Women, if you like a guy why do you wait for him to make the first move?

[The Tiger]

I think it's sexist that men have to do the asking, no doubt about it.

 

I guess it's harmless sexism, but it still goes against the feminist doctrine of "men and women are equal in every single way."

[ThsAmericanLife]

ETA, in another thread, we have a LS'er ending a FWB which started with this signal: 'He gave me this big grin, I grinned back, and he came right over and introduced himself. We talked for a while, then he asked me out.'. The reason for the end of this FWB? Evidently the young man has a problem with 'anger issues'. I need to develop me some anger issues and a winning grin; it'll be like being 26 (the age of her young lover) all over again, or maybe just go back to reading the book

 

You have GOT to be kidding...

[ThsAmericanLife]

Exactly right ,But do most women appreciate this fact? I think not.As other male posters have said Most women who claim to give 'clear signals' are actually doing nothing of the sort.In this millennium of 'empowered women' the old status quo simply doesn't hold water any more. The No Nensense Man Marc Rudov said it best in this excerpt from one of his interviews which i have quoted below

 

Excerpts from an interview with Marc Rudov (The No Nonsense Man)

 

The foundation and dynamics of almost every relationship are established with the first e-mail or telephone chat and then solidify according to the structure of the first date. Most men and women still believe that, in the dating ritual, the man should unilaterally pursue the woman. The man calls the woman. The man arranges the date. The man picks up the woman to drive her to the date. The man pays for the date. The man initiates the goodnight kiss. The man returns the woman to her home. The man calls the next day to thank her for allowing him the privilege of spending his money on her. Then, the man calls a few days hence to determine whether this woman is available again for another opportunity to entertain her. Yes, in 2011, when women are doctors, lawyers, CEOs, mayors, and governors, the majority of romancers still play this obsolete, disempowering game.

 

 

In the past, I spoke with two women, highly accomplished and educated women, who told me they both love and insist on men pursuing them. Their explanations were similar,the chase makes them feel special and desirable.If they 'lower' themselves to approaching and chasing men, they will lose all vestiges of their prized femininity. They will feel desperate and unattractive. They will no longer be the apples high in the tree, just beyond reach, where only skilled ladder-climbers can hope to get them. Instead, they will become as common as the ones at eye level or, worse, those that have fallen to the ground, easy to scoop up and place in the basket. Moreover, how will they explain to their mothers and girlfriends that they have stepped off their proverbial pedestals? One can only imagine.

 

 

The woman who demands that a man pursue her ultimately winds up with the guy who makes the greatest effort, not the one who is compatible with her. Many pursuit-oriented women have admitted to me that they frequently date guys they don’t really like because the guys wear them down with persistence.Well Duh! Wake up, girls, you asked for it. And, let’s not exclude the extreme case where the ultrawealthy guy unabashedly flashes his cash, cars, homes, and Learjet to outright buy the girl, and she willingly enters the gates of the “golden prison.” You see, whatever system you use will work. If it is unfair and unbalanced, both of you will lose. But, if it is fair and balanced, both of you will win. This is not rocket science; it is common sense.

 

At the end of the day, the only equitable solution is mutual pursuit. Men and women should pursue each other equally, mutually, and simultaneously. Neither party should stand on ceremony.

 

Ladies, stop basing your ego and femininity on being the pursued party.Pick up the damned phone to call him—to arrange a date, to chat before a date, to follow up after a date. And, by all means, pay for the date. This does not mean you should become a freight train.Sweetness and thoughtfulness still reign, but be firm. Finally, do not use the tired argument that you don’t make as much money as he does. Take him where your budget permits. If you can afford to go clubbing with your girlfriends, you can afford to take him on a date.And,regardless of how much money he makes, he will appreciate your treat. Everyone likes to be treated.

 

Guys, stop chasing women like hunting dogs! It’s emasculating to you, insulting to them, and it establishes a power imbalance that brings you both nothing but headaches.Are you as a man not worthy of pursuit? If she won’t pursue you as well,disregard her. Why should you do all the heavy lifting?

