Never.
runs away sobbing
I’m an American female in my 40s living in Tokyo. I get hit on NEVER. I LOVE J-blokes but am too shy myself to start anything, so that’s that.
I go to France for work, I get hit on at LEAST once per day. Younger men, older men, they approach me with le blah blah blah in French, I sadly inform them that I speak not a word of their lovely language, so they nicely continue to hit on me in English. What a fantastic country!
What is it? Do they have lower standards over there? Maybe they really can tell I’m not local, and are extending a polite courtesy to visiting spinsters? Whatever it is, I absolutely love it.
If only I’d studied French instead of Japanese in college…
Women have been chasing after men for much longer than we’ve been human. When I observe non-human primates, I see the females chasing after males as much as the males chase after females. Human females, because of certain cultural conditions, are generally more covert about their attractions than human males, but they do chase. What do you think a lot of Jane Austin’s work is about? Women, desperate to get married, playing their cards in order to land mates.
The attraction to older men with resources is not innate, but a product of an economic system which allowed a few men to gather resources at the expense of women and other men. In societies with a more egalitarian gender distribution, women prefer men their own age, and the chase is done more equally by the sexes.
As for frequency of sexual or romantic overtures, I’ve noticed a strong correlation between advances and certain ethnic groups. I’ve also noticed that in larger cities where walking is more common, I am more likely to be approached. When I’m in San Francisco, then it occurs nearly every single time I go outside. In my present location, I’m thankfully free of all of that. I can understand why those who have never been subject to it might desire it, but I have always hated it.
I find it incredibly arrogant that you think that your personal preferences have anything at all to do with Rogerbox’s friend.
Are you really going to argue that any significant number of women are looking for men who do not make them laugh, do not challenge them, and are not keep their interest? Do you really want to tell me that there is a contingent of women looking for humorless, complacent, dullards? Or are you, at this point, just arguing to be arguing?
Rogerbox’s friend may not be any of these things. But all a person knows about you is what you are able to communicate to them. You may be the smartest person in the world, but if you can’t open my mouth and make something coherent come out at a job interview, nobody is ever going to hire me. You may be able to play the guitar like Jimmy Hendrix, but if you go play a concert and can’t pick out the opening to Iron Man, nobody is going to go to your next concert. Likewise, you may be an engaging, awesome dude. But if you have no plan for being able to express that to a woman, you are probably going to have trouble dating.
Moved goalposts. If you had said “Your friend will have trouble dating because of his difficulty asking a woman out” I would have readily agreed. It is your steamtrain of judgements about the guy (and guys like him) and how he is more likely to be two dozen HORRIBLE things because of this one little quirk, that makes your posts on the subject overly critical and awful.
Meh. You’re a Gaijin. You’ll appreciate this post; you are not alone:
[I’m well familiar with and sympathetic to your friend’s position]. But – svenis one woman and she spoke honestly about what she reacted positively to, hoping your friend (who if he’s smart and I assume he is) should take as kind of manna from heaven, first-hand field feedback from someone (an actual woman) who can refrain from pulling her punches ('cause she doesn’t know him, which the girls whom he does strike out are hampered in their honesty by) and tell him at least one real-world data-point about what real-world women (or one of them) reacts well to. I am well-attuned to female arrogance and Queen Bee and entitlement mentalities, and I really did not get any of that from sven’s post.
The underlying point (I don’t speak for her, obviously) is a subtle (albeit hard to achieve) distinction: being smart and funny and good is great. Being smart and funny and good and able to lead a conversation with those traits is ten times better for men talking to women. Fair, unfair – I can’t spend the time thinking about that. Does it suck a little bit having to develop a bit of an impresario persona to show women that you have those abilities (but for a rare subset of women, women won’t generally expend much effort to uncover your hidden deep qualities if you are completely taciturn and not ridiculously good looking, etc.)? Perhaps. But there are things about women’s role in the game that suck for them, too. We all deal with it (for instance, the good news is if your friend blossoms in his 30s or 40s, he’s still got lots of time; women who somehow don’t click in dating by early 40s are screwed for the most part. Unfair? Again, I don’t possibly know how to answer that).
Thank you for saying this so eloquently. I get so…touchy…when people blame the other gender for their dating problems. I’ve got equally harsh words for women who pull the “there are no good men” or “men just don’t want to commit” business.
Dating can be a legitimately frustrating thing. But you can get bitter and angry about it, you can convince yourself that you are “above that” and refuse to make your situation better, you can give up, or you can do some research, try some experimentation, and figure out a strategy that leads to the results that you are looking for.
True enough. From what I’ve seen, there’s a wider range of what’s beautiful for some ethnic groups, and Hispanic men have different preferences than the Local White Guys in my area.
I get hit on/flirted with [by strangers] between once a week and twice a month on average. It’s mostly guys close to my age, with the random octogenarian Dirty Old Man deciding he needs to tell me I’ve got big boobs or asking me to come be his nursemaid. :rolleyes: If it’s friendly and relatively polite, it’s fine for me to be flirted with, but when it’s rude or aggressively creepy I generally tend to respond with a dirty look or ignore it.