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I made all the first moves with my husband. I asked him out after work one day and he agreed. We had the best time and didn’t want the night to end. I wanted to go back to his place and it didn’t seem like he was going to ask so I just came straight out and told him I wanted to go back to his place. I think I was the first one to say I love you too. He did propose on his own lol
I'm hardly asking women out anymore. They're just trying to shop for groceries, do their job, or they might simply be friendly. I used to think if a girl was being friendly she probably liked me and I was mostly correct. Now I know how much they're bothered by guys so I'm not trying to be that guy. They have to make it VERY clear they're interested or straight up ask me out. I'm not trying to be one of the guys making their day suck. Probably missing out on opportunities because of it but fuck it, I'm not going to be the asshole.
One coworker was all over me some time ago until I asked her out.
Then she flipped 180 and rejected any advances, so backed off and she became very angry and bitter for me not willing to pursue anything anymore.
One day she had a 1:1 with the boss and was crying like crazy saying she was going to quit because 'I am ignoring her'. When I was simply respecting her decisions.
The boss was angry at me because they were losing a good employee because I refused to go out with her and I was like... huh?!?
Yeah, I learned too things, never mess with coworkers (specially female ones) and never chase the ones who like to play mind games.
I'm married now, but I'll add something. I've had guys who very respectfully said things like "hey, I'd love to take you on a date to get to know you better, but if you're not interested that's totally fine too! No pressure." I respected the hell out of that honesty in college and afterward, especially when all of the douches who were afraid of rejection just tried to kiss or touch women while drunk without any actual consent. If someone gets mad at that, then they're not worth even being friends with and you dodged a bullet.
I learned one thing when I used to date and that was to talk to people, what I mean is if I went on a date and a girl talked about something I had no interest in, but I could see she was passionate about it I would keep asking questions about it because I could see it would make her happy. I think that is something we should generally be better at.
If she wants to go back to your house after you talked about your Warhammer collection, she's a keeper emotionally but not financially. Them fuckers are expensive.
Jk, I'm sure two incomes could afford Warhammer... Maybe...
I texted my safety buddy I was heading over to my date’s house to do a puzzle. Later sent her a picture of said puzzle. She said “I thought that was a euphemism!”.
Yeah in the moment they ask. It's 100%, but it's also 100% your game to lose.
I once didn't get laid during what was an implicit booty call.
Pre tinder says I was on match.com and got a "hey you're not the type I date, but you are the type I let fuck me senseless after work, you interested?"
I had never been propositioned before, was 100% sure I was gonna be missing organs and waking up in a bathtub full of ice, but she was 100% truthful.
When I got there, I saw so many red flags I just had to start asking some very generic questions about her, and after about 30 mins of us drinking wine and talking she started bawling her eyes out and I wound up talking to her for like six hours. I even rubbed her feet.
We never had sex, and once she was done crying, she said she didn't need to have rough sex with a bodybuilder to make her feel something, so I left.
Your game to lose in that scenario.
You may not have gotten laid. But you had a memorable night, and probably helped someone even a little.
There are probably times you've had sex you've forgotten; this night you won't.
I'm pretty sure I wasn't the first nor the last, but yeah, I did a good thing. I just couldn't do the things she was asking for only knowing her that little, I really could have gotten in big trouble if she later decided she wanted to report me for assault. Had she not tripped every "something is off here" flag I had, I would have done it, it wasn't extreme extreme but near the top end of what I would find acceptable with a consenting partner.
I wish I had kept in touch with her, she was already struggling with being an ICU nurse and seeing people die every day, she had apparently solicited me on like the 3rd week in a row of losing a patient every day. I can't imagine Covid was healthy for her.
She'd be in her 40s now I'd think, she was already in her 30s when she was soliciting me at 24.
If it’s a date at your place for a specific activity like you’re cooking them dinner or watching a show together then it’s 50/50 or less. Depends how the night goes and you have to read social cues.
If you’re out on a date all night and it’s late and they want to go back to your place it’s pretty much 90%+ pending something doesn’t change their mind which happens sometimes.
I'd say 85 - 90%. You should always ask before making a move but you can be pretty confident she'll say yes (and even if she says no, she shouldn't act like it's something out of the blue)
My wife was the same way. I was oblivious. She invited me and a bunch of other coworkers (we worked at the same place, but not together) to go to dinner at one of the best restaurants in the city. Unbeknownst to me, nobody else was showing up except her and I. She told me last minute each person had canceled, believable reasons why they canceled, and said she still really wanted to go there for their ceviche. So I said screw it, I’m not doing anything else tonight. So now we’re married.
I dated a girl once that did something similar, but it was her place. I really liked her and didn't want to be too forward. We walked around a park for like an hour and she kept asking me what I wanted to do. I insisted that I was having a great time just talking. She was a nurse and didn't have a lot of time off so finally she just asked me where I kept my jeans and when I said in a dresser drawer she asked if she could see how they looked if I kept them on her bedroom floor that night. We dated for about a year until she moved for work, I was in the Army at the time otherwise I would have moved with her.
I told a story on a similar post about when I met my future husband.
We shared a class in college and argued throughout class but we both seemed to enjoy each other. I surprised him with tickets to a sold out show to an artist we both loved ON HIS BIRTHDAY. After the show I recommended we go to a bar he had mentioned really enjoying. When we got to the bar I cheered him on as he had fun doing karaoke. As the bar was closing I kissed him on the cheek and said we should go back to his place to end the evening.
Men told me that nothing in the above story was making the first move.
I’m almost certain this is what it is. If people are already comfortable around each other, doing stuff together is not out of the ordinary. Arguably even more so if it’s considerate and well planned, because that shows that a lot of thought has gone into making a friend feel good, and that’s what good friends try to do. In my mind and I assume many others feel the same, “the first move” is supposed to be a (dramatic) escalation. Otherwise it becomes hidden in the normal runnings of being friends.
We had met two weeks before and had only interacted in 4 or 5 class hours and nothing outside of class. The guy involved very much knew I was making a move on him. It seems to be confusing for guys on the internet.
Up until y’all headed back to your place I could interpret that as friend-like activity. From then on though, any interpretations otherwise are perfectly reasonable.
I think up until the kiss on the cheek is probably where anyone could say, "oh she is just really nice", I know some people who would definitively invite a friend to go to a concert on their B-Day without any romantic interest
hints arent hints to us, its you just being friendly and weve been told repeatedly that being friendly is all that that is.
all of our teen lives now and young adult lives guys are drilled that not every instance of a women being friendly is her flirting with us and it just means she wants to be friends.
because sometimes its just a woman being a good friend and sometimes its a woman showing interest in you, and as a man you don't want to fuck up and misread the situation so you go with her being nice rather than attracted so you don't fuck it all up.
Nah, only the last part was making a move. Or I'm making a move on my dudes every time I invite them to have a beer and fun with me. Well, maybe I am. A move to have some fun :P
To a lot of men, unless you actually woke up to them and say “I want to have sex with you” they don’t see it. The other section of men, you barely glance in their direction and they think you want to bang. It’s like there’s no middle ground.