 

In summary, if men and women want to have successful, healthy relationships in which they can trust, respect, and count on each other as peers, they must begin them with mutual pursuit. You go after her, and she comes after you. Both of you contribute the gold, and both of you are entitled to make the rules. This peer-based “mutual-pursuit dynamic” favors neither party and is a solid base from which to grow.

 

yep.......

[WhiteChocolate]

I've asked several guys in my life out and recently half a dozen from a dating site. I've come to the conclusion, that it's actually a bad idea asking guys out, for me at least. A guy who is into you, will ask you out, no matter how nervous or shy he is. A guy who doesn't, is just not into you or he likes dominant women, meaning, they're really passive and that's not the type of guy I'm into. Honestly, I found men who complain about women not taking the initiative more often despite emancipation to be pretty lame.

 

At the end of the day, the only equitable solution is mutual pursuit. Men and women should pursue each other equally, mutually, and simultaneously. Neither party should stand on ceremony.

 

Ladies, stop basing your ego and femininity on being the pursued party.Pick up the damned phone to call him—to arrange a date, to chat before a date, to follow up after a date.

 

In summary, if men and women want to have successful, healthy relationships in which they can trust, respect, and count on each other as peers, they must begin them with mutual pursuit. You go after her, and she comes after you. Both of you contribute the gold, and both of you are entitled to make the rules. This peer-based “mutual-pursuit dynamic” favors neither party and is a solid base from which to grow.

 

These are my two favorite posts from this thread. I agree on mutual pursuit, but for the sake of...idk, social propriety, stroking the man's ego, whatever, I still let the man define the relationship and decide if he wants to take it further. I basically say, I'm willing to commit if you are willing, if you aren't, then I'll "fade out."

 

That being said, if there is a guy I like, I DO pick up the phone to set up a date, I DO chat b4 date and follow up after date. However, I DO NOT ever initiate the conversation of...what are we? If he wants to take it further, then it's his job. Otherwise, after 1-2 dates, I stop calling.

 

Unfortunately I haven't had much success so far (aka ending up in a LTR) QQ. What do you guys think?

[ScreamingTrees]

This is going to be a rather long post, but I'm hoping it might be insightful for someone, somewhere. Then I did my job. It's basically echoing the mutual pursuit idea, but from my own perspective.

 

So, I'm kinda confused. For a female, why does it automatically mean that a guy's indifferent to you if you asked him out first? I'm indifferent to strangers, whether beautiful or grotesque, male or female, unless we interact in some way and I actually form some sort of connection with them. I'll be polite because I feel that it's the right thing to do, but I'm USUALLY not going out of my way for someone I don't know.

 

Why would I, or any other guy not make a move on an attractive girl that we might see during our daily adventures? For me, personally, I consider the average female to be attractive, physically, at least. I'm forgiving of what they might consider a flaw. I can see the unique beauty in most people, male or female, unbiased and objectively. You can say that's shallow, perhaps, or that I lack standards, but I wouldn't say that because I'm not hitting on every female that I see or giving them all a chance, I'm just most likely not going to turn them down for things that they cannot help or change.

 

Now, mentally? That's a different story, I obviously wouldn't know unless we'd talked before, but I'm far more forgiving physically than mentally. I have standards, I'd just like to think that they're more important in the grand scheme and less superficial.

 

Take any attractive girl, clone her, and give her two polar opposite personality types - Depending on who gets what, I'll find one unattractive and one to be a goddess. Hell, give one of them "unconventional" looks (not necessarily UGLY) but a beautiful personality and I'd choose them and fall in love with every part of them over the one with the deteriorating outer shell and empty inner shell.

 

So, If a girl that I'd built rapport with was to ask me out in a very direct way as some have stated, as in "are you taken?" and not just vague actions and words that could be interpreted as friendliness, I'd either politely decline right then and there or take it further and if there was any underlying interest it would then be far greater because I know this person's sincerely interested and I wouldn't be potentially ruining whatever relationship we had - That's a given, shouldn't have to be said, but I'll echo it once again.

