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Plenty of men get asked out by women, so that nullifies your first sentence.
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Being assertive in life is almost always more advantageous than being passive. So your claim about dating is questionable.
If you don’t like the word “onus”, replace it with “presumption that the man should be the one to ask out”.
As for the assumption, the discussion (in the thread title and the OP and the rest of the thread) wasn’t about whether or not the assumption (that if a man is interested he’ll ask) is there or should be there, it’s about whether or not the presumption that it should be men who ask women out (and by extension, women should not ask men out) is a useful convention or an unfair burden*.
I don’t think the question of burden matters very much. But it is not a useful convention.
As a convention, it would require that even in situations where a man and a woman have gotten to know each other, the woman should not ask the man out.
*If you would like to start a thread about whether or not that assumption is there or should be there, that might be a good thread.
As I said, most of the women fall on the attractive scale, so there’s no information being gleaned. If I walk into a bar it’s more or less: Do her, do her, wow shes hot, do her, no thanks, do her, fix the hair and we’ll talk, do her. So unless I am in full out I want to get laid tonight mode, the vast majority of the women ping the radar. But it’s not like I am going to go around and ask all of them out. I’d only be interested in the ones that I have a certain spark with. Which, as far as I can tell, is no different from your situation in a bar.
Plenty of people win the lottery, but that doesn’t make it a reliable strategy to get rich. An average man who never asks anyone out will go on very very few dates. That isn’t true for a woman.
Yes, baiting a hook and tossing it over the side is always better than doing nothing. But if fish are jumping in the boat on their own as well, you will come home with more fish.
Face,
If you just amend “This is is why it doesn’t make sense for men to complain about women not asking them out.” to “This is is why it doesn’t make sense for men to complain about women not asking them out out of the blue”, then I agree.
But that isn’t what you said and your talk of assumption makes it seems that you really did mean the first version and not the amended one, which would mean that even when men and women know each other, women should not ask men out.
It still doesn’t work for me. What does “should” really mean when it comes to attracting the opposite sex? Suppose I stop shaving my legs because I find it oppressive, as a woman, to have to go through that torture just to be attractive to men. I guess you could say I’m protesting the “onus” that has been placed on me, but it’s such a melodramatic way of framing the issue that it would be hard to take me seriously.
Right, but to say anything meaningful about the assumption in bold requires us to probe into the assumption in italics, and both are relevant to the issue of “useful convention”.
Regardless of whether it’s a useful convention or not, I can’t agree that it’s an unfair burden, because I don’t believe relationship dynamics are strictly the result of social dictates about how men and women should behave. In a perfectly egalitarian world, I don’t think men would be getting hit on by women to the extent that women are hit on by men. Guys would still have the bigger “onus” to pursue simply because of differences in what attract us to one another, and some if not most of this may very well be rooted in biology. And while we’re all free to complain about the unfairness of biology, I give a side eye to anyone doing so unless they are a 12 year-old girl who has just started her period during cheerleading practice.
It is definitely true for me as a male that a good portion of my sexual appetite is wired to my eyeballs. On the other hand, what someone looks like is not a good indicator of whether or not you’d want to be in a relationship with that person. It’s a reasonable indicator that I might want to just have sex with her. In a world where women were generally interested in casual sex with strangers who found them visually enticing, I would be inclined to make overtures of this nature from time to time, but apparently — perhaps because they are less visual creatures and don’t have enough input and info to find male strangers equivalently enticing —women are generally NOT so interested and actually tend to find such overtures from strangers to be annoying. So that’s out. Let’s take that off the table.
That leaves the possibility of meaningful interactions, getting to know each other and perhaps finding, as an outcome of that process, that we’re romantically or sexually interested in each other. I’m definitely up for that. But now my being a more visual creature is irrelevant. And, meanwhile, although I myself am uninclined to make a nuisance of myself approaching cute strangers to see if casual sex is an option, apparently a lot of males do so anyway, and my intentions in approaching someone (even long after we’re not really strangers to each other) and making any form of “asking out” overture could easily be mistaken for one of those annoying casual-sex propositions, yes?
So at a minimum I think we should comport ourselves as equals and you should do at least half of the overt asking.
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Do you agree that when a man and a woman know each other, the man should ask the woman out and the woman shouldn’t?
Actually…yes they do. All the time. And it’s a good idea; “the squeaky wheel gets the grease” and all that. People are likely to treat you much more unfairly if you don’t complain about the unfairness of the world, if for no other reason than they’ll assume that you must not find it unfair or you’d complain about it. Even well meaning people need feedback; stoicism just sets you up to be a victim.
It’s vastly different. If women walk into a room and see no one that strikes them as do-able, this means they come into the situation with much less hope and excitement than you do. You might not hit on everyone you see, but you’re not starting from a completely neutral position either. You see potential all around you.