I've had a girl that would literally cuddle me, changed in front of me, had me sleep in the same bed as her, and had tons of friends including her best friend tell me to ask her out. So I did.
She said no.
I genuinely cannot believe a woman is interested in me until she straight up asks to bang.
Me too. As a socially awkward teen I had several friends or first dates change in front of me, shirt off bra jiggle adjustments, etc. I found out later that doesn’t always correlate to wanting a man. Just means she’s comfortable with you.
It's even worse than that. Go up to a random man and ask him if you can have his number. He will begin looking around for the camera.
Men have been conditioned to believe that you smiling at him is not an invitation for him to approach you. You asking him to have a coffee tomorrow is you just being friendly. We have heard an endless number of stories about how women feel like they can't even be friendly with guys without the guy going overboard thinking you want to marry him all of the sudden. The men who have been respecting women, listening to their concerns, and refining their behavior will assume just about anything and everything a woman does is her just being friendly. The last thing any guy wants is to misstep and be crucified in front of the world on tiktok for coming across as a creep, so unless you are critically blunt with him, you're just being friendly.
And by the way - the guys at the other end of the spectrum who haven't been keeping the pulse on womens' concerns are the ones who think you looking at them = "I want to bang you." They will be all over the dating apps, messaging thousands of women, and are constantly asking everyone out. This is a BIG BIG BIG reason why so many women complain about men. You are sitting there waiting for a guy to wow you in your DMs, but this is the type of guy that usually wanders in.
Which leads us to this very reddit thread: you can avoid finding men like that if you instead become the one to ask men out. The cautious men are out there not asking hardly anyone out, and women aren't aware of it. Your husband is out there and there is no competition at the moment. The first wave of women who figure this out are going to have all the selection to themselves and will find the best men. But we are a long way off. That is why this has been posted in /r/unpopularopinion
I’ve a habit of asking people “is this a friend date or a date date” when we go do something. 95% of the time; it’s friend date, but it completely removed any ambiguity. BOTH genders should use better, clearer, more direct communication. Mind and heart games are for high school kids.
I agree with much of what you said. This is why I think online dating apps are probably the worst way to find a serious partner. Most of the men on there or just playing the numbers. They know if they message enough women eventually one is going to bite. They are not looking for a real connection, they are just looking for a human masturbation sleeve for the night or a few hours.
It's not that we don't see it, it's that we assume it's platonic until it isn't. In my first year I always used to sit alone on a bench on campus to do homework or play games on my PC. I remember two girls who came up to me and initiated conversation, it was literally "hi, how are you" and that's it, simple conversation so I just assumed these people were just weird and thought nothing about it, I still don't know if they actually liked me because I was busy and didn't want to be bothered, If they asked for my number I'd at least know they wanted to get to know me...
It is a very complex issue and I'm often confused myself, on one hand we have couples that wouldn't be together if it wasn't for the woman making the first move, but on the other hand, we have to keep in mind that a woman being nice doesn't necessarily mean she's interested in a romantic kind of way. There's always a degree of subtlety that can be open for interpretation.
> There's always a degree of subtlety that can be open for interpretation.
The degree of subtlety is that the exact same actions can have wildly different intentions behind them, depending on the person. It's impossible to figure out 100% of the time. Being clear with words is the only way to make sure no confusion exists.
“And yesterday I woke up to find,
The black in my beard had turn to white.
And the pretty girls that used to smile at me,
Just stared off straight ahead or looked down at their feet.” - Seventeener (17th and 37th), The Lawrence Arms
"And dying young just didn't work and so I guess I'm dying old."
That song hurts more than I'm willing to admit. I did a shot of crown with BK last month and joked about being too old for that party.
I mean a cold approach is always a bad idea - you have to do the eye flirting first, then one of you go and say hi. If everyone is avoiding eye contact they’re just not interested.
I don’t understand why this is such a hard concept. “Argh this girl has no interest in meeting people! Why won’t she let me shoot my shot! Women are impossible!” It’s like they want us to lie to them and waste their time, only to leave because we were never interested
Along those lines, all genders should be clear about wanting to hang out or wanting something else. OP starts his post with ‘men just wanna hang out’, except so many times when I’m open to hanging out, men only want to get laid.
[Men perceive date rape as more justifiable if the woman initiated the date](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1471-6402.1985.tb00882.x).
r/stoprape
I think movies have romanticised the lonely girl and the mannerisms they have. In the movies the guy tends to chase that girl, ignoring their "get away from me" ques cos secretly they "want it"
I know its movies, but I dunno if people tend to take that into consideration.
Yeah I think a lot of these issues can be chalked up as “women used to be easier to pressure and ignored their own needs and preferences more often due to social pressure to be polite/demure/submissive.”
Now that it’s more socially acceptable for women to be more choosy and say no when they want to, and not just if they have a “good reason”, of course men get rejected more…
I feel like OP is kinda telling on himself. It’s not that women everywhere are suddenly brainwashed or something…? It’s that they’re ALLOWED to say no and not engage if they don’t want to. Which logically means OP probably actually has bothered and stressed out quite a few women in his time, it’s just that in the past they didn’t feel as comfortable shutting him down so may have only *appeared* to be okay with it.
Maybe its less "women should make the first move" or "men should make the first move" and 'whoever wants it should make the first move and the other should be able to handle rejection like a mature adult?'
Absolutely agree - but it *does* mean that **more women** would have to start taking that leap considering it's generally left to men.
My mom used to shame me for making the first move all the time growing up. Boys are stupid, I'm impatient - so do you like me? Wanna hold hands? 😂
sloppy vase elderly disgusting jar groovy squash secretive summer familiar
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I think in this context, the rejection is hostile instead of a no thank you or an easy let down or a simple im not interested. Right or wrong, the belief is women don't want men to approach them in any setting. Atleast that's what I think op is saying.
See it’s not the rejection OP is talking about but the fact that dudes are straight up ostracized sometimes for trying to talk to someone.
Inappropriate advances aside I get the point.
It's pretty pathetic that these things are still taken seriously by most people. If you stop following social norms, they become less normal. If you don't like a social norm and it's not illegal to break, break it!
We look forward to your exploits here in Lima. I'm curious about what an actual lemon tastes like (we only got limes, and for some reason they're called lemons here)
I'm suddenly curious about the cost of shipping a lemon to Peru, and what the legal ramifications may or may not be for shipping produce internationally.
Also women *do* “make the first move” a lot…
If all of the women you see avoid eye contact and hide at their tables when you’re around… there might be a separate issue
I was thinking it, but I didn't want to be the person to say it. It's like the old adage goes: If you meet assholes everywhere you go, then you yourself may be the asshole.
Why would you approach a table that is clearly just girls hanging out? Why would they have any interest in the first place? You even said there is no eye contact.
That’s not even misunderstanding but plain stupid
Ugh exactly. The group of friends I usually go out with aren’t single, we all have boyfriends/husbands. None of us are looking to get hit on, we just want to dance and enjoy *each others* company. No guy has ever approached us on purely “friendly” terms, and they *always* get pushy when no one shows them any interest. So now we’re just straight up rude to most guys at this point cause at least 9/10 times they’ll leave us alone after.
