Dating question: When is it ok for a man to approach a women he doesn’t know to ask for her number?

In My Humble Opinion
81

OK. I understand what you’re saying, pretty sure.

And agree, to the extent that “girlfriend-seeking-mode” is (great analogy/phrasing, BTW!) some kind of hidden pretext or “secret” one is hiding from the “other.”

But, there’s a danger in over-complicating this “strange tropical dance done by the natives!” I don’t see any difference at all, as long as there’s honest, typical communication.

Which, yes, includes being receptive to the concerns of the other.

But I will state pretty frankly that, as a single relatively young guy myself, although not actually looking for a LTR, there’s never not a time that I’m not “DTF.” And, I know that all of my coworkers and friends know this, including the single or married, or partnered women, so, let’s say half or more of the people I encounter most days. And, sure, my boss’s boss’s boss (a woman of about my age) knows this…but we get along fine. “Hey, you! Everything going OK?” And so forth.

I’d be hesitant to create too many subcategories of “types of modes of seeking behavior” and so forth. For me, there’s only one “mode,” and it just isn’t a problem. It takes just a second or so of casual “Hey! Name’s Blahblah” for it to be already out there. That new coworker? Yes, she knew I was checking her out, and I’m sure exactly the same from her to me, and then it’s already decided. Done. We met, and I welcomed her to the team, she knows my game, and that’s that. She knows that I know that she knows that I know that she knows &c. And it’s finished, so we can go do our own tasks and so forth. Maybe more, maybe not at all.

Just as much, one doesn’t want to collapse all relations into “one thing”…however, I find there really are just about two types of “conversations” (including everything nonverbal involved): honest, and deceptive.

As to how that relates to random people on a streetcorner…not much different. IMHO. The conversation’s already half over if you reach over to grab a box of…cheetos, or whatever…at a grocery store, or restaurant or whatever. “Oh, pardon my reach, miss.” It’s no thing. Person who leads with their chin is looking to get flattened.

82

Yeah. And it’s not just about the implicit threat of a man. It occurs to me that the last several people who have hit on me were lesbians. (One of whom interrupted the conversation suddenly to say, “you’re straight, aren’t you?”, and after i confirmed, the tone of the conversation shifted gears.) And I’m large enough that a woman would have to be pretty explicitly threatening to feel like a physical threat. And when it’s happened, the situation was appropriate, and i was flattered, not frightened. But even so, if a woman came up to me at the supermarket and invited me on a date out of the blue, I’d be pretty freaked out.

Part of it, yes, is a dance. There’s a ritual. A lot of animals have very explicit mating dances. I read a sad story about a breed of chickens where the mating dance had been accidentally bred out of the roosters, and it caused real problems. The rosters were trying to rape the hens. All the animals were wasting energy dealing with each other, and some of them were injured. We aren’t that different from other animals. If you follow the dance steps, no one gets hurt.

83

Worse. Much worse. Random stranger walks up and says “hey can I get your phone number?”, the most polite version of an answer to expect is a flat “no”.

84

Got it, but there is something about this that feels like ‘how can we just skip most directly to the part that I want out of this?’, and that is at odds with normal, balanced social interaction.

85

I can easily tell we never danced together

/s

86

I haven’t read all of the preceding comments, so this may be repeating stuff already said, but my $0.02

Re: real-world approaches
The key mistake men make I think, is of having an objective of getting a woman’s number as the very reason for starting the interaction. If you’re a super handsome guy then maybe that’s fine, but for the rest of us, the chance of a given woman being interested is low. Plus it’s just not a very positive way to look on the interaction. So I don’t go in thinking like that.

I just socialize in social situations. And if I happen to be talking to a woman I am attracted to, I’ll listen out for hints that she’s interested in me. If the signs are there, then I’ll casually mention some activity I’m doing next week, not actually ask her out.
If she wants to come, well there’s a date. If she says it sounds cool but she is not free that day, that’s still pretty positive (as I wasn’t actually asking her out yet). If the response is a shrug, well, never mind. It’s still a positive interaction and I didn’t need to be overtly rejected.

Re: internet dating
Internet dating now is amazing, nothing like the early days.
I never fail to be surprised by how attractive the women are on these platforms; you would think that they have dozens of dating prospects around them every day.

