This has mostly frightened me off so far.

Don't let it. I actually disagree with the original advice for this reason: any benefit you get is likely to be outweighed by the additional anxiety from worrying what other people think.

My general take on this is the opposite: go ahead and ask many people if you're interested. Don't worry about what they think. Most of them won't care or mind anyway, as long as you're not rude or hostile about it. There's nothing wrong with asking out a lot of people.

In fact, this is a common internal obstacle to asking people out. A lot of guys seem to have the idea that it's somehow wrong or dirty to do so, as if they were being the bad guy by expressing interest in someone.