I’m going to be honest that your “infatuation”, as it were, with all women seems fairly extreme to me. I do look at all people as they go by, and might think to myself “damn, she was cute”, but for me that’s about it. I might steal an extra look, but only rarely.

As you say yourself, you think they notice and I think you’re right. You also mention that you don’t like it but just “let yourself get away with it”. Maybe it’s worth trying to not let yourself get away with it? Make a conscious effort to stop? Self improvement is possible and even quite rewarding at times! And self control doesn’t come naturally to the rest of us either. I wouldn’t think this kind of behaviour is particularly healthy for you, but that’s just my two cents. Best of luck!

I mean I assume you don’t have much sex or a girlfriend or anything.

In that case, at least from what I know from myself or my friends, this desire to look is completely normal. I think you might follow that desire a little bit too much (as it is something you can control), but the base feeling you have is something most men experience.

Your nature is telling you to approach women and have sex with them. For some reason, you don’t, maybe because you’re scared, socially anxious, people have told you being sexual is terrible, whatever. This part of your nature is very strong, and as it seems the only thing left for you is looking, of course you’re going to want to do it.

If you actually approach women and have a healthy sex life, that desire probably goes down, but of course now you’ve also made it a kind of compulsive habit, so it might be hard to break.

It’s honestly quite ridiculous to me that you’re ashamed of looking at sexually attractive people. Despite what some radical feminists or whoever will tell you, just looking and being sexually attracted is nothing shameful. It’s more likely that this shame itself is causing the issue, since you’re sexual, yet that is for some reason shameful so you can’t satisfy it, causing you to have more of a sexual desire since you have so little of actual action.

Sexuality is our main drive, it is constant, and there’s nothing wrong with it as long as you inquire about people’s boundaries and respect them.

You had me up until you said you would change your route.

I see a nice ass, I’ll take another look. I won’t alter course to walk past again though. I feel like that needs addressing.

If you’re a heterosexual man you’re probably gonna find most/a good chunk of women until they’re in their 40s attractive to very attractive and have some natural bodily reaction to it. That’s just how it is, that’s how we became billions. A man must control his horny and his angry, that’s our responsibility, at the very least their expressions, in order to remain moral and prosocial. One thing I can say is that, if you’re in love and getting busy often with your one and only, you stop being so sexually obsessed with other women, in a very deep and perhaps biological level. That’s what I’ve found out at least, and I’ve been with my lady for a little over a decade now and all of my friends except two very good lads are women. I’ve never crossed a boundary nor have I even wanted to. 🤷👍

So, don’t worry, you’re just a horny young (late 20s is young) man because of the hormones, if anything it’s healthy, it’s how our ancestors had to be to get out of the caves. Focus on love, find your one and it’ll kinda go away. ✌️

I will change my walking route to innocently walk past them and steal another look.

Yeah that’s something you should probably stop doing. People notice, and it might not look as innocent as you might think. Many among them will act as if they didn’t notice in order to avoid a confrontation. Just stay on your route please.

Cis male who’s much older than you: you’re not alone, but my drive to do so has tapered over time. Polite society is, in large part, about overcoming primal caveman (or “lizard-brain”) urges. Primal urges are different for different people.

You know that phenomena where you buy a yellow car, and then you suddenly see yellow cars everywhere?

Brains are really suggestible.

You don’t need to be ashamed, if your brain has gotten into a habit you don’t appreciate, or is negatively affecting your life, it’s something you can work on.

Gals are pretty, I’m not attracted to them, myself, but I absolutely get it.

What you want is to feel like you’re in control of enjoying looking, and not that it’s a compulsion, like it’s driving you. That’s gotta be almost taking all the pleasure out of it for you. I could imagine that would be hugely annoying.

Just start by noticing other things, go out specifically to see something, birds, trees, bugs, water, boats, whatever you find interesting, and start retraining your brain towards something else, if you try “not” to look at something, it’s still the main focus, if you try not to look at girls, the focus is still girls, it’s easier to help your brain notice other things. Count how many of something you see. Just let your brain notice girls as you go, notice what it’s telling you and then move back to what you were looking at redirecting towards.

You don’t have to do what your brain tells you to do, you aren’t your “thinking brain”, you are the entity that observes your thoughts, you might be inadvertently feeding those thoughts into a bigger thing than you want them to be, by actioning on them. I would suggest, try not walking or actioning them. That feeds that wolf, which is perfectly normal and fine, but hes just gotten a little too much for the space you want him to occupy.

This is all ok, its a perfectly normal, developmental stage. It will calm down on its own, too, don’t stress.

You sound a bit thirsty but otherwise reasonably normal.

An appreciative, furtive glance is received vastly different to a lecherous stare. Be aware of what your face is doing.

If a girl even remotely suspects a man is following her then 99.9% of the time you will cause terrible fear. It’ll never occur to her that you were just temporarily detouring to appreciate an ass so fine you want to build a temple for it.

Remember that the world in your head and the world outside your head are different places with different rules. Outcomes can vary.

A piece of advice I’ve missed here:

Being interested in girls it’s nothing weird. But the thing I think you really want is to get to know them better. The only way to do that is to talk to them. That way you even get to look at them a bit longer (focus on the eyes).

