How on Earth do you approach & talk to women?

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OP explicitly stated he was interested in tips for online communication.

It's not the first thing *I* experience though I know for some people it is.

Talking to (accosting) random strangers in public because you like they way they look is going to be a difficult social strategy. That's appropriate for a bar or club, not so much the grocery store/bus stop/post office.

Special interest groups/activities/etc. a good environments because there are built in conversation topics and you know off the bat you have something in common.

I know a lot of people meet dates through friends/mutual acquaintance, spending time with a friend around their other friends can be a good place because it's a casual social environment.

Addressing your "whole different crowd/freaks" comment. I was using that as an example of men and women having monolithic common interests respective to their genders which is a false assertion. Are there some interests that of the people who enjoy them the majority are men yes, are there some interests that of the people who enjoy them the majority are women, yes. That does not equate to most men having some interests and most women having other interests with little over lap. So every "but would a woman like [insert thing with majority male followers] is setting up a false dichotomy.
Which by the way is in the service of 'disproving' a comment I made the point of which was approach a potential new female acquaintance just like you might approach a potential new male acquaintance, *from a point of common interest* It as meant to dispel any particular fear about conversation with women, because really we're not all that different.

*sidenote, The Avergers just had one of the highest grossing opening weekends of all time, comics are not a fringe interest anymore.

Then talk about that thing. If it's in an appropriate context to approach someone. You can't go around bugging women trying to go about their business.

Oh, and the answer is...

-drum roll-

If you can't initiate a casual conversation with somebody you are interested in, then chances are you couldn't maintain a relationship with the person either. Practice makes perfect. Make the effort to place yourself in situations where you have the opportunity to initiate casual conversation with strangers for no other reason than to be social. Do so within your comfort limits. Push those limits a little at a time. Then use the skills that you have developed through application of effort to approach people you would like to converse with regularly, if the opportunity presents itself. Go get 'em tigers

See? Quite simple really...

The thing is, the first thing you'll experience is physical attraction. That will make you want to find out more information about that person, which is the second step. If you find out she isn't a total airhead, that will lead to wanting to engage in conversation, to see what happens.

That's the thing, when talking with other guys, I don't gotta ask. It literally can be as simple as "You like Marvel Mystery Oil?" "Oh yeah, I use that on all my engines I rebuild!" And then we'll talk about cars and stuff for like 5 minutes. Other small talk type stuff will be brought up, but it's easy for me to talk about, as there's a definite topic for conversation that I know we both relate with in some way.

So with women, it usually goes like:

Me: What do you enjoy doing for fun?
Her: Hanging out with my friends!
Me: Doing what?
Her: Oh, we go to the bar and stuff!
Me: Ah, going to bars and clubs. I don't do that.

Then that's pretty much the end of the conversation. I mean cooking is a commonality I would have with women if they (or any people for that matter, especially my age) cooked, but I seriously cannot think of commonalities I have with the average woman, and all my friendships are more or less dependent upon commonalities.

It's not like, all entirely bad, this isn't a "woe is me" post. I've made some progress talking to women, in some cases they were interested in me and I wasn't fast enough at processing "OH SHE LIKES ME." The other thing, too, I have a tendency to annoy people by talking to them too much, about things such as motor oil, and it seems I'm especially prone to annoying women by talking too much about "stuff" like that. I'm pretty alexithymic, too, so talking about my own and other people's feelings doesn't really compute in my brain very well, so again, another hindrance talking to women, as women apparently love talking about that sorta stuff.

it's been found that getting to know a person can completely change the level of attraction. in a study (i lost the link to it, which is too bad), men and women rated each other's appearance before and after doing an extensive group project that took several days. some of the 9s became 5s and the 3s became 7s.

i think that people who approach others based primarily on appearance are severely limiting their dating prospects because they are assuming that attraction is static, yet it changes with familiarity.