In contrast, a woman is more likely to find herself feeling neutral about the guys in her environment. That is, unless they give her a reason not to (like buying her a drink, making her laugh, or asking her to dance). One simple act can be the only thing that separates a guy who fades into the landscape from one who has “do-able” status. This is a relevant thing to consider when talking about who gets hits on and by whom. You might not hit on women just because you consider them “do able”, but I don’t think that applies to most men.
If fish are jumping in your boat but a lot of them are snakeheads rather than flounder, then your noise to signal ratio may be such that you’ll miss the fish you want by being distracted with the other. Men and women probably think they each have the stickier end of the stick, but all is fair in love and war.
If the man wants to date her, he should be willing to take the chance and ask her out. If the woman wants to date him, she should be willing to take the chance and ask him out.
Here is what the OP is asking: Should women only date men who pursue them because this strategy improves the chances of her being with a guy who is really really interested in her, as opposed to someone who is potentially more on the “meh, she’s okay” side of the equation? Or does this arrangement put an unfair burden on men?
What do you think we should be talking about right now?
Of course not. But I don’t think most guys are looking to propose hand in marriage when they ask a woman they barely know out on a date. Asking someone out on a date generally only requires liking another person just enough to want to see them again. If men have a head start on liking someone on this kind of superficial level (as it seems we both agree they do), then it is not unreasonable to expect that they’ll express this interest before a woman does.
No, let’s not, because it’s all tied together and gets exactly to the heart of what I’m saying. If women are not interested in casual sex for the reasons you’ve outlined, then it stands to reason that they are also going to be less likely to initiate overtures that could potentially lead to casual sex.
A date is not an invitation to casual sex, of course (just like it’s not a marriage proposal), but the reasons that causal sex is a turn off to many women is because the idea of sleeping with practical strangers (i.e. men who they lack of personal connection to) is just hard to relate to. Likewise, asking a guy out who is practically a stranger to them can pose a similar mental block.
No, this sounds like a overwrought rationalization for not talking to women you’re attracted to. Creeps who are purely in it for sex versus guys who are interested in meaningful interactions aren’t exactly hard to distinguish from one another. To be honest, you’re not giving women the credit that you should if you think otherwise.
There goes that “should” again. It still makes no sense to me, but maybe that’s just my personal failing.
I’m not talking about being a stoic. I’m talking about fixing problems myself, rather than doing nothing and complaining to the universe at large. Fixing problems produces results; complaining usually doesn’t.
To be specific: Learning to conquer my shyness and to be more assertive, in order to be able ask out women, led to my going on dates and getting laid. Complaining about how women didn’t ask me out did not lead me getting laid.
Damn. Looks like I might have to re-write the self-help book I’ve been working on.
I guess you’ve never listened to a girl complain about how they can’t find any good guys out there. Just because a reasonably attractive woman can walk into some meat market bar and go home with whatever drunk baseball cap Ed Hardy wearing buffoon manages to stammer out some sort of “hello” doesn’t mean that women have an “advantage”.
You’re confusing one night stands and dating.
Women end up with douchebags because douchebags don’t care about getting rejected 19 times in a night if the 20th says yes. They end up with the crappy guys because they rarely make the first move. Women that take command of their dating life and often make the first move are going to end up with fewer douchebags.
No I most assuredly am not.
You are contradicting yourself. Either women have the advantage because they can get hit on just by sitting there, or they are at a disadvantage. You can’t argue both at the same time.
Regardless, I think the jury is out on who has it worse. There are plenty of douchebags to be found among those men who hesitate to make the first move; they are not all shy sensitive sweethearts. I mean, it’s one thing to defend the idea of women taking the initiative, but when you start portraying guys who take a more fearless approach when it comes to asking women out as douchbags and jerks, your position jumps the shark big time.
Actually I think you can argue that. The men-asking women-luring setup means that women can avoid the awkwardness of asking; but it means that they are setting up a filter that tends to let through worse men. They are sacrificing quality & safety to avoid embarrassment, basically.
I regard the traditional setup as lose/lose for both genders, personally.
Nah - there are advantages and disadvantages. Few things in life are solely one way or the other.
What automatically makes a man who doesn’t want to make the first move a higher quality partner than one that is eager to make first move? Should women now be judging men negatively if they dare to approach her?
If you start with the assumption that the hesitant guy has a pure, innocent heart while the assertive guy is just trying to get laid, well then sure, I can see why you’re saying this. But that’s as broad of a brush as saying that hesitant men string interested women along just to sleep with them, while men who make the first move are the gallant, committed ones. I think all of these ideas are bullshit. Why don’t you?
Sure you are. You say I see potential all around me, but that is only true for one night stands. For relationships we are in the same situation. Most of the people fall in the suitability range for dating, but I have no idea if I want to ask them out without talking to them.
No, I’m not. Any women can get to the position of a man simply by refusing every offer of a date. Then, she is free to only go out with people she asks. More or less like men. Being asked out allows you more options and makes things easier. You just need a filter.
There’s a difference between being fearless asking out women and a shotgun approach.