Okay I've sped read your entire thread so I might have missed this, but so far I've only been reading male responses.
Anyway.. good news is I'm a girl so I could chip in my 2c. I personally mesh better with guys than with other girls just cos I'm a tomboy and geez I'd much rather wear chucks to my own wedding.
In my first year I felt really awkward, but remember that everyone else feels the same. If you're talking about approaching people in O Week, I'd say get involved with clubs that interest you. You meet people through that, and then they might later introduce you to their friends, and so on.
You definitely meet new people in tutorials and you might even be asked to work in groups. That's pretty much where I met most of my friends, and it helped that since we were in first year doing the same course, we were doing the same subs for that sem. That worked because then we could meet up for study group before midsems and such.
For lectures I wouldn't be
too wierded out if a random guy sat next to me, unless half the lecture room was empty from the start..
Great topics to talk about would be maybe asking what other subs they're doing, what they're major is, etc. Haha I wouldn't ask anything too personal about them until I got to know them a bit better
Asides that, you seem like a really sweet guy. We love you romantic people!
Hmm what else.. on another topic, I'm asian and I prefer Caucasian males but only because I know we can make hot babies