I’m not a hero at this and learned it at way a later age than yourself. And it takes a bit of courage to do. But the more you do it, the easier it becomes.

And the more comfortable about talking to women you get, the more confident you become, and that makes you more attractive than any set of biceps or perfect abs.

So get training! Get some talking points and go out there and try talking. You might think you fail a vile of times, but the thing is you don’t, really. Generally people like attention and if you fumble your words a bit clumsily you might actually be attractive (Hugh Grant built a career on that).

So set yourself some targets and don’t give up until your cringe weans off, it will happen and you’ll feel better about yourself.

And maybe, but this may absolutely not be your main goal, but just maybe you might even get to look at them in greater detail than you’d ever bargain for. But the main thing is being genuinely interested in them as a person.

I’m a woman I assume men “look at me” in the way you’re talking about, I also often look at men in similar ways, albeit with significantly less urgency, as long as the person looking isn’t leering or ogling the other person I don’t think it’s a problem. If you do happen to make eye contact a simple nice smile and getting on with your day is the best friendly/non threatening way to diffuse it acting shady like you got caught doing something bad makes it seem like that.

It’s normal just be discreet and respectful if you do happen to be caught

Saying the quiet part out loud. At that age, your hormones are still on the fritz. It’ll take until ~25 for them to quiet down. For some it’s earlier, for others it later, but generally, that’s around the time it happens.

My theory on why this is persistent for some is because they are horny with no release beyond self-release. It’s combined with traditional and religious society too that has strong gender roles i.e male has to court the female which creates a power imbalance. If we lived in a place where sex and sexual attraction weren’t seen as aberrant and supposed to be suppressed, we could have a much healthier society with better interactions between people attracted to each other.

Imagination isn’t bad, as long as you treat everybody with respect. Having sexual fantasies about every woman you see, to me, isn’t unhealthy or a sign of a problem - unless your actions become negative. Your 20s are your prime. It’s the time to make mistakes and learn from them. Ask people out, take chances, try and go on dates, but don’t let it consume or define you. Don’t be or become an animal driven by lust. You are more than a walking penis that requires wetness every day.

I definitely had a phase like that. I also was quite disgusted with myself and tried to rein it in as much as possible. I wouldn’t intentionally walk somewhere to see more girls. I also started to fight the urge to glance, because it just felt wrong to me. That went on for a while until I got tired of fighting my own body. I briefly stopped, but quickly noticed that the more I indulged, the stronger these urges got. So, I started to rein them in again to a level that felt good for me.

I think it’s okay to glance at a pretty women, but that’s it. No staring, no trying to get more glances. It takes some willpower, but the more I practiced and the older I got, the easier it became. Also it does feel a little rewarding to notice the urge to peak at the girl in the short skirt, but to keep your eyes straight until she is gone. Makes me feel like a little superior to the other men I see leering.

One simple trick is to look around and check out who is glancing/staring instead. A lot of people do that, men and women, though mostly men (at least at women). It’s probably normal, but can be interactive for some. I think it’s important to accept that part of yourself, but also to not indulge it too much. If this seems impossible, I think consulting a therapist might be the way to go.

A look or two is normal. Looking at sexy people scratches the feelgood brain bits. Changing your path to gawk is getting a bit sketchy. You should probably masturbate a bit more often, or better yet, find someone to share orgasms with. You’re craving it.

It’s called hypersexuality and is a symptom of many different things.

Most men look at other males to assess threat level, and females to assess breeding potential, it is an unconcious drive (we also unconsciously assess if things are edible, but less so for humans :p). I use the pronouns of men, male and female carefully in that sentence, other interactions are less studied.

For socialised men, the urge stops there, and with a healthy body and relation to it you also don’t spend more attention on it. Sometimes, like when affected by hormones, loneliness, psychosexual/physical/mental imbalance, etc. the responses are more intense, and could be viewed as a signal of unmet needs (analogous to hunger, sleepiness, pain, etc) that you can react to in an appropriate manner.

When the thoughts, impulses or actions become hard to control or risk creating negative consequences, that’s where intervention helps, like therapy, medication, lifestyle adjustment, etc.

So basically, it happens, it will vary by season, age, diet, health, etc. Please consider if you might be horny, lonely, or have other unhealth to take care of. If you find it takes up too much of your attention (to function normally) and/or threatens your impulse control, seek help.

A decent bar for normal functioning is that it shouldn’t interfere with social relationships: don’t make people uncomfortable, don’t hurt anyone (including yourself), as well as day-to-day life: don’t ruminate/obsess, don’t spiral.

It is less often spoken about but fairly common to fantasise about encounters and even masturbate to them. Just be mindful that it’s your fantasy you’re entertaining, it has nothing to do with the actual person which you will need to respect and treat as they wish to be treated.

As this is a point of common misunderstanding, let me repeat: You seeing something that sparks attraction or even excitement might lead to fantasies of it in a sexual setting, maybe even gestalted with their body. All of this is your imagination, none of it is real.

The actual person is not your object of infatuation, has not shared your fantasy or even desires, and they will rightfully react negatively if you project your fantasy on to them.

So I repeat: it’s normal to notice, it’s impolite to make a thing of it or make people uncomfortable, it’s expected that you can regulate your impulses and make sure you have the strategies and resources to do it, and seek help if you cannot.