And it’s really easy for guys on these sites, because most men are dicks it seems. They have childish profiles squeezing their muscles, they send dick pics, they immediately ask for sex. Don’t do any of this, just have a profile showing lots of interesting activities and that you keep fit, and it’s easy to get dates.

87

If you’re only doing it with people you find physically attractive, then it is an attempt at sex. It may be an attempt at beginning a relationship that includes a lot more in addition to sex – but the sex is still why you want that woman’s phone number, and not (probably, these days) mine.

Nope. It is still rude, obnoxious, and potentially threatening; no matter how pretty the guy is.

88

I have several female friends, who are in their 40s, divorced, and who regularly use dating apps. They tell me that, for a woman of their age, who is looking for an actual relationship, and not just a hook-up, the signal-to-noise ratio is terrible.

From their reports, men who are their age aren’t interested in dating woman of that age: those men are largely divorced, and are, for the most part, looking to replace the ex-wife with a younger version. The apps’ matching algorithms are often weird, and match them with guys who, upon doing some in-app chatting, turn out to be wholly incompatible, from a beliefs/interests/lifestyle standpoint. And, finally, they have found that the guys with whom they actually go out on dates turn out to be jerks or only interested in sex (despite what they say on their dating profiles).

89

And for guys using dating apps, there are a lot of scam accounts (who all want to chat using WhatsApp, for some reason).

The thread has helped give me an insight into a phenomenon I’ve long witnessed: some guys always have a girlfriend, or are constantly going on dates, although they don’t appear to be so much better looking or more successful than the rest.

It’s not that they have some special skill at chatting up women they’d like to date.

Rather, it’s that they talk to everybody, which includes the women they’d like to date. (And dating, if it happens, begins with a continuation of a friendly conversation)

Calling that a revelation probably sounds dumb to most of you, but it’s a useful nuance for me to recognize.

90

Ah sorry, for a moment there I was just looking at things from a guy’s perspective. For the 30s or 40s age bracket, internet dating is great if you’re a guy…and probably sucks if you’re a woman.

From what I gather, a lot of the men just want hook ups, or are not fully adults yet, or have let themselves go physically, or are just really weird, or some combination of the above.

Like I say though, it’s not that long ago the situation was reversed; there were so many more men than women on the sites that guys really struggled to get any dates, and you had to put a lot of work into your profile. Now you just need to be chill and have good hygiene :smile:

91

Honestly if anyone calls you dumb for learning a thing they already happen to know, they’re the idiot.

Yeah, the selection of what makes you a match for someone else, whilst it can be done in different ways prior to meeting (like a dating app) traditionally happened in the social process - people get to know each other and let their guard down a bit, and you get a better chance to understand who you might like and who might like you.

It’s perfectly OK to want what you want, including wanting sex or intimacy. It’s part of what we are. It can be a bit too easy to get fixated on the thing you want (whatever it is) and start treating it as the most important thing. I can’t speak for every kind of relationship, but I know one that works, is comprised of both partners wanting a variety of things, and one of the most important things for each to want is that the other person is happy and fulfilled, and gets some of the things they want.

Edited to add: done right, this becomes mutual without being transactional. We both do the things each other wants, because it makes them happy, not because we expect anything particular in return, but in practice we get what we want (well, some of it) because we’re both doing that.

92

It depends a bit on his demeanor, but yes I certainly don’t recommend guys to do this.

It’s a pity because we all grow up watching these very direct approaches on film and TV and just assume that’s how it’s done. I spent years believing that you were supposed to just go up to a girl you liked and immediately start flirting, and struck out over and over (and yes, almost certainly pissed off a lot of women).

Nowadays, in forums like this, I tell guys that if they are ever psyching themselves up to go talk to that girl then they’ve already gone horribly wrong. You should not be psyching yourself up to talk to anyone, and you shouldn’t really be targeting people either.

93

There’s also another category of 40 and 50-something men: the OMG, please love me type. I encountered a few that were extremely emotionally needy, and seemed to want to go from chatting to commitment almost instantly.

I’m guessing there’s a reason those guys are single? But I did kinda feel bad for how badly some people have been hurt before, and hope everyone eventually finds their perfect match.

I was thrilled to end up matching with someone I actually already knew, and haven’t looked back since.