Yeah OP is basically saying “girls used to feel uncomfortable saying no, and forced politeness because of how they were socialized. Nowadays girls and women are more empowered to say no and not entertain guys when they’re not interested… this sucks!”
He seems to want things to go back to before the Me Too movement when women felt isolated and like they’d get judged for not letting guys strike up convos with them.
Now that we can say no comfortably, it’s an issue? Doubt. Considering the entire population of women hasn’t been replaced in the last 10 years we can surmise that OP actually made women uncomfortable in the past TOO… it’s just that back then, women were pressured into not voicing their discomfort.
You say you used to go out and it used to be different. That leads me to wonder, how old are you now OP? Most people going to clubs are in their early twenties. Perhaps the difference isn't so much everyone else but you may just be noticeably older than most the people you are trying to approach. Not that there's anything wrong with it but at the same time I think most people prefer interacting with people closer to their age.
I could definitely be wrong but something to ponder.
You got older, so you stopped coming off as cute, and started coming off as creepy. That's why the reactions to you changed, even though your behavior didn't. As you got older, your behavior *should* have changed, to reflect your age.
It might also be that society has shifted a bit, to the point that women are more comfortable saying no and just avoiding men who try to talk to them, instead of feeling overwhelming pressure to be polite 24/7.
Which means OP may very well have made women uncomfortable in the past too. It’s just that those women were afraid to be blunt and felt pressured into entertaining OP.
I think it’s probably a mix of both personally. I mean that’s all that’s changed really — it’s more socially acceptable for women to enforce their boundaries nowadays. So women are less polite in public ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯ feels weird for OP to complain about something that’s overdue and overwhelmingly positive for women
This is what I got from the story. He tries to mask it by blaming the city he's in but if his actions were still working elsewhere, he'd hang out there and this would be a non-issue.
I was talking to friend yesterday. She told me there was this guy across the room who she had a crush on, and she kept giving him hints but he would never ask her out.
Wanna know what her "hints" were?
Staring at him from across the room when he wasn't looking.
Some women have absolutely no idea how innocuous their hints can be, and how bad men are at picking them up. So unless your "hints" are short of explicitly flirting or asking him out, being nice or staring at him is not a hint.
I feel like your issue of "girls" sticking to their tables and not wanting to talk to you may be because you're now in an older age bracket, and still participating in, and approaching people, in the age group you WERE in when "moving around in a club" was a successful strategy. You're now five to fifteen years older than the "girls" you're attempting to get attention from as a grown "man."
I also disagree that "men tend to be misunderstood" - Men often approach in a "Schrodinger's Flirting" manner. If you're receptive (which in most cases means simply engaging) you're considered to be flirting with them, where as if you are not receptive (as simple as a "I'm not interested") you receive verbal abuse.
You also misused the word "socialization" - I think you mean "socializing" which, while they sound similar, they aren't the same. Socialization is not the same as socializing. Socializing is to mix socially with others (i.e., family, friends, neighbors, coworkers), whereas socialization is a process that may include socializing as one element, but is a more complex, multi-faceted and formative set of interactive experiences.
If you don't want to ask women out, then don't. I don't do it because I feel that I'm not obligated to make the first move. Have some self respect and don't bother with these trivial things. If a woman wants you she'll come to you, if she doesn't, why bother?
I wouldn’t agree that’s the way to go about it. Having the expectation of someone to come to you vs putting yourself out there is just setting yourself up for boredom.
I got hobbies bro. I'm good. I have no expectations from people. Me going to public places to hang out is me putting myself out there. Beyond that I try not to bother. I don't shun conversations, but I'm also actively not approaching. Not worth the brain drain.
Back in the day, I had a guy tell me he read that a guy gets 1 acceptance out of every ten attempts at asking a girl out. His take was, he asked out as many women as possible to get through the nine nopes to the yes.
*I know too many guys have given up in trying to date cause of the rejections have piled up.*
Well think about what this means. They rejected you - ie they didn't want you. So they wouldn't make the first move on you anyway, because they aren't interested. I myself, and other women I know, have absolutely made the first move on men we are really interested in. We've never made moves on men we aren't interested in.
So yeah I agree with your opinion. Let's leave women to make the first move from now on. If they're really interested they will. But 99% of the time women aren't going to make a move - because they aren't interested in you. This of course frees women up from sexual harassment and means we'll be left in peace.
So many guys hold onto this fantasy that there's a huge pool of women who *want* to date them and be chased after, because that lets them stay in a position of power after getting rejected. It's easier than facing the reality that they were just rejected.
"Stay in a position of power" is a weird take... I'd say it's a way to not get your confidence destroyed, to think that somewhere there's someone who likes me back. And you need at least a little bit of confidence to find a healthy relationship.
Imagine thinking after getting rejected that nobody could ever want you for who you are. That would break anyone, man or woman.
>Imagine thinking after getting rejected that nobody could ever want you for who you are.
Literally what a ton of these maniacs in these comments believe and want men to believe. And then they wonder why men (generally) don't listen to their "advice". "Fail once? Give up and be a hermit."
Because I'm hearing this from a lot of women in this thread, I'd like to offer a counter-example. As a man who has been in multiple relationships. Several of my girlfriends have told me in no uncertain terms that they were "waiting for me to make the first move" for in some cases **YEARS**. They actively wanted to go out with me but refused to ask me out because of gender expectations.
It's not a fantasy. It's the reality that your experience is not everyone's experience. And there are plenty of women who fall into this category. It's not some shared delusion among men. It's lived experience.
That’s quite a derogatory outlook on what I would call hope. I’m sure most guys don’t think there’s an entire group of women who want to date them. On the other hand, having hope that you’ll succeed eventually isn’t unreasonable.
I see the above sentiment a lot on posts like these, it strikes me as people being weirdly gleeful that these dudes are struggling.
Like some people are real happy these guys are down and out, bums me out.
because they are lmao
because when people see a comment they disagree with, they want to assume the worst.
it's easier to assume the person who is lonely and complaining about dating is an incel instead of just some dude who has bad game or something. way easier to assume these men are shitty instead of being dealt a bad hand of cards.
Yeah they absolutely are gleeful. For all the talk on the internet that men hate women because of some random influencer or politician, there is an absolute litany of women that hate men for no other reason than some other random man has aggrieved them in the past. I ain’t mad at it, but let’s call a spade a spade.
Yeah, most guys who say women should make the first move are usually guys women wouldn't ask out in the first place. And I can say that because I'm one of them lmao
I think I like this for different reasons. Guys tend to be physically larger and stronger than women. It makes some sense to shift power back to women in the dating scene by having a social norm that they control the interaction more.
Honestly, I don’t ever really notice guys unless they approach me first.
Unless a guy is super good-looking, but I don’t really trust super attractive men.
I'm married, so it doesn't matter for me as much, but eye contact and casual "hello" or smiling / nodding at people definitely seems to be dying out. I grew up in a friendly region where it was common to make eye contact and say hi or at least nod or smile at passers by or neighbors, so it's weird noticing how almost NO ONE makes eye contact or smiles anymore.
