Hi CeeMee,
I ditto Plucky the buffalo. I bet neither of you are the slightest buffalish.
I just want to offer this thought: I think what can ease that anxiety a little bit is if you focus on what your own intention is. If you'd like to contact members of the board (you mean a board where you work? this board? anyway, either way...) because you are thinking of them, my sense is, why not?
Just: Let Go of the Outcome.
If you can calm your fear, and THEN contact, maybe it'd go better. Like, for example, you've expressed some doubts about:
1) males misconstruing your connecting
2) appropriate lengths of time to talk
How about:
1) setting up some external boundaries for yourself that might dilute that worry, such as (I don't know what the situation is): asking Male X if he'd like to join you for a cup of tea, in daytime, in a public place or company place, and sitting in a non-intimate setting for a pre-set limited amount of time. (E.g., "I can meet you at 11:30 for 45 minutes..." or whatever fits the situation.)
2) if you would like to call, then perhaps since you do sense you have trouble feeling your way into an appropriate time limit, you could set one at the outset of a call. Such as, "I've got to be out the door in 10 minutes but I wanted to say hello, ask you about ___, or whatever. Have you got 10 minutes now or when's good for you?" (Something like that, but you get the drift...it's not unfriendly, it's really a neutral piece of information you're just placing at the beginning of the conversation, which is really considerate of both of you.) Privately, it may help you feel less anxious about time-trespass, and to the other person, it just comes across as considerately cluing them in to what the time deal is. And that's a nice thing. (Or I always appreciate it when someone does that...)
Maybe setting some "artificial" boundaries that seem to symbolically reflect what your intuition is concerned about would help you navigate these 2 areas with less fear?
Hopalong