If you’re a woman on a dating website, at least you’re presumably looking for a date. In that case, being approached by potential suitors makes sense, and is, at least in theory, not entirely unwelcome. But if you’re just going about your life in the real world, and random men are inserting themselves into your life, proposing that you should date them and down the road presumably do things with their penises…
Well, let’s just say that I’m amazed at the patience and good humor of most women in this situation. If I was an attractive young woman (entirely hypothetical, since I’m actually a man, middle-aged and not particularly attractive) I would be in jail for murder, since before long I would be packing heat and just start shooting these guys in the face.
And actually accepting the offer for a date? It just boggles my mind.
Most men seem to be frustrated at how difficult it is to find a date. I’m amazed that it works at all.
Heh, I’m old enough to have done all my courtship before the Internet existed - and simply asking random women on the street straight out for a “date” is not “traditional” courtship as far as I am concerned! 
For one, back in the stone age, we had this mysterious process known as “flirting”, that represented a kind of pre-electronic interface between (1) meeting random people, and (2) asking then out.
This process, among other things, allowed both parties to demonstrate interest (or lack of interest) in a variety of ways, verbal and not, so that by the time the question of going on a date arises, it isn’t a startling shock to anyone.
If the personal ad had not been invented I would probably still be a virgin. It’s got nothing to do with “online” versus not, but rather the distinction that Martian Bigfoot points to:
In any encounter, in any venue, there come some “moments of escalation”: establishing that, yes, some degree of that kind of interest does indeed exist; establishing that, yes, there’s sufficient interest to be worth making some scheduled plans to pursue that possibility; establishing that, yes, we’re going to try some physical contact of some degree and see how that goes; etc
I don’t like the conventional expectation that I’m going to initiate significantly more than 49% of those escalations; I prefer something more like tennis, your turn to escalate, etc.; and I don’t like that first step, don’t like feeling like I’m being intrusive, creepy, annoying. Much much nicer to meet women in an environment where a significant point has already been established: not that she has that interest in me necessarily but that generically yeah, she’d like to have that in her life and furthermore expects some interest and would not regard it as inappropriate or annoying etc in this context.
But that is exactly what flirting was for.
It was (I’m using the past tense because I’ve been married for 20 years, and so my dating days are all pre-Internet) a steadily increasing exchange of signals of interest - by no means a one-way thing. More like, as you say, a tennis match.
True, the cultural expectation was that the guy typically make the “first move” in formally asking the woman out, rather than the other way 'round (thus risking express rejection), but by the time that point had been reached, there were supposed to have been several ‘rounds’ of signals verbal and non-verbal sent and received - in fact, every time I asked a woman out, I already more or less knew that she was likely to say ‘yes’.
I wouldn’t have dreamed of asking a woman out who wasn’t signaling that she was interested. Or indeed, continued flirting with one who wasn’t interested, or initiate flirtation where it would be inappropriate.
True, it can be a bit of a delicate dance, outside of venues specifically designed for dating. But in practice, it wasn’t all that difficult. Was this an appropriate occasion to start conversation? During that conversation, was there clues that it would be unprofessional or creepy to initiate a flirtatious tone? Did she initiate a flirtatious tone in the conversation with you? If a flirtations tone was initiated by you, did it spark a similarlly flirtatious tone in her? In either case, crank it up a bit, see what happens. If she responds positively, you are good to go.
It sounds like a lot of steps, but again, in practice it became sort of intuitive - like a dance. A similar dance-like process of mutual signals ensued after a date was agreed on, to get to the first physical contact; and again, to end up having sex.
Yeah, I’m a bit confused as to what this is supposed to highlight. Before the internet age, I’d expect similar results if a stranger asks a random woman out on the street with no previous contact. That is not “traditional courtship.” Have we seriously forgotten how “traditional courtship” went? But if the point is that is what we do in online dating and how weird it is when transferred to offline life, well, that doesn’t really seem to be making a good point, either, because usually it’s not “Hi, I’m Joe, would you like to go out on a date with me” in that venue usually, either. There’s some bit of introduction involved, some more information relayed through profiles, and the obvious point that people are there actively looking for dates, as opposed to random people hanging out in the street.
So I guess I’m completely not getting this, although given the thumbs up to thumbs down ratio on Youtube, I seem to be in the vast minority.
And sometimes in bars these sort of things still occur, and I even attempt them once in a while. The last woman I dated I met at a conference and flirted back and forth with her at the hotel bar… which may make me an old soul perhaps ;).
Reminded me of Charley the Australopithecine
Makes sense. I had a lot of problem negotiating that as a teenager / young adult, I think the “first move” expectation combined rather badly in my head with the fear that, for failure on my part to do something to make things happen, the opportunities were sliding past me left & right. Everything got a whole lot simpler once I decided that was unfair in a sexist way and began behaving as if it were no more my responsibility than hers to “make things happen”. Somehow that led me to the tennis-match dynamics, same place you ended up, and that worked a lot better. But still quantum leaps easier with personal ads and eliminating several rounds of those formal escalations.
Or she might say “Am I on Candid Camera?” Which in this case she is.
Flirting was for women you saw frequently, as in class. When I went to college it was 85% male, so we had mixers where women from other colleges would come over to a party and you’d ask one to dance. Since they wouldn’t be there if they weren’t interested this was relatively low risk. Then you talked to them. Then you got their phone number. Then you asked them out.
Sometimes I think if you sent young people today back in time 40 years they’d be celibate for the lack of an internet connection.
This. Even before the days of Internet dating, approaching random women on the street always produced at best “mixed success”. The fact is, a “cold approach” is pretty ballsy. It tends to paint the man as either very aggressive or the sort of guy who hits on girls so much that he’s comfortable doing it. Two traits that can be a turnoff.
Then again, they aren’t a turnoff to the sort of women who would date a guy trying to pick up random women in the park. So the system sort of works.
I would never go out on a date with some random dude who just approached me out of the blue. I would need to know you a little bit at least. The most I might do is give you my number if you didn’t set off my crazy stalker/killer radar. If I enjoyed our conversation.
[QUOTE=Malthus View ]
Heh, I’m old enough to have done all my courtship before the Internet existed - and simply asking random women on the street straight out for a “date” is not “traditional” courtship as far as I am concerned
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Hmmm…back in my day, “traditional” courtship usually consisted of getting drunk and making out with some girl you just met in a dark corner of the bar.
Online dating was in its infancy when I was last single (mid nineties). I never tried it then because it always seemed that there were a lot more men looking than women. It’s interesting to think about whether I would have had an easier time if the early interaction took place online. By this time I had been wrong interpreting verbal and nonverbal signals that anything short of “wanna meet for drinks” would have been interpreted by me as no interest in a date. If the problem is one of being more nervous interacting in person I can see online dating sites being easier than in person interaction. If all someone I interacted with online did was hint she was interested, it wouldn’t have worked any more than it would have in person. I probably would have been just as terrified of rejection online as in person.