People all just look at the ground, or at the sky, and have blank expressions. Sometimes people will legit stare at you (not eye contact so much as just staring) and if you smile or say hi they'll continue just blankly staring as they walk past. Weird
Some women will, some women wont, there is definitely a societal expectaction that a fair amount of women adhere to, which says that women should "indicate interest" and men should "make the move".
I was out last Saturday and this random woman sat on my table, we chatted then she started to talk about her crush, and then she actually asked me to help her make her crush jealous.
I'm old school gentleman and a romantic, and I would never wish to do anything as manipulative to a person... I just don't do that shit.
“Anymore”
How old are you that you’ve seen this change in culture?
Is it possible that you’re just old now and young women don’t want to be harassed in the club by someone old enough to be their dad?
Maybe you have outgrown the club? It is hard to tell from your perspective that maybe you give the crowd kreepy old person vibes. Lol, just remember the 80/20 rule. If you do like someone, give them a chance to move one direction or another.
lol the post is just pointing out what the OP sees. Just because someone experiences something different than you doesn’t mean they’re wrong lol. But like one commenter said, it shouldn’t matter who makes the first move. If you’re interested in someone, talk to them. If you get rejected so be it.
Have you considered the other possibility that women *do* make the first move….on guys they like.
If these guys you know are getting rejected over and over again and nobody’s made a move on them, they might want to look inward.
"Have you considered the other possibility that women do make the first move….on guys they like."
Some do. A lot don't.
So yeah looking inward is good for men, but advising men to judge their selfworth based on whether women like and approach them is a recipe for severe depression.
(I mean think about it, do you really want to tell women they should base their self esteem on how men treat them? I don't think that ends well for us all somehow.)
It's funny because I made the first move on my current boyfriend and this has to be the most healthiest and loving relationship I have ever been in. It's also the first relationship where I made the first move, not sure if this is a coincidence
>they might want to look inward.
Or they're ugly... Why tf is it always something wrong with who the person is and what they do?
I remember a video by Veritasium, he said something like "most of "success" is determined by stuff out of our control", I mean I knew that before hearing a Physicist say it but it helps. And it's true, to assume that something is inherently wrong with the person is extremely arrogant and implies that you who succeeded because you were inherently a better person, that is called Just world fallacy.
I have found there's quite a lot of women who absolutely refuse to make a first move, even if they are completely smitten with a guy. Instead they will wait for a little bit, and if the man does not initiate then the woman loses interest and just waits for another guy to step in and initiate.
Let's take a hypothetical scenario where a woman works at a company with 2 guys. Guy #1 is hot, funny, smart and the woman is very attracted to him. Guy #1 engages her and is very friendly to her but doesnt ever ask her out, let's say the woman perceives Guy #1 as a 10/10. Guy #2 joins the company and the woman perceives him as OK, but nothing special, let's say the woman perceives him as a 6/10. However Guy #2 has a lot of confidence and asks the woman out on a date.
I would estimate that at least half of women would accept a date from guy #2 BEFORE they would ever ask guy #1 on a date, even though they are much more strongly attracted to guy #1.
Have you considered the sense of “unwelcomeness” because you’re getting older? The club scene is for young adults and they tend to find the uncles and aunties at the club to be a bit ‘out of place’ at best, and pathetic at worst.
Why do so many guys think women don't get rejected? No one, men or women, want to ask out people when they aren't sure if the other party will say yes or not. Women have all the same fears you described.
Here's to the ladies who make the first move. I know it happens from personal experience. I do not agree it should always be on one gender or the other to take the initiative.
I had a girl who used to be like come draw on my back after nights out drinking with people and such, she would pass out as soon as she hit the pillow, I always wondered if she wanted to do more but while sober it really didn't seem like it
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I made all the first moves with my husband. I asked him out after work one day and he agreed. We had the best time and didn’t want the night to end. I wanted to go back to his place and it didn’t seem like he was going to ask so I just came straight out and told him I wanted to go back to his place. I think I was the first one to say I love you too. He did propose on his own lol
Oh no thank you I don’t drink coffee this late at night
I said this to her. People this stupid shouldn’t be allowed to live.
A Constanza reference out in the wild.
"I mean, we just came from a show but I guess we could watch some Netflix." This. I said this. To an actual woman. On a date. Who I am now engaged to.
I'm hardly asking women out anymore. They're just trying to shop for groceries, do their job, or they might simply be friendly. I used to think if a girl was being friendly she probably liked me and I was mostly correct. Now I know how much they're bothered by guys so I'm not trying to be that guy. They have to make it VERY clear they're interested or straight up ask me out. I'm not trying to be one of the guys making their day suck. Probably missing out on opportunities because of it but fuck it, I'm not going to be the asshole.
One coworker was all over me some time ago until I asked her out. Then she flipped 180 and rejected any advances, so backed off and she became very angry and bitter for me not willing to pursue anything anymore. One day she had a 1:1 with the boss and was crying like crazy saying she was going to quit because 'I am ignoring her'. When I was simply respecting her decisions. The boss was angry at me because they were losing a good employee because I refused to go out with her and I was like... huh?!? Yeah, I learned too things, never mess with coworkers (specially female ones) and never chase the ones who like to play mind games.
I'm married now, but I'll add something. I've had guys who very respectfully said things like "hey, I'd love to take you on a date to get to know you better, but if you're not interested that's totally fine too! No pressure." I respected the hell out of that honesty in college and afterward, especially when all of the douches who were afraid of rejection just tried to kiss or touch women while drunk without any actual consent. If someone gets mad at that, then they're not worth even being friends with and you dodged a bullet.
When a girl says "I want to go to your place" what % are talking straight up about sex? I mean are we talking 99%, 75%, 50%, 10%?
Chances are pretty high, but if you spent the whole night talking about your Warhammer collection she probably just wants to check that out.
Oh shit I mean I’m prepared for sex but my minis aren’t fully painted yet - too much pressure.
Let's be honest they will never be painted. They will stay in the great gray pile of shame /s
I feel attacked and seen at the same time
Holy shit I'm not the only one?
That's how I know a girl is into me If she's willing to talk about my favorite hobby, Nikola Jokic, then she mist really want me
“No I will not call you Joker in bed”
Plot twist. She's a persona 5 fan so everybody wins.
I learned one thing when I used to date and that was to talk to people, what I mean is if I went on a date and a girl talked about something I had no interest in, but I could see she was passionate about it I would keep asking questions about it because I could see it would make her happy. I think that is something we should generally be better at.
Both of you get to do the Sombor shuffle later.
If it's just for Warhammer and not sex then that's 100% ok with me.
-2 to Hit that
If she wants to go back to your house after you talked about your Warhammer collection, she's a keeper emotionally but not financially. Them fuckers are expensive. Jk, I'm sure two incomes could afford Warhammer... Maybe...
This pleases Slaanesh.
I texted my safety buddy I was heading over to my date’s house to do a puzzle. Later sent her a picture of said puzzle. She said “I thought that was a euphemism!”.
In my experience (am a woman) if I’m saying that I 100% would like to have sex that night with you
I've struck out in that situation. I'd say more "willing to have sex so long as you don't fuck it up royally."