 

Now, why couldn't the tables be turned? How does a man truly know if a girl's interested? People cannot read other people's minds, period, and if you'd say a guy will always know the outcome before making a move, how do guys get dates with girls they barely know, or guys fail to go further with a girl that they get to know, for whatever reason it may be?

 

NO ONE knows. My PENIS is certainly not telling me, and I'm sure every pair of lips in this thread are sealed.

Edited October 15, 2011 by ScreamingTrees

[aj22one]

 

So, I'm kinda confused. For a female, why does it automatically mean that a guy's indifferent to you if you asked him out first? I'm indifferent to strangers, whether beautiful or grotesque, male or female, unless we interact in some way and I actually form some sort of connection with them. I'll be polite because I feel that it's the right thing to do, but I'm USUALLY not going out of my way for someone I don't know.

 

 

Seriously. I get the feeling that some women expect guys to be incessantly pursuing any and all women in their sites. And if they're not it's a sign of indifference and/or general passivity. Which is very overall flawed approach to dating, IMO.

[carhill]

I get the feeling that some women expect guys to be incessantly pursuing any and all women in their sites.

 

I call this the 'perpetual hard-on theory'. It makes sense though. I mean, genders reversed, if I was sitting around selecting from all those engorged clitorises surrounding me every day, why would I want that gravy train to go away, especially if they were paying me for my pleasure of selecting (or not) them?

 

Think about that...

[ScreamingTrees]

Seriously. I get the feeling that some women expect guys to be incessantly pursuing any and all women in their sites. And if they're not it's a sign of indifference and/or general passivity. Which is very overall flawed approach to dating, IMO.

 

Well, what can you do about it? Those particular girls are only limiting themselves. Damn that perpetual hard on theory, man.. THERE MUST BE A LOOPHOLE!

[musemaj11]

Who should approach first is a matter of who is willing to settle more.

 

The reason men are almost always have to be the ones doing the pursuing is that men are a lot less willing to settle.

 

Even a fat man with one leg will still give a shot at getting the beautiful girl that everyone else is after even though the odds are against him.

 

On the other hand, a woman no matter how beautiful she is will settle with the fat man with one leg if he is the only suitor she gets rather than having to actually be the initiator even if she undoubtedly has what it takes get someone much better should she choose to do so.

[ScreamingTrees]

Who should approach first is a matter of who is willing to settle more.

 

The reason men are almost always have to be the ones doing the pursuing is that men are a lot less willing to settle.

 

Even a fat man with one leg will still give a shot at getting the beautiful girl that everyone else is after even though the odds are against him.

 

On the other hand, a woman no matter how beautiful she is will settle with the fat man with one leg if he is the only suitor she gets rather than having to actually be the initiator even if she undoubtedly has what it takes get someone much better should she choose to do so.

 

Well, I don't think that applies to everyone, and I've generally seen people paired up with their equals... generally speaking. The men or women that do that are only shooting themselves in the foot in the end, and I personally won't be their life coach because I'm focused on meeting the girl of MY dreams in time.. it's not worth living a lie unless they really do love that person and accept and enjoy them for who they are.

 

The fat man with one leg who isn't willing to settle probably has enough self worth and confidence (even if there's a lack of confidence, he must feel he's good enough or want BETTER for himself) to sense her fakeness and either doesn't care because he's out to wet his willy and enjoy himself, the they're worthy of each other, or he'll leave her to meet a girl who IS genuinely into him.

[carhill]

In theory , any woman a man waves his hard-on at is a woman he's willing to settle for, for sex anyway, right? I mean, he's already settled , in his mind, when he poofs his pants. Why else would he even consider approaching her, a complete stranger, if not for that buzz in his balls? He knows it's like tossing his d!ck into a meat grinder but primal urges impel him to self-flagellate anyway.

 

It's a slow Friday night...

