This is a hijack of this thread, which was starting to get derailed by a discussion on the social convention of guys asking girls out.
My question is, is this a useful social convention, and is it an unfair burden on men? For the sake of example, let’s use the example of two people who are in a social club together for several months, have interacted casually but not spent a lot of time alone together, and the proposed date is to a coffee shop, with the potential to move on to dinner if things are going well.
My position is that yes, it is a useful convention. To begin with, it provides a reasonable way of quickly assessing the potential partner’s social skills. While not everyone who is awkward with women is also awkward in general, a guy who is awkward with women is more likely to be generally awkward than a guy who is comfortable and relaxed. Furthermore, asking a woman out provides her with a chance to gauge how well you are able to read her emotional signals, which is useful information. A guy who is completely unable to tell if you are into him or not is more likely, speaking generally, going to be completely unable to read other important signals- like “I’d rather not have sex with you right now” or “This party is lame and it’s time to go home” or “This relationship is moving to fast for my comfort,” etc. It’s more fun to be with someone who “gets” you, and that starts on day one. Women, in particular, have a special interest in making sure that they are with someone they have good rapport with in the service of safety. “Off” people tend to feel off, and while it’s unfortunately some perfectly nice people also feel “off,” for a lot of women, differentiating good off from bad off is a risk they’d rather not take.
Again, we are talking generalities. But in dating you are often making snap decisions about people you don’t know very well. You need to have some way to weed people out, unless you are really willing to go out with every construction worker who hollers at you.
The second, probably more controversial reason, is that people in general value something they’ve had to work for more than something that comes easily. Men tend to have to put in the “work” in the first part of the relationship when they are first dating. Women tend to put in pretty equal work in latter parts as the relationship becomes more formal and committed. Many men would accept a date from a woman they were not especially attracted to or interested in having a relationship with on the hopes of easy sex, so a man accepting a woman’s invitation doesn’t tell her much about his intentions. But the converse is not true- the little investment that asking a woman out entails weeds out at least some of the guys who are just taking shots in the dark at anything female.