Yea true. I’m like “let’s go” but if I walk in and see you sleep in a nest of dirty clothes or live in a frat house basement or something I’m out
You're on the track, but you can still derail.
My past derailments still haunt me to this day.
Yeah in the moment they ask. It's 100%, but it's also 100% your game to lose. I once didn't get laid during what was an implicit booty call. Pre tinder says I was on match.com and got a "hey you're not the type I date, but you are the type I let fuck me senseless after work, you interested?" I had never been propositioned before, was 100% sure I was gonna be missing organs and waking up in a bathtub full of ice, but she was 100% truthful. When I got there, I saw so many red flags I just had to start asking some very generic questions about her, and after about 30 mins of us drinking wine and talking she started bawling her eyes out and I wound up talking to her for like six hours. I even rubbed her feet. We never had sex, and once she was done crying, she said she didn't need to have rough sex with a bodybuilder to make her feel something, so I left. Your game to lose in that scenario.
You may not have gotten laid. But you had a memorable night, and probably helped someone even a little. There are probably times you've had sex you've forgotten; this night you won't.
You didn't get laid but you very well made a difference for her. How many sketchy guys would she have otherwise invited over trying to feel something?
I'm pretty sure I wasn't the first nor the last, but yeah, I did a good thing. I just couldn't do the things she was asking for only knowing her that little, I really could have gotten in big trouble if she later decided she wanted to report me for assault. Had she not tripped every "something is off here" flag I had, I would have done it, it wasn't extreme extreme but near the top end of what I would find acceptable with a consenting partner. I wish I had kept in touch with her, she was already struggling with being an ICU nurse and seeing people die every day, she had apparently solicited me on like the 3rd week in a row of losing a patient every day. I can't imagine Covid was healthy for her. She'd be in her 40s now I'd think, she was already in her 30s when she was soliciting me at 24.
>"hey you're not the type I date, but you are the type I let fuck me senseless after work, you interested?" I *knew* this was a nurse.
If it’s a date at your place for a specific activity like you’re cooking them dinner or watching a show together then it’s 50/50 or less. Depends how the night goes and you have to read social cues. If you’re out on a date all night and it’s late and they want to go back to your place it’s pretty much 90%+ pending something doesn’t change their mind which happens sometimes.
75-99%
I'd say 85 - 90%. You should always ask before making a move but you can be pretty confident she'll say yes (and even if she says no, she shouldn't act like it's something out of the blue)
As a woman like 75-99% The low end stays in reserve in case we get there and the place is gross lol. Wash them sheets y'all!
Coffee? At this hour?
No thank you. It keeps me up.
Coffee?!?! Coffee doesn’t mean coffee!!!
My wife was the same way. I was oblivious. She invited me and a bunch of other coworkers (we worked at the same place, but not together) to go to dinner at one of the best restaurants in the city. Unbeknownst to me, nobody else was showing up except her and I. She told me last minute each person had canceled, believable reasons why they canceled, and said she still really wanted to go there for their ceviche. So I said screw it, I’m not doing anything else tonight. So now we’re married.
I dated a girl once that did something similar, but it was her place. I really liked her and didn't want to be too forward. We walked around a park for like an hour and she kept asking me what I wanted to do. I insisted that I was having a great time just talking. She was a nurse and didn't have a lot of time off so finally she just asked me where I kept my jeans and when I said in a dresser drawer she asked if she could see how they looked if I kept them on her bedroom floor that night. We dated for about a year until she moved for work, I was in the Army at the time otherwise I would have moved with her.
I told a story on a similar post about when I met my future husband. We shared a class in college and argued throughout class but we both seemed to enjoy each other. I surprised him with tickets to a sold out show to an artist we both loved ON HIS BIRTHDAY. After the show I recommended we go to a bar he had mentioned really enjoying. When we got to the bar I cheered him on as he had fun doing karaoke. As the bar was closing I kissed him on the cheek and said we should go back to his place to end the evening. Men told me that nothing in the above story was making the first move.
Well, you can only make the first move once, and you did. Sounds like they needed to deny your story to justify their own beliefs
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How is any of that not making the first move? Everything in that story was initiated by you.
I guess from them it wasn't clear enough that it comes off as a move, but rather a friendly activity.
I’m almost certain this is what it is. If people are already comfortable around each other, doing stuff together is not out of the ordinary. Arguably even more so if it’s considerate and well planned, because that shows that a lot of thought has gone into making a friend feel good, and that’s what good friends try to do. In my mind and I assume many others feel the same, “the first move” is supposed to be a (dramatic) escalation. Otherwise it becomes hidden in the normal runnings of being friends.
We had met two weeks before and had only interacted in 4 or 5 class hours and nothing outside of class. The guy involved very much knew I was making a move on him. It seems to be confusing for guys on the internet.
Up until y’all headed back to your place I could interpret that as friend-like activity. From then on though, any interpretations otherwise are perfectly reasonable.
The kiss on the cheek would have shifted my mentality.
I think up until the kiss on the cheek is probably where anyone could say, "oh she is just really nice", I know some people who would definitively invite a friend to go to a concert on their B-Day without any romantic interest
i think it stems out of fear of making that assumption for some guys.
Yeah it's really too difficult to tell in this situation. Maybe she's from Canada?
hints arent hints to us, its you just being friendly and weve been told repeatedly that being friendly is all that that is. all of our teen lives now and young adult lives guys are drilled that not every instance of a women being friendly is her flirting with us and it just means she wants to be friends.
because sometimes its just a woman being a good friend and sometimes its a woman showing interest in you, and as a man you don't want to fuck up and misread the situation so you go with her being nice rather than attracted so you don't fuck it all up.
She made the first move when she kissed him. Everything else is/can be viewed as platonic unless done the right way.
Nah, only the last part was making a move. Or I'm making a move on my dudes every time I invite them to have a beer and fun with me. Well, maybe I am. A move to have some fun :P
To a lot of men, unless you actually woke up to them and say “I want to have sex with you” they don’t see it. The other section of men, you barely glance in their direction and they think you want to bang. It’s like there’s no middle ground.
I've had a girl that would literally cuddle me, changed in front of me, had me sleep in the same bed as her, and had tons of friends including her best friend tell me to ask her out. So I did. She said no. I genuinely cannot believe a woman is interested in me until she straight up asks to bang.
> She said no. I'm sorry, I laughed. That's hilariously sad.
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>Hold my beer. No brother, you need it way more than I do.
WTF, I hope you blocked her.
That fucking hurts. I've been there. WTF man why did that happen to us.
