You did good with doing something. You are slowly pushing through your shell and honestly, you'll figure it
out eventually.
As you're learning how to do this, you want to ask yourself 2 questions after every approach.
1) What did I do right?
2) What could I do differently?
So you did awesome with just saying something. You did it at your own pace, but you did it nevertheless.
You kept the conversation going. Good job.
Now as for the things you could have done differently;
The most obvious is you should have teased and create some attraction. Saying something like, "I normally
don't talk with strangers on the bus, but by the way you were looking at me I got a feeling that you'll kick
my ass if I don't say something
"Teasing is what makes the girl feel RELAXED around you.
It's actually a weird mixture of tension that you're creating while you're teasing her, and the relaxation
she feels when she giggles or laughs because of it.
When you said to her, "Hey do you mind if I sit next to you?", you broke one rule.
To her, you didn't ask her to sit next to you - but you ASKED her to APPROVE your ADVANCE.
If she said yes to it, it would mean that she said yes to YOU.
And she wasn't ready for that step yet, because simply you haven't made
her comfortable enough.
If she got relaxed and comfortable around you by you teasing her, you could easily say, "Ok, so it's
awkward for me to sit like this. Move, I'll sit next to you - but I warn you, no touching. "
Make sense?
YOU have to be the man and LEAD the interaction, not wait for her to give you approval.
I hope this helped you, and by the way - if you want to speed up your process of dealing with your AA, I invite
you and anyone reading this to my test group, where I'm testing a new technique. Details in the description.
Wish you best,