How averse are women to asking a man out?

[Robot_Arm]

@you_with_the_face

The advantage of online dating (not superficial sites like Tinder, but your more classical Match.com types) is that you can showcase your personality and communication skills in a way that is not possible with strangers in the real world. A little effort goes a long way because so many men don’t put in any real effort. They focus on quantity rather than quality. For instance, they send obviously low effort emails (“How you doin’?” and nothing else) that show zero indication they have even read your profile or are interested in anything specific about you. When I was single and got emails like this, I ignored them even when I was at my loneliest.

My advice for approaching this is to be the guy that women enjoy talking to. Talking (either by email or phone) is the first step to dating and romance, but it’s easy to psych yourself out if you only focus on the latter. Put together a clever profile and send emails that are thoughtful and engaging to women who seem at least remotely interesting and attractive you, and see what happens.

My online profiles always feel like a Super Bowl commercial from the '90s; everybody says how clever and entertaining they are, but nobody buys the product.

I had no idea the number of profiles was so skewed by gender. Even back when they were printed in various newspapers, it never even dawned on me to read or count the other men-seeking-women ads.

[MichaelEmouse]

@SirRay

Speaking of on-line, I know I posted on these boards some time ago about how I noticed when the local late-but-not-lamented personal listings on Craigslist had more WfW than WfM (MfW, forget it that always had at least 15-20x the WfW listings on a good day).

Why would there be more WfW than WfM?

@you_with_the_face

The advantage of online dating (not superficial sites like Tinder, but your more classical Match.com types) is that you can showcase your personality and communication skills in a way that is not possible with strangers in the real world. A little effort goes a long way because so many men don’t put in any real effort. They focus on quantity rather than quality. For instance, they send obviously low effort emails (“How you doin’?” and nothing else) that show zero indication they have even read your profile or are interested in anything specific about you. When I was single and got emails like this, I ignored them even when I was at my loneliest.

It’s analogous to a man being well-put together physically: If he has more muscle than fat, showers, wears clean clothes that fit and don’t clash, you would think that would be pretty basic, but he might be more ahead than he thinks, because so many men fail these basics. If your profile and message shows you can put care, effort and thought into something, you should be alright.

[Melbourne]

@MichaelEmouse

Why would there be more WfW than WfM?

Because it actually a successful WfW dating site that the users got satisfactory results from. Which was true for several dating sites: flooded with M looking for W who didn’t exist and weren’t interested, but used by a quiet community of W looking for W.

[you_with_the_face]

@Robot_Arm

My online profiles always feel like a Super Bowl commercial from the '90s; everybody says how clever and entertaining they are, but nobody buys the product.

When you say “everyone”, are you referring to women that you meet online? Because if you’re getting responses from them, that’s excellent. The issue might be how you follow-up with them if you haven’t had success getting them to meet with you.

[Robot_Arm]

@you_with_the_face

When you say “everyone”, are you referring to women that you meet online? Because if you’re getting responses from them, that’s excellent. The issue might be how you follow-up with them if you haven’t had success getting them to meet with you.

Well, yes, not everyone I reach out to replies that way. Most don’t reply at all. But I’ve had some nice “thanks, but no thanks” sorts of replies, and I’ve asked friends to read my profiles and offer a critique. I’m left with the impression that I can be entertaining, but not in a way that inspires many women to want to meet.

[Scribble]

I’m a woman. I’ve learned through painful experience that asking men out in person or by phone can be a very bad–sometimes even dangerous–idea.

There are some men who, if you ask them out, think less of you. They think you’re not worth actually treating with respect or interest.

There are some men who think that, if you’re asking them out, you’ve already said “yes” to anything, including sex. if you’re not into it, they get angry, because they think you’re backing out on something you’ve promised them and that they’re entitled to.

I assume most men aren’t like that, but it really only takes having an unpleasant experience once to teach you to never do it again. If I know a guy I’m interested in, I’ll flirt and drop hints, but he has to ask.

For some reason, asking men out online doesn’t have that same level of risk. I do that pretty freely.