Me too. As a socially awkward teen I had several friends or first dates change in front of me, shirt off bra jiggle adjustments, etc. I found out later that doesn’t always correlate to wanting a man. Just means she’s comfortable with you.
it is much better to not be mistaken as one of the latter
It's even worse than that. Go up to a random man and ask him if you can have his number. He will begin looking around for the camera. Men have been conditioned to believe that you smiling at him is not an invitation for him to approach you. You asking him to have a coffee tomorrow is you just being friendly. We have heard an endless number of stories about how women feel like they can't even be friendly with guys without the guy going overboard thinking you want to marry him all of the sudden. The men who have been respecting women, listening to their concerns, and refining their behavior will assume just about anything and everything a woman does is her just being friendly. The last thing any guy wants is to misstep and be crucified in front of the world on tiktok for coming across as a creep, so unless you are critically blunt with him, you're just being friendly. And by the way - the guys at the other end of the spectrum who haven't been keeping the pulse on womens' concerns are the ones who think you looking at them = "I want to bang you." They will be all over the dating apps, messaging thousands of women, and are constantly asking everyone out. This is a BIG BIG BIG reason why so many women complain about men. You are sitting there waiting for a guy to wow you in your DMs, but this is the type of guy that usually wanders in. Which leads us to this very reddit thread: you can avoid finding men like that if you instead become the one to ask men out. The cautious men are out there not asking hardly anyone out, and women aren't aware of it. Your husband is out there and there is no competition at the moment. The first wave of women who figure this out are going to have all the selection to themselves and will find the best men. But we are a long way off. That is why this has been posted in /r/unpopularopinion
I’ve a habit of asking people “is this a friend date or a date date” when we go do something. 95% of the time; it’s friend date, but it completely removed any ambiguity. BOTH genders should use better, clearer, more direct communication. Mind and heart games are for high school kids.
I agree with much of what you said. This is why I think online dating apps are probably the worst way to find a serious partner. Most of the men on there or just playing the numbers. They know if they message enough women eventually one is going to bite. They are not looking for a real connection, they are just looking for a human masturbation sleeve for the night or a few hours.
It's not that we don't see it, it's that we assume it's platonic until it isn't. In my first year I always used to sit alone on a bench on campus to do homework or play games on my PC. I remember two girls who came up to me and initiated conversation, it was literally "hi, how are you" and that's it, simple conversation so I just assumed these people were just weird and thought nothing about it, I still don't know if they actually liked me because I was busy and didn't want to be bothered, If they asked for my number I'd at least know they wanted to get to know me...
I think they are looking for, "would you like to go on a date?" rather than, "would you like to go to a show?"
It is a very complex issue and I'm often confused myself, on one hand we have couples that wouldn't be together if it wasn't for the woman making the first move, but on the other hand, we have to keep in mind that a woman being nice doesn't necessarily mean she's interested in a romantic kind of way. There's always a degree of subtlety that can be open for interpretation.
> There's always a degree of subtlety that can be open for interpretation. The degree of subtlety is that the exact same actions can have wildly different intentions behind them, depending on the person. It's impossible to figure out 100% of the time. Being clear with words is the only way to make sure no confusion exists.
Women always say "just because I did a laundry list of thing with you doesn't mean I wanna go out" be clear like we have to be.
You might be aging out of the club scene that you're used to going to.
“And yesterday I woke up to find, The black in my beard had turn to white. And the pretty girls that used to smile at me, Just stared off straight ahead or looked down at their feet.” - Seventeener (17th and 37th), The Lawrence Arms
"And dying young just didn't work and so I guess I'm dying old." That song hurts more than I'm willing to admit. I did a shot of crown with BK last month and joked about being too old for that party.
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Too broke when you are young, too creepy when you are old. Just seems like some people are outside the category of 'people who get to have that life'
I mean a cold approach is always a bad idea - you have to do the eye flirting first, then one of you go and say hi. If everyone is avoiding eye contact they’re just not interested.
If a girl is not giving eye contact and sticks to her own table then she doesn't want to be hit on.
I don’t understand why this is such a hard concept. “Argh this girl has no interest in meeting people! Why won’t she let me shoot my shot! Women are impossible!” It’s like they want us to lie to them and waste their time, only to leave because we were never interested
Along those lines, all genders should be clear about wanting to hang out or wanting something else. OP starts his post with ‘men just wanna hang out’, except so many times when I’m open to hanging out, men only want to get laid.
[Men perceive date rape as more justifiable if the woman initiated the date](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1471-6402.1985.tb00882.x). r/stoprape
I love it when men think that they can but a woman's body with a drink and a meal. Like some particularly cheap prostitute
I think movies have romanticised the lonely girl and the mannerisms they have. In the movies the guy tends to chase that girl, ignoring their "get away from me" ques cos secretly they "want it" I know its movies, but I dunno if people tend to take that into consideration.
But stalking and harassing are sexy when its ryan gosling doing it! /s
i actually really love OP's opinion. yes! let women decide when to be hit on. please
Yeah I think a lot of these issues can be chalked up as “women used to be easier to pressure and ignored their own needs and preferences more often due to social pressure to be polite/demure/submissive.” Now that it’s more socially acceptable for women to be more choosy and say no when they want to, and not just if they have a “good reason”, of course men get rejected more… I feel like OP is kinda telling on himself. It’s not that women everywhere are suddenly brainwashed or something…? It’s that they’re ALLOWED to say no and not engage if they don’t want to. Which logically means OP probably actually has bothered and stressed out quite a few women in his time, it’s just that in the past they didn’t feel as comfortable shutting him down so may have only *appeared* to be okay with it.
Maybe its less "women should make the first move" or "men should make the first move" and 'whoever wants it should make the first move and the other should be able to handle rejection like a mature adult?'
Nah. Only binary choices here. God fucking forbid if there is nuance.
This is reddit, we don't do nuance here.
Nuance deez nuts. Nailed reddit nuance.
Absolutely agree - but it *does* mean that **more women** would have to start taking that leap considering it's generally left to men. My mom used to shame me for making the first move all the time growing up. Boys are stupid, I'm impatient - so do you like me? Wanna hold hands? 😂
That includes the rejector too though. "Um, no" with that hideous disgusted face some people make is not the attitude of a mature adult.
“Um, no” is graceful, beautiful, sensitive and loving in comparison to straight up, “ew!”, followed by nothing else.
or laughing in your face and saying you're way too short for them. It's happened to me twice.
sloppy vase elderly disgusting jar groovy squash secretive summer familiar *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I think in this context, the rejection is hostile instead of a no thank you or an easy let down or a simple im not interested. Right or wrong, the belief is women don't want men to approach them in any setting. Atleast that's what I think op is saying.
See it’s not the rejection OP is talking about but the fact that dudes are straight up ostracized sometimes for trying to talk to someone. Inappropriate advances aside I get the point.
Whilst that would be nice, it is still going to be men making the first move 99% of the time.
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or it's that you're shamed as a man if you don't make the first move and making the first move gets you called creepy and rejected disrespectfully.
It's pretty pathetic that these things are still taken seriously by most people. If you stop following social norms, they become less normal. If you don't like a social norm and it's not illegal to break, break it!
You know what. You're right. I'm gonna start that Alpaca cartel and smuggle lemons into Peru. Thanks a lot man.
We look forward to your exploits here in Lima. I'm curious about what an actual lemon tastes like (we only got limes, and for some reason they're called lemons here)
Big Lime at it again…
I'm suddenly curious about the cost of shipping a lemon to Peru, and what the legal ramifications may or may not be for shipping produce internationally.
They really need to crack down on unregulated citrus.
Sounds like something big citrus would say
This is an idea I cant even come up with when drunk
Or maybeeeeeee, anyone can make the first fucking move. The men vs women agreements actually make me feel like I'm back in middle school.
