I have never doubted you were completely uninterested. It’s been really apparent.
You’re missing the point; the signals that women think are clearly signposting their intentions–to cite one friend, “I showed him I was interested by ordering the chocolate mousse instead of the velvet cheesecake; why didn’t he get it?,”–are anything but clear and unambiguous. And frankly, this applies to their interactions with other women as well, which is why many (but not all) women engage in these extended gossip sessions about who-what-why, and men go to the batting cages and communicate through a series of grunts and friendly taunting. It’s not just that we “don’t care enough to at least try to figure these things out,” it’s a fundamental difference in perspective.
To provide an example that is separate from romantic issues, I have a female friend with whom I sometimes watch movies. We were watching one film in which the story is all allegory (the underrated Philip Noyce version of The Quiet American), and while I picked up on many of the historical references and themes, I completely missed that the changes in dress of the female love interest signaled her shifting allegiances (and by extension, that of Viet Nam itself). Even when it was pointed out to me, I didn’t remember the costume changes and still didn’t get the significance of many of the details. This isn’t because I don’t try to understand the allegory–the film student in me loves that stuff–but because I neither know or have much interest in fashion except insofar as necessary to keep from making some kind of gross fashion faux pas, nor would an intensive study of it render me able to understand why fashion trends develop the way they do as it has nothing to do with reason or practicality.
The guys I know who are notably successful in meeting women and dating all share the single characteristic of not really caring what women think and essentially spending no effort in trying to discern positive signals from noise. In the words of one, “I just assume all women are interested in me, and those who turn me down are just having a **** problem today,” I perspective I find less than charming but have to admit does seem to work well, at least for him.
Stranger
Damn, I’m glad I’ve opted out of this game. Don’t regret it for a second. I’ve been in a very good relationship for about a year now, and it had naught to do with this mating dance.
What the hell?!?? I’ve never heard of using subtle differences in dessert menu choices as some kind of romantic signal, and it seems absolutely ridiculous to me. I doubt very much that most women would consider it “clearly signposting their intentions”.
Stranger, I’m starting to get the impression that these female so-called “friends” of yours, from whom you seem to be getting most of your alleged data about “how women really think”, are either just pathological ditzes or else cruelly fucking with you by seeing how much bullshit they can get you to swallow about the “workings of the female mind”.
Riiiight.
In this thread, we aren’t talking about minutia like this. And I’m starting to think your friends are either messing with your head or being facetious when they say stuff like this. Either that or they aren’t representative of most women. Because what they are imparting on you is not passing the reality smell test for me.
The OP is about rape, for Pete’s sake. Forget signals supposedly being transmitted by a woman’s choice of dessert. These kinds of things aren’t going to make or break a guy’s chances, and they’re not going to prompt someone to pull out their wanker at the wrong time.
It sounds like you think women communicate in vastly different ways that men do, and you’re wrong. No other way to put it.
Consider that the reason they succeed is not because they don’t care about discerning signals. It’s because they aren’t so desperate that they feel the need to do so. In other words, you think the effect is the cause, rather than the other way around. As I said earlier, the Brad Pitt types aren’t parsing unreasonable quantitites of hope out of a “No, I can’t make it.” Because there is always someone around the corner who says “Yes, I can.”
I suspect that what is happening is that guys who date rape are using the alleged ambiguity as an excuse that feeds their sense of entitlement, as in ‘she lead me on’. An outright rejection in completely unambiguous terms would also feed their sense of entitlement, as in ‘the mouthy stuck-up bitch had it comming - what, she thinks she’s too good for me?’.
It’s a heads he wins, tails she loses sort of game.
I guess I’m in the minority of men, but my problem (and, to get back to the OP, I presume Sage Rat’s as well since he worded it pretty much as I would) is not that we tend to overstep boundaries because we misread signals, but that we’re very wary of overstepping them in case we’ve misread a signal.
