I’m pretty surprised by some of the responses here. I’ve never really been one to try to chat people up, so this isn’t a practical matter for me, but I would have thought that in theory:
Guy gives girl his number: No pressure is created for the girl at the time, nor afterwards, so it’s up to her to act on it or not as she wishes.
Guy requests girl’s number: Girl is put on the spot, has to spontaneously decide what she thinks of this guy. If she decides she doesn’t like him she either has to shoot the guy down, which lots of people don’t like having to do (on the occasions that it has come up I have hated doing it), or make up some lie to get out of it. If she decides on the spot to go with it and give her number, she does so knowing that she might have just gained some annoying guy who now has her phone number.
So I would have thought option one is massively preferable. I realise that the thread specifically posits this all happening without much contact prior, so I get that that could skew things, but could someone who said that they’d much rather have their number requested explain what is broken about my reasoning above?
I don’ exchange eye contact across the room thing very well, so odds are if a guy comes up and gives me his number then walks away, I’ll be really clueless as to who this stranger is and why he’s handing me a piece of paper instead of talking to me.
But it wouldn’t matter anyway because it also strikes me as arrogant and lazy. As I get older, guys who posture like players are instant turnoffs. I’m more appreciative of the ones who attempt to engage me in conversation.
In both scenarios, the woman has absolutely no information about the man other than he judges women by how they look, and is not interested in anything else about them. So neither scenario is preferable, but in the first one, the man is also saying “I am so desirable that I don’t have to do anything but give you my number”. Self confidence is a turn on for most women, but arrogance is a turn off…and a lot of men don’t know the difference.
Chatting women up will improve your success rate. If you can’t manage five minutes of conversation with a complete stranger, how in the world do you manage to go about your daily life? If you can’t manage a bit of chitchat before getting or giving a number, how are you going to manage getting through a date? I mean, if all you want is sex, no talk, that’s one thing. But most women date because they’re looking for companionship. If you can’t show that you’re able to be interesting for five minutes…you’ve just lost most of your targets.
I can imagine it’s intimidating to try to get a girl’s number and I feel for guys in that situation. I think the best thing they can do is try to chat her up and if she isn’t responsive then leave her alone.
If she chats back say something like “I’d like your number if that’s okay, but I don’t want to put you on the spot if you’re uncomfortable. Here’s my number/email. I’d love to hear from you and get to know you more.”
And for Og’s sake, if she isn’t responsive, don’t take it personally. Maybe she’s already in a relationship. Maybe she’s lesbian (and isn’t interested in trying any men, TYVM). Maybe she’s got a lot on her plate already. Maybe her parent/sibling/cat just died, and she knows that if she tries to talk, she’s gonna bawl. Probably it’s nothing personal about YOU, she’s just not ready for a relationship right now. Women DO go out in public without necessarily being hit on by every other male that passes by.
I have had guys who talked with me over a period of time during work and school, and gone out with them. I’ve also had a short (about 5’2" or 5’3"), exceptionally ugly guy chat me up while he was filling up my car at a gas station (yeah, this was a long time ago)…and I was so charmed by him that I DID give him my phone number and went out with him for several months. Apparently, he didn’t charm just me, I knew that he was dating at least four other young women at the time, and apparently having sex with all of us. Even though this was before the herpes/HIV scare, and most women in our age group used the Pill, he used condoms every time. My point is, he was short, he was really, really ugly, and he was broke (working at the gas station and going to college). But he was quite successful with women, because he was a nice person, and he actually LISTENED to people when they talked. He was nice to everyone, not just attractive young women. And I think that’s why he managed to get my number, when I usually didn’t give it out to strangers, and why he was able to keep his harem happy. Well, that and the fact that he wanted to make sure that his partner had an orgasm if he had a happy ending.
Ahhh, so it’s the arrogance inherent in the ‘giving the number’ approach that turns people off? That makes sense.
I think that’s probably almost exactly what I would say, actually. Pride might demand that I leave out the “if that’s okay” part though. The closest I ever came to giving someone my number was telling a girl my full name (it’s both unusual and difficult to misspell) and saying that I’m easily found on facebook if she wants to keep in touch. She responded by saying “nah just give me your phone” and then she took my phone and put her number into it herself. So I guess if I’m ever on the market again, that’s the approach I’ll go with.
I suspect a woman’s responsiveness is also correlated to what she is looking for.
If what a girl is looking for is casual sex with a hot guy, maybe the phone number thing works. After all, if what I’m looking for is casual sex, I don’t really need to know what your taste in literature is or if you’ve seen any of the Oscar winning movies, or if you are a Packers fan.
If what a girl is looking for is a soulmate, then the number drop sans conversation is creepier - because it implies that the guy is simply attracted to you physically. And while physical attraction IS important, I think most of us want our soulmates to spend a few minutes talking to us.
What it comes down to is I’m not interested in spending time with someone who, from all available evidence, views me as a piece of meat. You want sex? You noticed I’m female? Congrats, that makes you just like every other straight guy on the planet – it is not, in fact, something outstanding, and it doesn’t impress me. I have a brain too. I have a personality, an emotional life, a spiritual life. If you don’t care about any of these things, so much so that you don’t even make a cursory effort to find out any small part of it, then you’ve made it clear that you don’t care about me, even as a human being, never mind as an individual – and why would I want to get involved with someone who doesn’t care about me? I wouldn’t even be someone’s friend if that were the case. I probably wouldn’t invite you into my life at all, unless I had absolutely no other choice (you’re a co-worker, say).