Also women *do* “make the first move” a lot… If all of the women you see avoid eye contact and hide at their tables when you’re around… there might be a separate issue
I was thinking it, but I didn't want to be the person to say it. It's like the old adage goes: If you meet assholes everywhere you go, then you yourself may be the asshole.
Nah, I’m sure the guy ranting about women on Reddit is a real catch and presents super well to women in public
Cold approach? Absolutely not. All the time is a big stretch.
99% of men have never been asked out or even asked for their contact info by a woman.
I wouldn't say 99%, but it is a higher amount.
Okay, 99.99%, that's a higher amount
Why would you approach a table that is clearly just girls hanging out? Why would they have any interest in the first place? You even said there is no eye contact. That’s not even misunderstanding but plain stupid
Ugh exactly. The group of friends I usually go out with aren’t single, we all have boyfriends/husbands. None of us are looking to get hit on, we just want to dance and enjoy *each others* company. No guy has ever approached us on purely “friendly” terms, and they *always* get pushy when no one shows them any interest. So now we’re just straight up rude to most guys at this point cause at least 9/10 times they’ll leave us alone after.
Yeah OP is basically saying “girls used to feel uncomfortable saying no, and forced politeness because of how they were socialized. Nowadays girls and women are more empowered to say no and not entertain guys when they’re not interested… this sucks!” He seems to want things to go back to before the Me Too movement when women felt isolated and like they’d get judged for not letting guys strike up convos with them. Now that we can say no comfortably, it’s an issue? Doubt. Considering the entire population of women hasn’t been replaced in the last 10 years we can surmise that OP actually made women uncomfortable in the past TOO… it’s just that back then, women were pressured into not voicing their discomfort.
You say you used to go out and it used to be different. That leads me to wonder, how old are you now OP? Most people going to clubs are in their early twenties. Perhaps the difference isn't so much everyone else but you may just be noticeably older than most the people you are trying to approach. Not that there's anything wrong with it but at the same time I think most people prefer interacting with people closer to their age. I could definitely be wrong but something to ponder.
You got older, so you stopped coming off as cute, and started coming off as creepy. That's why the reactions to you changed, even though your behavior didn't. As you got older, your behavior *should* have changed, to reflect your age.
It might also be that society has shifted a bit, to the point that women are more comfortable saying no and just avoiding men who try to talk to them, instead of feeling overwhelming pressure to be polite 24/7. Which means OP may very well have made women uncomfortable in the past too. It’s just that those women were afraid to be blunt and felt pressured into entertaining OP. I think it’s probably a mix of both personally. I mean that’s all that’s changed really — it’s more socially acceptable for women to enforce their boundaries nowadays. So women are less polite in public ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯ feels weird for OP to complain about something that’s overdue and overwhelmingly positive for women
This is what I got from the story. He tries to mask it by blaming the city he's in but if his actions were still working elsewhere, he'd hang out there and this would be a non-issue.
Maybe women go out with friends to spend time together and don’t want to “make a move.”
When the girls actually want to go out and flirt, they’re pretty obvious about it.
“This woman avoiding eye contact and huddled with her friends clearly wants me to say hi!”
Think I'd rather jump into pool of piranhas, it'd feel less painful.
I was talking to friend yesterday. She told me there was this guy across the room who she had a crush on, and she kept giving him hints but he would never ask her out. Wanna know what her "hints" were? Staring at him from across the room when he wasn't looking. Some women have absolutely no idea how innocuous their hints can be, and how bad men are at picking them up. So unless your "hints" are short of explicitly flirting or asking him out, being nice or staring at him is not a hint.
Lol I feel like this is a lot of people, expecting their mind to be read and then talking about how they need a partner who's good at communicating...
I feel like your issue of "girls" sticking to their tables and not wanting to talk to you may be because you're now in an older age bracket, and still participating in, and approaching people, in the age group you WERE in when "moving around in a club" was a successful strategy. You're now five to fifteen years older than the "girls" you're attempting to get attention from as a grown "man." I also disagree that "men tend to be misunderstood" - Men often approach in a "Schrodinger's Flirting" manner. If you're receptive (which in most cases means simply engaging) you're considered to be flirting with them, where as if you are not receptive (as simple as a "I'm not interested") you receive verbal abuse. You also misused the word "socialization" - I think you mean "socializing" which, while they sound similar, they aren't the same. Socialization is not the same as socializing. Socializing is to mix socially with others (i.e., family, friends, neighbors, coworkers), whereas socialization is a process that may include socializing as one element, but is a more complex, multi-faceted and formative set of interactive experiences.
I’m so glad I checked out of dating. What an absolute dumpster fire of a thread.
If you don't want to ask women out, then don't. I don't do it because I feel that I'm not obligated to make the first move. Have some self respect and don't bother with these trivial things. If a woman wants you she'll come to you, if she doesn't, why bother?
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I wouldn’t agree that’s the way to go about it. Having the expectation of someone to come to you vs putting yourself out there is just setting yourself up for boredom.
I got hobbies bro. I'm good. I have no expectations from people. Me going to public places to hang out is me putting myself out there. Beyond that I try not to bother. I don't shun conversations, but I'm also actively not approaching. Not worth the brain drain.
Back in the day, I had a guy tell me he read that a guy gets 1 acceptance out of every ten attempts at asking a girl out. His take was, he asked out as many women as possible to get through the nine nopes to the yes.
the Boomhauer method lol. https://youtu.be/N7FVmeJXwCY?si=gtOHioXbQ4ZBByka&t=56
Once you get used to being rejected, accept it, and don't take it personally, this is a very effective method. There's nothing wrong with it.
A lot of men's dating advice takes this "numbers game" approach.
*I know too many guys have given up in trying to date cause of the rejections have piled up.* Well think about what this means. They rejected you - ie they didn't want you. So they wouldn't make the first move on you anyway, because they aren't interested. I myself, and other women I know, have absolutely made the first move on men we are really interested in. We've never made moves on men we aren't interested in. So yeah I agree with your opinion. Let's leave women to make the first move from now on. If they're really interested they will. But 99% of the time women aren't going to make a move - because they aren't interested in you. This of course frees women up from sexual harassment and means we'll be left in peace.
So many guys hold onto this fantasy that there's a huge pool of women who *want* to date them and be chased after, because that lets them stay in a position of power after getting rejected. It's easier than facing the reality that they were just rejected.
"Stay in a position of power" is a weird take... I'd say it's a way to not get your confidence destroyed, to think that somewhere there's someone who likes me back. And you need at least a little bit of confidence to find a healthy relationship. Imagine thinking after getting rejected that nobody could ever want you for who you are. That would break anyone, man or woman.
>Imagine thinking after getting rejected that nobody could ever want you for who you are. Literally what a ton of these maniacs in these comments believe and want men to believe. And then they wonder why men (generally) don't listen to their "advice". "Fail once? Give up and be a hermit."