For example, I’m currently in the early stages of dating a woman and while I’d like to kiss her, even a small likelyhood that she doesn’t want that stops me from trying because if I get it wrong it would be unpleasant for her and could spoil things. But the onus is on me to read her mind and be the overly-pushy jerk if I misread it. I’m not sure an explicit discussion of exactly what she’s ok with at this point would be welcomed by her.
Have you been in a similar situation or are have boundary problems always been of the overly-pushy variety?
If you’re dating and she can’t handle the thought of you kissing her, what would “spoil things” would be that you’re dating and she can’t handle the thought of you kissing her.
Yeah, it’s one of the problems we as men face - how to convey interest without thereby conveying threat or offense.
Where the OP gets it wrong, IMO, is when he says that this situation leads to rapes. That’s putting it backwards. It is the threat of the possibility of rapes and the like that leads to the dilemma of how to convey interest without threat or offense.
[The answer of how to convey interest without threat is the process of flirtation, which, sadly enough, is for most of us who are not outstandingly attractive a skill which must be learned]
I suspect what is going on here is that she probably would handle very well the thought of him kissing her, but he won’t do it because he doesn’t know how to initiate that, and is afraid to experiment.
There is of course nothing to be lost for trying, but many young men are socialized into thinking that if they try they will be considered horribly offensive or even possibly date rapists.
The only cure for this is experience, unfortunately. Eventually, you (young men) simply have to take the plunge. If you do, you will discover that it is worth it, since you will not get laid if you do not take the risk.
How much of your hesitance comes from fear of misreading a signal and how much of it comes from timing things right so you don’t look like a dork?
If you’ve gone out with her at least three times and your chemistry is good (no awkward pauses, no shortage of things to talk about, plenty of smiles and jokes, easy flow of compliments), the odds are in your favor that she likes you. She’s not going to freak out if you kiss her. If she’s under the mistaken impression you guys were just friends, she might not kiss you back and she might tell you that a miscommunication has occured. But if you’ve at least made a good faith effort to communicate romantic interest in her, then this is unlikely.
If you’re worried about looking like a dork, try to stop worrying. You could always fall back on the cliche of kissing her at the door after your date is over. No harm in that. But you have to figure out what it is that is really holding you back here. If you don’t know if she likes you, there’s nothing wrong with telling her that and then seeing what she says.
Just about all the boundary-stepping people I know are of the pushy, block-head variety.
Right. I’m just saying that kissing someone when you’re dating is the default situation and if she has a problem with that, there’s probably something very wrong with the relationship.
I selected an example that was slightly hyperbolic (but genuine) to emphasize the point; (most) women communicate their interest by providing signs that the man is expected to respond to. Sometimes the signs are unambiguous, but frequently they’re not nearly as clear as they’re intended to be, particularly if the woman is already vacillating internally about her interest in said man, and they’re often barely distinguishable from normal enthusiastic politeness, especially in a woman who is gregarious and flirtatious by nature. One of the most common “signals of interest” by a woman is smiling; of course, one the most common behaviors by which women (and people in general) in polite discourse is to smile, so unless a woman is especially or particularly smiling or otherwise engaging, it can be difficult to distinguish between “I’m happy today and your visage doesn’t hurt my disposition,” and “You’re cute and reasonably hygienic and I might like to get to know you better if you can say something marginally clever.”
For a man, the situation is different. even in more progressive circles. No guy who isn’t an impossibly charming and handsome character on a television show is going to enjoy much success by simply smiling at women and hoping they’ll approach him and ask him out; it is his onus to make the approach and make a direct invitation. He isn’t a producer of signals, he’s a consumer of them, and his action almost always has to be direct. When he does this with a woman who is confident and experienced in deflecting unwanted advances, she’d just say, “No” or “No, thank you,” or “No way in hell!” depending on her disposition and appropriateness of the proposition. That’s just the risk you take. The problem (from my perspective, at least) is that there are a lot of women who either take offense or are, justifably or not, afraid of the consequences of declining an offer.