One of the biggest thing's that has helped me in social interaction and in Romantic interaction is that most of social interaction is play that NT's unwitingy use a practice for more serious events that might occur.
Think of lion cubs, they play fight and play hunt. They don't know why, it's just fun for them. But they are practicing.
What seems to be the most fun for NT's is something similar. If you can somehow make a situation inert or safe. Eg if you play with a girl saying "my eyes are up here" or "sorry I'm late I hit a hobo on the way here, its ok I cut him up an burried him" or "I could tell you but I'd have to kill you" they hind it very entertaining.
You can't do that all the time though or it would be weird, no more that 30% of your talking. You need to bring some honesty too in that stiuations too;
Talk about you then ask a similar question about them eg:
I have 5 sisters do you have any siblingis.
They should be about your history, who you are now or aspirations. eg:
I love to travel I've been to X anY but I really want to go to Z.

I find stories about:
School, Family and doing stupid things with freinds to be fairly universal.

Listen more than you talk, and really listen. Catalog topics on the same lines that she is talking about. DO NOT force a monolog into the conversation. Converation is tennis not a battling cage.

I'm from Ireland (which may have canceled out some of AS) but there is a rule here everyone needs to be able to Play an Instrement, Tell a Story or Be funny. If you're not either, go for the story becuase you can reherse a few.

I've also found being too rehersed makes you wooden. Think of it as practice building a skill and you can look past the short term problems and see what to improove much easier.

Try to be relaxed and have fun. And remember dating is one of the few cercumstances where you can drink a little (Do not be DRUNK going in) before hand.
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One of the things I didn't know before is you can use a lot of freind makeing skills with dates too.
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Make her feel like an interesting person.
_
Maybe this only works in Ireland but I think it's just more explicitly stated here. Weird comes in two flavours; Creepy and Quirky. The difference is putting people at ease. People love quirky. Here people that are too normal are considered drowl (ie. boaring) people like a bit of strange. Own it but wean them onto it and explain why you are doing things often.

Explaining why you do things seems to help you a lot. There're studies that show sometime ANY explaination is better than not saying anything. I don't randomly sniff people but if I got caught doing it I'd just say "Sorry, that purfum is lovely what is it?".

It would probably be fine, infact she would be complimented.

I think that's all the advice I have for here.

I agree but there does have to be an element of physical attraction ,obviously.The physical attraction is likely the starting point .

hyperlexian, Your starting to sound like Pod out of Snog, Marry, Avoid =P Saying about 9s going to 5s and 3s going to 7s

For me, conversation/talking is contextual/informational based. There can be a beautiful woman in the same area as me, but if I can't think of anything to ask her where she can provide me some kind of relevant/contextual information, I have no reason to talk to her. I'm not shy, I just need to have something to talk about.

online: talk about the interests described in the profile

in person: talk about the shared enviroemnt you are in or shared experience you are having- talk about food in a grocery store, talk about classes at school, talk about the weather when outside in it, talk about the band at a concert etc.

I know you mean "revealing" there, not "slu*ty" (unless her clothes are running around having a quantity of sex that some 3rd party deems too much according to an arbitrary standard). So I'm going to let it go
I'm pretty tall too (just under 6ft, well tall for a woman at least), I'm familiar with the uncomfortable hunch that often comes with talking to shorter people.
Are you saying it's hard to avoid being accused of leering at breasts if you lack eye contact even if you're just looking down or are you saying you have a hard time not staring directly at a woman's boobs during conversation? The 2nd is only okay if you're pubescent.

I don't think it's helpful to alleviating anxiety around communication with women to say that it's harder.
I respect that you've had that experience with eye contact and I find it interesting.
I haven't had that experience I find in general women are more accepting of my 'difference' but I'm rarely read as a potential threat while strange men sometimes are. I also think men have a different expectation of me than they would of you.
I would agree that it can be harder to focus on conversation when talking to someone I'm attracted to (man/woman/other). But I'm not attracted to everywoman, everyman, everyperson.