Okay, so! It’s no mystery that MCU Steve was a complete dork when it came to women. He didn’t know how to handle them. In The First Avenger, Bucky takes him on a double date where Steve gets snubbed by the girl.
The thing is that Steve never once blamed the woman for snubbing him. He never once wondered why she didn’t fall into his arms. Instead, he looked at himself and most likely found himself lacking. He knew she wasn’t interested so when Bucky asked if he was going dancing, Steve said no. He wasn’t going to push himself on her if she didn’t want it.
You do have to wonder what this did to his own self-esteem though. He didn’t wonder what was wrong with her. He must have wondered what was wrong with him.
Later, he tells Peggy, after she mentions that he has no idea how to talk to a woman, that that was the longest conversation he’s ever had with one. That simple line can tell us so much about Steve Roger and women. He’s not used to women even giving him the time of day.
We talk about how Peggy fell in love with Steve before the serum. How she saw him for who he really was, all two left feet and foot in mouth, and still you can see that this is the man she fell for.
We don’t talk nearly enough about the fact that Steve fell in love with Peggy for this same reason – she saw him when he was still a skinny little punk willing to do whatever it took to help. But he still has this confidence issue when it comes to accepting that someone like her could like someone like him. He must have seen that she was out of his league.
Later, we see another female worker hit on Steve, post-serum. Steve doesn’t know how to respond to this. He doesn’t understand. He shrinks in on himself. Again, he doesn’t understand what these beautiful women see in him.
Steve has a lot of self-confidence issues in this area, and dealing with women in particular. You can see Steve stand up to another man twice his size, punk complete male strangers on the street, and joke with scientists and soldiers alike.
But women shatter that confidence he has.
I think Peggy went a long way to helping with that. She loved him before he was big. She loved Steve because of his personality.
Present day, I think Steve still struggles with this a bit. Natasha tries to set him up (wait, didn’t Bucky try that too???), but Steve makes excuses for why he can’t. He’s not ready he says.
Even when he asks Sharon out, he doesn’t look at her. He expects her to say no or laugh or give him a disgusted look. And she does turn him down and you can see he’s disappointed but, again, he doesn’t blame her. He accepts her initial rejection.
And when she gives a tentative approval for a ‘next time’, you can see that glimmer of hope.
Later he confesses to Natasha that he has tried dating. He says that wasn’t his first kiss since he was pulled out of the ice. And we aren’t treated to see why nothing has worked out or to see those instances. Natasha teases him and he just makes another excuse about it being difficult to find someone with shared life experience.
And he’s not wrong, but I think that there’s still that constant nagging thought at the back of his mind of why would anyone want him, and the thought that if he wasn’t Captain America, would any of them even give him a second look?
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