The anecdote offered by even sven, again, demonstrates this. Although her interest in the fellow in question was purely one of her convenience as a backup if the evening doesn’t play out as intended, she flirts with him to make him think she’s interested, after giving previous signals of no amorous interest, i.e. a deliberate mixing of signals that follows nothing else but her internal mood or intentions. She claims that the lad should be able to figure out what’s going on with her by following a reasonable train of thought, but waits for him to act before indicating her true interst. Nothing about this is inherently right or wrong, but it’s the furthest thing from clear.
Nothing about this has anything to do with rape, of course. Setting aside a lack of consent from intoxication or ambiguity due to a woman being unsure herself about whether she wants to have sex with the guy whom she is allowing to unhook her brassiere, rape is a deliberate intention by a man to ignore any signals up to and including “no” from a woman and force himself upon her. There isn’t any credible rationale for confusion in this case, and the whole “rape culture” argument ironically serves to deflect personal responsibility into a cultural burden. This isn’t about a lack of clarity in communication or formalistic dating rituals, and indeed, it seems more likely that such rigid stirctures often serve to justify what would otherwise be considered rape or sexual duress.
Stranger
Jeez, it takes three dates to some (or most ?) people to even ask the possibility of kissing ? Is it an American thing ? Because with most dates I have (or had, back when I was dating), we had sex on the very first. Mutual attraction and understanding, that’s that simple.
Mind if I ask your (approximate) age? The reason I’m asking is that this has been my experience from my late-20s (since 1998 or so) on, but wasn’t the case at all previously. I’m wondering if it’s a cultural shift, a lifestage thing, or just something that’s happened.
What I’m trying to get through to you is that this is wrong.
To start with, men most often express interest NOT by telling a women they are are attracted to them and want to initiate a relationship with them. They start by asking a woman out to a restuarant or event. It is up to the woman to therefore read between the lines and decide whether she’s willing to take him up on his implicit offer to date.
If instead of asking a woman out to dinner, let’s suppose a man said “I have romantic interest in you; do I have your permission to start courting you?” It would extremely easy for women to give an unambiguous answer to this question. His intent is crystal clear and there is no “game playing” in there. But because guys are not this upfront, they don’t get upfront responses. If I have to make this point one more time in this thread, for real, I think I will scream.
Here’s an example. Not that long ago, a guy that I don’t know very well asked me out to dinner. I declined, telling him that I had a jealous boyfriend but thanks anway. (This is my standard line when rejecting strangers, even when it’s not true).
Another way I could have handled this would have been to say “No thank you, I’m not interested in you in that way.” But that leaves me open to accusations of presumptuousness. He could always respond with “In what way aren’t you interested? It’s just dinner! Why jump to conclusions when I just want to be friends? You ain’t all that anyway!”
It is a little presumptious to respond to a dinner request with a explicit disavowal of a persons attractiveness and fitness as a dating partner. That’s why if you ask someone out and they turn you down for whatever reason, it’s best to assume it’s because they don’t like you in that way. And if they say yes, don’t automatically assume it’s because they like you, because there’s a chance she–just like you–isn’t a genius at reading people’s signals. There are no surefire formulas here, but that’s the cost of not being upfront your own darn self.
And oh yeah, the whole smiling, making eye contact thing does not just apply to women. Not sure where you get that from.
Of course not. But Michael seems to need some kind of temporal benchmark to go by. If he makes it to three dates, that’s a good sign she likes him if there’s nothing else he can depend on to tell him that.
Absolutely. And the sooner he finds out, the happier they both will be.
I think you are correct, but of course I’m long outta touch - but when I was a young guy, in my teens, there is no way I was casually hopping in the sack on a first date.
I’m 31. But age might be irrelevant, it’s maybe because I belong to that whorish people, the French 
(but that sex-very-soon thing also happened when I dated non-French girls).