[Pompom]

Well my current best friend approached me for other reasons I guess, since he keeps checking out girls that look nothing like me, telling me how cute and pretty they are. So some men apparently don't just approach women based on what their downstairs brain wants.

[musemaj11]

In theory , any woman a man waves his hard-on at is a woman he's willing to settle for, for sex anyway, right? I mean, he's already settled , in his mind, when he poofs his pants. Why else would he even consider approaching her, a complete stranger, if not for that buzz in his balls? He knows it's like tossing his d!ck into a meat grinder but primal urges impel him to self-flagellate anyway.

 

It's a slow Friday night...

Yup, the higher testosterone pressure ensures that men will forever lose the 'who should approach first' battle.

 

Without that burdening primal urge, most men would spend their money, time and energy on playing video games or going fishing instead of wasting them on women.

Edited October 16, 2011 by musemaj11

[AHardDaysNight]

Women are generally better dancers than men.

 

It makes no sense why they wouldn't make a first move.

[rie39]

1) Some women feel that they shouldn't go after a guy they like because as a societal norm traditionally it is seen that it is always the men who chase the girls they like. They feel that by waiting for the guy to initiate things, they can see if he is really interested in them or not.

2) Also, they may want to make themselves seem less available...they worry that if they go after a guy they will come across as desperate and the guy will lose interest in "the chase" because they are too available.

[LittleTiger]

I think it's sexist that men have to do the asking, no doubt about it.

 

I guess it's harmless sexism, but it still goes against the feminist doctrine of "men and women are equal in every single way."

 

This is where the problem comes from.

 

Men and women are NOT equal in every single way.

 

In some ways we are equal, in some ways men are generally superior (eg physical strength) and in some ways women are generally superior (eg giving emotional support).

 

Men and women are different - we think differently, we act differently, we have different motivations and different needs and desires. No amount of feminism is going to change that.

[filani]

This is where the problem comes from.

 

Men and women are NOT equal in every single way.

 

In some ways we are equal, in some ways men are generally superior (eg physical strength) and in some ways women are generally superior (eg giving emotional support).

 

Men and women are different - we think differently, we act differently, we have different motivations and different needs and desires. No amount of feminism is going to change that.

 

@ LittleTiger

It's such a simple truth isn't it ?

[verhrzn]

This notion that feminism claims men and women are "equal in every single way" is an over-simplified and frankly false twisting of the actual philosophy.

 

First, it depends on what WAVE of feminism you're discussing that puts emphasis on different areas of oppression and inequality, but overall, the idea is NOT "men and women are equal in everything" but that everyone should have the right to equality regardless of what's between their legs. In other words, someone should not be bared from a profession, or wages, or sexual behavior because of the gender they were born to. The message is to NOT judge based on sex, to judge on individual merits and personality. So it's not saying "men and women are exactly alike"... it's saying men and women as individuals both have strengths that they should be allowed to explore.

 

Second, it's also an oversimplification to say "men are naturally THIS and women are naturally THIS." Humans are sociobiological beings... meaning what we are is a combination of both biology and socially conditioning. When people say "women are NATURALLY this way," what they're referring to is what women are biologically, but we actually don't have a lot of data that demonstrates men and women ARE that different biologically. And there's an argument that the data we DO have, can't be attributed entirely to biology, because our biology is shaped by our culture.

 

Growing up in Western culture, we have these boxes of what a woman is, and what a man is, but these boxes are a self-fulfilling prophecy, not absolute proof. For example, in some cultures and histories, women are seen as sexless; in others, they're the more sexually insatiable sex.

 

What you need to do is understand NOT what is "naturally" women and "naturally" men, but the cultural norms around men and women. Men pursue in this culture not because men are naturally hunters and women are naturally frail little flowers that must be tended to*, but because through long centuries of social change that's become the norm.

 

In this way, feminism is actually HELPFUL to men who want women to pursue, because feminism is meant to empower women to make decisions that fit their personality, and ignore boxes like "what is feminine" and "what is masculine." But a lot of women still have trouble breaking out of these boxes BECAUSE the norm is still in place, and is frankly still reinforced. Men apparently want women to pursue, but there is still an unspoken belief that if a woman pursues, it's because she is aggressive, desperate, overly sexual, etc... In other words, that she is MASCULINE. Pursuing men takes away our femininity, and thus makes us less attractive to the very men we're trying to pursue.

