Gave a girl a note through her friend and she avoided me after. Did I cross a boundary or is this my trauma talking?

I’m trying to unpack this because it triggered a lot of shame and self-doubt in me.

There was a girl at my university library that I’d seen around for weeks. We’d occasionally sit near each other and say hi. Nothing intense, just light familiarity. Over time I wanted to ask her out for coffee, but every time I thought about doing it directly, I froze.

One day she stepped away and I ended up talking to one of her friends. I was honest and said I liked her and didn’t really know how to approach her. The conversation felt calm and friendly, and her friend mentioned she wasn’t seeing anyone. It didn’t feel weird in the moment.

A few days later, I gave the friend a short note to pass along that basically said I’d love to take her out for coffee and that she could text me if she was interested. I never got a response.

After that, her behavior toward me changed. She started avoiding me, staying very close to her friends when I was around, avoiding eye contact, sometimes positioning herself behind them. Her body language seemed nervous or closed off. Eventually I stopped seeing her at the library altogether, and it’s been over a month now. I haven’t tried to approach her again and I took the silence as a no.

What’s been hard is the spiral in my head since then. I keep wondering if going through her friend made her feel pressured or uncomfortable. I question whether I unintentionally crossed a boundary. At the same time, I wonder if this is just a normal rejection and my nervous system is interpreting it as something much worse than it is.

I struggle with freezing, shame, and fear of direct rejection, which is part of why I didn’t approach her directly. Situations like this make me question whether I’m socially inappropriate without realizing it. I’m not angry at her and I respect that she doesn’t owe me a response. I just genuinely want to understand whether my behavior was objectively off, or if this is my trauma brain amplifying everything.

Has anyone else experienced something similar where a small social risk turned into a much bigger internal collapse?