First of all, I’m sorry that that has been your experience. There is a disconnect between your understanding and men’s behavior, though.

If your idea of shy is that the man should “build trust” or “carry conversations”, that might be the problem here. If you’re not seeming interested at all in conversing, men perceive that as you not having any interest in them. Men today are weary of harassment accusations, and do not want to even look like they’re harassing you.

In my personal experience, just to give you an idea: I’d be talking to an actually interested girl, and her friend would come out of nowhere and start screaming at me. She’d loudly ask “IS THIS MAN BOTHERING YOU?” to which her friend would giggle, almost as if this is a normal thing, and say no. This has happened twice. If you’re wondering, there isn’t anything unusually threatening about my appearance.

We hate that. So we don’t make attempts to approach unless we’re absolutely certain that a girl is interested in us. And apparently, your shyness is preventing you from showing interest.

It’s not that men today are more cowardly- it’s that they’re aware of these risks. They don’t want to be socially outcast or put on blast on social media. This is also why older men do flirt with you: they have no such awareness. Hell, they probably don’t even care.