 

So if men actually want women to pursue, they need to get out of the mindset of finding certain behaviors "feminine" and thus attractive. (And I'll wave my fingers at some women as well and say we need to stop seeing a guy pursuing and not pursuing us as signs of his "masculinity.")

 

 

*Evolutionary psychology is not considered a very respectable field; they tend to pull assumptions out of thin air.... For example, yes, prehistoric men were hunters, but the majority of the food eaten by tribes were actually those gathered by the women, nuts and berries and so forth, so actually, wouldn't it make more biological sense for WOMEN to pursue since they were the ones who needed to supplement the men? Evolutionary psychology has this nasty tendency to take shaky observations on very little information-we actually don't know a lot about prehistoric culture-and twist it to fit MODERN assumptions about people, completely ignoring culture and time shifts.)

[singlelife]

1) Some women feel that they shouldn't go after a guy they like because as a societal norm traditionally it is seen that it is always the men who chase the girls they like. They feel that by waiting for the guy to initiate things, they can see if he is really interested in them or not.

2) Also, they may want to make themselves seem less available...they worry that if they go after a guy they will come across as desperate and the guy will lose interest in "the chase" because they are too available.

 

 

I have heard this as well. Men should take the lead but if a woman likes him she may not want to play hard to get.

[blondike]

I think the OP is soo true.

 

I am more relaxed around guys I have no interest in. I just smile and punch them and laugh or whatever.

 

But, if I'm interested in a guy, I clam up and put on my poker face the whole show. Even if I'm gushing about him with my friends... poor guy will probably never know.

 

It's okay because I get asked out anyway, and I just turn the poor chumps down.

[blondike]

I think it depends on what kind of women you're asking.

 

I'm just gonna tell you, if a guy asks me out, more than likely I'm just looking for a free dinner and a movie, have some fun at the arcade or something, giggle in the bed when we're getting ready to go at it. Maybe when you're old like 30 you'll look for a relationship but relationships are hella boring and oldfashioned for a college girl.

[singlelife]

I think the OP is soo true.

 

I am more relaxed around guys I have no interest in. I just smile and punch them and laugh or whatever.

 

But, if I'm interested in a guy, I clam up and put on my poker face the whole show. Even if I'm gushing about him with my friends... poor guy will probably never know.

 

It's okay because I get asked out anyway, and I just turn the poor chumps down.

 

 

Just curious, why would you turn a guy down if you like him?

[singlelife]

I think it depends on what kind of women you're asking.

 

I'm just gonna tell you, if a guy asks me out, more than likely I'm just looking for a free dinner and a movie, have some fun at the arcade or something, giggle in the bed when we're getting ready to go at it. Maybe when you're old like 30 you'll look for a relationship but relationships are hella boring and oldfashioned for a college girl.

 

 

SO it's almost impossible to know if you like a guy.

[musemaj11]

I think it depends on what kind of women you're asking.

 

I'm just gonna tell you, if a guy asks me out, more than likely I'm just looking for a free dinner and a movie, have some fun at the arcade or something, giggle in the bed when we're getting ready to go at it. Maybe when you're old like 30 you'll look for a relationship but relationships are hella boring and oldfashioned for a college girl.

As long as you repay the dates with sex then its fair. The guys probably wont mind unless you suck in bed.

[dispatch3d]

Wow I figured at least one girl here would have made a comment about why they cannot ask a guy out/make a move.

 

Instead everything is about the "kind of guy" they are into, or the other person. For a group of people who say they want assertive men, you don't seem very assertive to begin with.

 

Lots of guys have a hard time putting themselves out there. Doesn't mean they are bad guys. I have a friend whose a nuclear engineer and doesn't like to put himself out there. Easily one of the best friends I have.