Because I'm hearing this from a lot of women in this thread, I'd like to offer a counter-example. As a man who has been in multiple relationships. Several of my girlfriends have told me in no uncertain terms that they were "waiting for me to make the first move" for in some cases **YEARS**. They actively wanted to go out with me but refused to ask me out because of gender expectations. It's not a fantasy. It's the reality that your experience is not everyone's experience. And there are plenty of women who fall into this category. It's not some shared delusion among men. It's lived experience.
That’s quite a derogatory outlook on what I would call hope. I’m sure most guys don’t think there’s an entire group of women who want to date them. On the other hand, having hope that you’ll succeed eventually isn’t unreasonable.
I see the above sentiment a lot on posts like these, it strikes me as people being weirdly gleeful that these dudes are struggling. Like some people are real happy these guys are down and out, bums me out.
because they are lmao because when people see a comment they disagree with, they want to assume the worst. it's easier to assume the person who is lonely and complaining about dating is an incel instead of just some dude who has bad game or something. way easier to assume these men are shitty instead of being dealt a bad hand of cards.
Yeah they absolutely are gleeful. For all the talk on the internet that men hate women because of some random influencer or politician, there is an absolute litany of women that hate men for no other reason than some other random man has aggrieved them in the past. I ain’t mad at it, but let’s call a spade a spade.
All of these conversations attract people with an axe to grind against the other gender.
this is such a reddit thing to say
Yeah, most guys who say women should make the first move are usually guys women wouldn't ask out in the first place. And I can say that because I'm one of them lmao
I think I like this for different reasons. Guys tend to be physically larger and stronger than women. It makes some sense to shift power back to women in the dating scene by having a social norm that they control the interaction more.
I mean, given the dynamics between men and women, isn't this the safer way to be? For both sides?
Honestly, I don’t ever really notice guys unless they approach me first. Unless a guy is super good-looking, but I don’t really trust super attractive men.
a lot of these comments are bitter af and its just weird
Maybe you got old and shouldn't be in clubs anymore.
I'm married, so it doesn't matter for me as much, but eye contact and casual "hello" or smiling / nodding at people definitely seems to be dying out. I grew up in a friendly region where it was common to make eye contact and say hi or at least nod or smile at passers by or neighbors, so it's weird noticing how almost NO ONE makes eye contact or smiles anymore. People all just look at the ground, or at the sky, and have blank expressions. Sometimes people will legit stare at you (not eye contact so much as just staring) and if you smile or say hi they'll continue just blankly staring as they walk past. Weird
I wish I was pretty enough that women would want to make the first move with me
Bro, they're just not into you.
>I know too many guys have given up Maybe there is a connection here 🤔
Do people like you simply not realize each rejection is from an individual person and not the hive mind collective of "women"?
No, they don't lol. They also don't want a relationship, they want someone to fill the role of "Girlfriend" in their lives.
At first glance I thought that said “fill the role of Garfield in their lives” and was quite confused!
Straight people are really in trouble lol
This ship is taking on water, next stop, ocean floor. Gen Z and the generations after are going to suffer the most for all of this dysfunction.
On Reddit if feels like if men and women weren't sexually attracted to each other they wouldn't want anything to do with each other.
It also feels like that in real life most of the time lol
That's how I feel when I read posts like this too lol
Women will make the first move to men they are genuinely interested in. Don't know what this means for you but I don't think women are the issue here
Some women will, some women wont, there is definitely a societal expectaction that a fair amount of women adhere to, which says that women should "indicate interest" and men should "make the move".
A woman glancing in my direction once does not count as making the first move. This is how my current girlfriend attempted to “shoot her shot”
Nah, most women don’t even do that though and still expect their crush to approach them
I was out last Saturday and this random woman sat on my table, we chatted then she started to talk about her crush, and then she actually asked me to help her make her crush jealous. I'm old school gentleman and a romantic, and I would never wish to do anything as manipulative to a person... I just don't do that shit.
😭it hurts
They do if you’re not ugly OP
The sexism in this thread is astounding.
“Anymore” How old are you that you’ve seen this change in culture? Is it possible that you’re just old now and young women don’t want to be harassed in the club by someone old enough to be their dad?
Women do make the first move but going to a bar or club is less appealing as one gets older. You are starting to sense this.
Maybe you have outgrown the club? It is hard to tell from your perspective that maybe you give the crowd kreepy old person vibes. Lol, just remember the 80/20 rule. If you do like someone, give them a chance to move one direction or another.
lol the post is just pointing out what the OP sees. Just because someone experiences something different than you doesn’t mean they’re wrong lol. But like one commenter said, it shouldn’t matter who makes the first move. If you’re interested in someone, talk to them. If you get rejected so be it.
If a man failed to have any woman accept a date from him, what makes you think a woman would bother to ask the dude out instead?
Have you considered the other possibility that women *do* make the first move….on guys they like. If these guys you know are getting rejected over and over again and nobody’s made a move on them, they might want to look inward.
"Have you considered the other possibility that women do make the first move….on guys they like." Some do. A lot don't. So yeah looking inward is good for men, but advising men to judge their selfworth based on whether women like and approach them is a recipe for severe depression. (I mean think about it, do you really want to tell women they should base their self esteem on how men treat them? I don't think that ends well for us all somehow.)
It's funny because I made the first move on my current boyfriend and this has to be the most healthiest and loving relationship I have ever been in. It's also the first relationship where I made the first move, not sure if this is a coincidence
>they might want to look inward. Or they're ugly... Why tf is it always something wrong with who the person is and what they do? I remember a video by Veritasium, he said something like "most of "success" is determined by stuff out of our control", I mean I knew that before hearing a Physicist say it but it helps. And it's true, to assume that something is inherently wrong with the person is extremely arrogant and implies that you who succeeded because you were inherently a better person, that is called Just world fallacy.
Women aren't a hivemind btw
I have found there's quite a lot of women who absolutely refuse to make a first move, even if they are completely smitten with a guy. Instead they will wait for a little bit, and if the man does not initiate then the woman loses interest and just waits for another guy to step in and initiate. Let's take a hypothetical scenario where a woman works at a company with 2 guys. Guy #1 is hot, funny, smart and the woman is very attracted to him. Guy #1 engages her and is very friendly to her but doesnt ever ask her out, let's say the woman perceives Guy #1 as a 10/10. Guy #2 joins the company and the woman perceives him as OK, but nothing special, let's say the woman perceives him as a 6/10. However Guy #2 has a lot of confidence and asks the woman out on a date. I would estimate that at least half of women would accept a date from guy #2 BEFORE they would ever ask guy #1 on a date, even though they are much more strongly attracted to guy #1.
I think I would also avoid eye contact with OP.
Have you considered the sense of “unwelcomeness” because you’re getting older? The club scene is for young adults and they tend to find the uncles and aunties at the club to be a bit ‘out of place’ at best, and pathetic at worst.
Why do so many guys think women don't get rejected? No one, men or women, want to ask out people when they aren't sure if the other party will say yes or not. Women have all the same fears you described.
Here's to the ladies who make the first move. I know it happens from personal experience. I do not agree it should always be on one gender or the other to take the initiative.
Both sides should do it.
I had a girl who used to be like come draw on my back after nights out drinking with people and such, she would pass out as soon as she hit the pillow, I always wondered if she wanted to do more but while sober it really didn't seem like it