Also, I want to know who the hell YOU are, before I consider spending copious amounts of time and emotional investment on you. If we have little to nothing in common, I’d be too bored to sustain that level of relationship. Or maybe you’re controlling, or self-absorbed, or a smoker, or you really want kids, or any number of other things I find unappealing. Or, hey, you may be just what I’m looking for, but I can’t know that if you don’t actually talk to me.
I’m also suspicious of people who’s standards are so low that they amount to “has a hole, has a pulse.” Desperate, arrogant, emotionally shallow, whatever the cause, I’m unlikely to get along with someone like that. It’s pretty clear that our values are completely incompatible. Your body could be physically hot as hell at a fire and brimstone party, but if I don’t also like your brain, your soul, and your heart, I’m not attracted to you; and I find the very thought of sex with you gross.
Bullshit. I’ve had guys who LOOKED very attractive do something completely assholish…which means that they still LOOK attractive, but there’s no way in hell that I’d go out with them.
Creepy is a behavior, not appearance, if the woman involved IS a woman. Creepy is appearance only to teens or subteens.
There have been a few guys I’ve had no romantic chemistry with that actually became friends. If they were creepy I probably wouldn’t have hung with them enough to become friends. So, I have to concur. Lack of chemistry means your approach may not result in a date, but it doesn’t make you creepy by itself.
Handing a piece of paper with a phone number on it to a total stranger with whom one has not even exchanged “Hellos” strikes me as so far outside the realm of ordinary social behavior that I probably wouldn’t even interpret it as the man trying to pick me up. I’d be more likely to assume that he was 1) hoping to sell me something, quite possibly drugs, or 2) hoping to bring me to Jesus, and not in the “you’ll be calling his name” sense. I’ve heard there are fundamentalist groups who resort to elaborate tricks to get people to listen to their message, including booking nightclubs in spring break destinations and pretending like there’s a hot party going on inside, so there may very well be people handing out phone numbers that will lead to the “Are You Saved?” hotline or something.
If it were a woman I’d figure she was either a prostitute or a missionary. (Maybe a prostitute who only used the missionary position?)
It wouldn’t be flattering if I’d seen him give his number to other people too or if he were extremely unattractive. Considering that this is someone I haven’t spoke to, ‘unattractive’ is based only on general appearance, including body language.
This still happens to me now and then with people (men and women - I’m gay but don’t really look it) who are unable to actually chat me up for one of multiple reasons and also because, let’s face it, they’re drunk. Sometimes the reason they can’t chat you up is because they’re drunk. I’ve never called the number, but always considered it flattering.
I wouldn’t call because I don’t like being the one to make the first move (a lot of women feel this way, including lesbians :facepalm:) and because I would never be sure that they actually meant it.
I can’t see any way it would be creepy, though. All it’s doing is giving you the option to call.
Probably just that when you compare the Venn diagram of ‘people who are bad at making the first move’ and ‘lesbians,’ both circles have a fairly high overlap with the ‘women’ circle.
Or to use a more useful, if less amusing analog, I, like many geeks, am also bad at making the first move. This neither implies that we’re philosophically opposed to it, or that we don’t wish we were better at it.
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Of course, the analog isn’t perfect, as male geeks considerably outnumber female ones, a problem mathematically impossible for any group of lesbians. Assuming the size of the group is large enough enough that ‘considerably’ > 1.
Some women don’t like making the first move, in part because traditionally that’s not what women do. Some of these women are also lesbians. Being gay doesn’t mean you get to shake off all the straight cultural baggage.
Actually my answer to “flattering or creepy?” would be it depends on how hot he is. There have been hot guys who’ve made eyes at me and I’ve returned them who simply left or got distracted etc. It would have been super hot if he left me his number but they never got the courage.
But if a weirdo or ugly or even mediocre-looking guy did this, I’d run for the hills. Like so many things, it depends on who it’s coming from.
This has happened to me twice: once with a weird unattractive guy (and I was creeped out) and once with an okay looking guy (and I was “hmm, not bad”) on it. Both reactions were entirely based on how they looked.
Pretend it’s an MMO. Do you accept unasked for guild invites from random people you have never spoken with? No? Then why would you risk more in real life?
I might find it situationally creepy. I also recognize that sometimes looks are all it takes <there’s always more than looks; you might be wrong about someone by just looking at them, but you DO have hunches about what a person is like at first glance> and if I’m feeling a similar ‘zing’ I might be appreciative of the straight-forward approach, and it’s a lot LESS creepy than someone randomly asking me for MY number, which they’d never get.
I probably still wouldn’t call, though. Not enough info.
But it’s not a bad setup in case you ever see them AGAIN…
The closest I ever came to giving someone my number was telling a girl my full name (it’s both unusual and difficult to misspell) and saying that I’m easily found on facebook if she wants to keep in touch. She responded by saying “nah just give me your phone” and then she took my phone and put her number into it herself. So I guess if I’m ever on the market again, that’s the approach I’ll go with.