Long story short, there is a girl in one of my classes that I like. But my experience with asking women out to their face has been lackluster, at best. So I am wary of just saying ‘do you want to XYZ on M/D/Y’ like I’m supposed to. Instead i’ve just talked to her, become a lukewarm friend. I am hesitant to ask her out becuase I like her personality and she is one of the few people in class that I talk to, so if I alienate her by asking her out then i’ve lost that friendship and I don’t want to do that (hence the fact that I usually put off asking women out until the last week of class)
Heres the funny part. There is another woman i’m kindof friends with who I was going to ask for help in helping me figure out a way to ask this original woman out w/o alienating her. Then I see the two of them talking in another building at school and realize they know each other. I proceed to crack up laughing at the idea of me asking this woman for help assuming she thought the woman I liked was a stranger, then me finding out they knew each other. Pretty funny.
But now I figure I can use this woman i’m friends with to help me get a date with this other woman that I like, but how do I do that? I don’t know if the woman I talk to knows that I like her or if she thinks i’m just friendly, what can I ask this woman to do to help me out? Having a wingwoman would greatly increase my chances so I want to try that instead of just asking another woman out to her face, getting shot down and alienating another human relationship.
Also, try to use the phrases ‘like’, ‘whatever’ and ‘abercrombie’ as much as possible in your responses
As a woman, let me suggest that you’re making this way too complicated. If you’re nervous about getting shot down for A Date, ask her if she’d like to go have coffee sometime. During coffee, you can talk to her and get to know her a little better. If coffee goes well, you’ll be in a better position to ask her “out” – and may well have an idea of where to ask her, based on your conversation. (For instance, there might be a movie you’d both like to see, a museum exhibit you’re both interested in, a band you both like playing in town, etc.)
Why do guys get into these hugely baroque – nay, abercrombiesque – scenarios?
Because we aren’t women, and our situations are different. I think I remember hearing you once say you date ‘alot’ so i’m assuming you are relatively attractive and relatively young, meaning you don’t really understand what these things are like for people who aren’t attractive women. In order for me to date alot (2-3x a month) i’d have to ask out about 30 women a month, alienating maybe 30-40% of those women which adds up to over a hundred alienated women a year I have to deal with. You, being an attractive woman, probably just have to say ‘hi’ to people to date alot. On another note why do women need tampons?
Overall, I just don’t wnat to alienate her. I can handle rejection and mostly expect it, but I don’t want to alienate her.
On another note, this isn’t bad advice but I’m afraid if she says no i’ll alienate her and I don’t want to do that. Thats the goal, actually getting a date would be nice but being able to ask and still be friends is more important and I don’t know how to do that just by asking her to coffee.
Hm, it seems more likely that I would have said “I have dated a lot” rather than “I do date a lot” – I’m not young (50), and at this point probably best described as “okay” on the looks scale – but cumulatively, over the last 30 or 35 years, I’ve been on … a lot … of dates. (For the record – I haven’t been on a “date” since last fall sometime – I declared myself to be on hiatus from dating back around November and see no reason to resume beating my head against that particular wall right now.)
The point of asking her out for coffee is to Not Make A Big Deal Of This. If you’re talking after class, and neither of you is tearing off elsewhere, say “Hey, would you like to go get some coffee?” Very low key, very no pressure. If she says “no,” you know she’s not interested – no harm, no foul. If she says “Damn, I’ve got to be somewhere – maybe some other time?,” try again, she probably really does have to be somewhere. If she says yes – well, go buy the lady a cup of coffee!
And as far as the tampons thing is concerned … nah, I’m not gonna go there.
You don’t need subterfuge or pretense or a fact finding mission through a friend about favourite food, movies, books or toothpaste. That’s your job to ask and discover as part of a first date! Except maybe the toothpaste… unless you’re really smooth and very lucky.
Ask your friend to invite you along the next time she and your object of lust are heading out for a coffee. You’ll get introduced and take things from there. Safe and fun for all.
I have to second or third the coffee suggestion. It’s a non-threatening, no-strings-attached, non-date-like situation that both of you can walk away from with minimal awkwardness if it turns out that you don’t really hit it off.
And Anaamika is right - don’t use the friend to get a date with someone else. As a female I can tell you that if all of a sudden you befriended me, then asked me to ask someone out for you, I would assume that you were ONLY being friends with me so you could use my relationship with that person. Asking about her is okay (i.e., “Hey, I see you’re friends with X. What’s she like?” or something), but asking a friend to do your dirty work for you is kind of insulting if you’re not already really close.
This sounds way too much like a sitcom to me. You’re worried you won’t be able to talk to her IF she says no to a date, I’m not sure what this means. The current relationship isn’t going to disintegrate unless you let it. If you put so much importance into this one possibility, you’re less likely to let it slide if it occurs. If she says no, don’t worry about it, ignore it and treat her like you did before.
The key to this sort of thing is to not make it such a huge deal. Asking the other girl to do it for you is silly. Be cool and be casual. The world isn’t over if one girl says no.
I second the people who say “casually ask her out for coffee.” That being said, I think the people who are all “don’t involve the other girl” are being too down on it - the other girl can come in handy without pulling a 4th grade “Brian says he likes you!” thing. You can certainly ask your friend-female if potential-girl has a steady guy, or is a lesbian, for example. And there’s nothing wrong with telling your friend you’re interested in her and seeing if she wants to invite you along next time she hangs with potential-girl. But there’s no call for a real fact-finding mission or getting somebody else to do the scary work of asking her out.
I’ve been married for 20 years, so maybe things have changed, but…
I can’t recall a single time when asking a girl out to dinner “alienated” her. I got some yesses and I got some noes, but I don’t ever remember losing a female friend because I asked her out.
Alright, tomorrow i’ll ask her to do something. We have a test coming up, I can ask her if she wants to study for it. If she is busy I can ask if she wants to get together for coffee sometime.
I’m just wary of this approach (talking to women, then asking them if they want to do something later) because i’ve had bad luck with it in the past. But its better than nothing.
Normally that is one of my triumvirate of introductory questions I ask a potential ladyfriend. Right up there with ‘do you come from a wealthy family’ and ‘You think convicted sex offenders deserve a second chance, right?’
Oh, and drop the words “triumvirate” and “ladyfriend” from your vocabulary. Seriously. Also, I’d only mention the whole SDMB thing if she’s okay with the sex offender stuff.
(For the record – I haven’t been on a “date” since last fall sometime – I declared myself to be on hiatus from dating back around November and see no reason to resume beating my head against that particular wall right now.)
