioned. 2. In general, at what point in their lives do these inexperienced guys who don’t date in college actually start a relationship? Well, as far as the four factors I've mentioned, they can all potentially get resolved further on into post-college adulthood. With the health issues, simply getting a bit older, and less feeling immortal, can prompt folks to pay better attention to their habits and how they feel, thus perhaps leading to awareness of, then diagnosis and treatment of a whole range of conditions (again, see the many health-related threads the askme crowd, who probably skewed toward recent grads/20-somethings, from what I can tell, choose to post in. Additionally, while college can be challenging, sometimes it takes the daily grind of the work week to force better attention to basic health needs. With the social factors, again, the change in environment from campus to workplace can often help. That is, no matter how hard college work gets, the fundamental arrangement of things is such that students don't contribute in the same way that employees do (one group pays for the opportunity to work; the other gets paid to do so), which for some of kinds of geeky, awkward guys can make all the difference with breaking down that invisible barrier I described around forming a basic sense of community. When their work gets more tangibly valued by those around them post college, these guys sometimes get better at seeing themselves as part of a basic community out of which opportunities for more intense relations can be recognized. The last factor's a bit of a wild card, since it probably has something to do with general maturity, although, obviously, getting out of the superficial culture of the campus and into the mainstream adult world, where extreme age segregation breaks down, likely helps. 3. Being quite shy myself, what can I do to show these guys I’m interested without embarrassing myself or scaring them away? Having said all this, there are a few things you might do. First, simply keep in mind that there may be factors in play affecting your interactions with this type of guy that have nothing to do with you (such as his health). Just knowing this if/when you have a less-than-successful encounter can go a long way to helping you cope with rejection. On a similar note, while some versions of shyness may result from basic matters of temperament/personality, you might consider whether your own version has any connection to some low-level, unacknowledged depression issues on your part. Not saying it does by any means, only that this factor can affect both ends of the interaction (his and yours). When it comes to the community thing, that's probably your best chance of intervening. Here I'd go with a different emphasis than some of the responders above: Instead of concentrating how/when to go about popping the question of an actual date, I'd put my effort and attention into conveying a general sense of belonging toward the guy in question long before you bring up a possible date, something I would agree with the consensus above that you will still need to do yourself, eventually. Well before that, however, comes the more important part: going out of your way distinguish yourself from the role of the pretty stranger on the subway platform in his mind and instead signal, repeatedly, that he's truly a part of your social circle, not by accident or circumstance, but because you really enjoy his presence in your life in the most causal, mundane but significant ways. (Yes, I know, most people don't need help with this kind of reenforcement, etc., but that's not who you asked about.) From there, at some point, your request for a date will seem much less surprising, shocking, and/or overwhelming, and thus more liking to be accepted. Finally, regarding the last factor, before it gets to point of planning the actual event of the date, do your homework about what he enjoys and, more importantly, doesn't so that you suggest potential activities he'll be comfortable with doing initially, at least until it finally strikes him that you're cool enough to enjoy doing anything with. Again, all this might seem like extra effort, but as you realized in raising your question, there can be real benefits with making this effort and hence getting a date with the type of guy who doesn't "ever date." Best of luck.

Reminds me a lot of myself at that time in my life. Assuming he's straight, I like the idea of just asking him out because shyness sometimes makes it hard to perceive the signals. I wouldn't have been offended and it would have really boosted my confidence.