Just curious. What smooth (or not so smooth) inquiries have you received that didn’t have you reaching for your pepper spray or feeling awkward?
IANASingleFemaleDoper but, as a guy in my single days I often asked
“Are you married, engaged or in love?”
in a straight-forward way and never got anything like a defensive reaction. As an honest question I usually got a civil answer.
Hmm, I guess it depends on where you are. If you’re at a bar and she’s sitting next to you chatting you up, it’s probably ok to ask. Really, anytime that you are having a nice conversation it is ok to ask. I have a much harder time with it in random public places.
If you’re at the gas station and she’s across the way filling up her car, leave her alone. Unless a woman gives you a flirt or a signal of some kind, she probably wants to be left alone.
Because there she could aim the hose at you, pull out the lighter and do damage to you that you can’t even imagine.
Took three years for my eyebrows to grow back…
Ooh! Ooh! Foxy’s single again!
I have found that the best way to ask is during a good conversation, i.e. if you really are getting on well with a girl it’s not unpermissable to say “Hey, you seem like a really cool person and we seem to be getting on pretty well, so I was wondering if you had a significant other that would prevent this conversation from going any further?”
I personally appreciate a direct approach. Plus this way you get to find out if she is really interested in you and has a SO, isn’t really interested in you (and makes up a SO), or has a SO and is interested in you anyway, (“Well I’m sure he wouldn’t appreciate the conversation from going any further but I know I wouldn’t mind…”) Stay away from those.
-foxy
Happily waiting for someone to approach her and ask if she has an SO…
Unless you are really really attractive and you are positive that she is into really really attractive men. This actually happened to me one time, I was filling up my truck and an EMT came up to me and started talking to me about my truck, what kind, what horsepower, what kind of gas mileage I got. Asked my name, shook my hand. At first I just thought he wanted to buy my truck. Then he asked me how old I was, (I lied) and if I was getting ready to go see my boyfriend (*Ooh I just remembered something else). I said no, I was not. He asked to take me out to dinner, unfortunately I was going to be moving across the country in about…2 days. He said that if I was ever in the area and wanted a tour of the EMT station, to give him a call and he’d love to take me out to dinner. Shook my hand again, told me to have a good evening.
All in all it eas a very pleasant “stranger at the gas station” type of encounter.
*I have had this line of question many times, and it’s maybe a little more subtle than what I’d said before. If you’re interested in a girl that you don’t know, a cutesy “So, are you off to see the boyfriend tonight?” kind of thing can be very effective. Can solicit many different responses. “Yeah, sorry” “Nope, no boyfriend blush” “No boyfriend, but I do have plans, sorry” “Nope, no boyfriend. But I do have plans, would you care to join me?”
-foxy
I’ve been harassed so many times at the gas station that I have considered buying mace. But then, none of them were very attractive. 
Here’s some advice, guys, know your limitations. Surely you can tell that certain women are not going to be interested. Follow that instinct.
Yeah, all you ugly people, how dare you hit on an attractive person!? Don’t you know your place?
:rolleyes:
Yeah. Go off and start a venture capital firm or something. Learn to be smug, curt, and commanding. Buy black clothing that never gets cat hair on it. In fact, lose the cat.
How do we tell the difference between those, exactly?
It hurts me to do this, but I’m going to disagree. Plain looking men of the world, go talk to that babe you think is out of your league. Right now.
I’ve always considered myself to be kind of average at best, maybe even dorky at worst. And ever since I was a teen-ager, I have dated, in fact married way over my head.
A model who did fashion phtography and some commercials I dated in the late 70’s, after we broke up introduced me to her friend that I then ended up dating for most of a year.
It sounds like some sort of concieted bragging to say it, but when I dated, and yeah now with the bus wife, I walk into a room (or walked) with one of, if not the best looking lady in the place. That’s not my judgment, that’s others opinion too.
Ok, it was shallow physical attractiveness back then, but then hooray for that anyway right? But almost inevitably, I’d be somewhere with a lot of people and see the cutest girl there standing all alone, or with her girlfriends. Know how I got them to talk to me?
By talking to them. Without trying to be funny, or impressive or any of that. No one ever got any of the lines from me they got from the “attractive” guys. They got nice conversation, some genuine (not boilerplate) compliments, they got someone who listened to them and paid attention without staring at their chest (plenty of time for that later). And when I’d tell them I was surprised to see them there alone, and lucky me, they’d almost invariably say the same thing:
That being the hot chick is pretty lonely, because guys always assume they’re with someone, or assume they’ll get shot down for not being attractive enough.
Once in a while, if they did have an SO, they had a great looking friend that they’d take the trouble to introduce me to.
Nothing against physical attraction, don’t get me wrong - just remember there’s a lot of things a guy or girl can do for the opposite sex, and damn few of them depend on how you look.
I’ve dated all kinds of guys, unattractive and attractive, fat and thin, etc. But none of them harassed me at a gas station.
I think I give way too much credit in thinking that people should follow their instincts instead of hitting on any woman that is in a one block radius, whether she appears to be interested or not.
THAT is a good point. You have to be able to judge pretty quickly if something’s there or not, I’ll give you that.
Female doper here…unmarried, but definitely attached.
As long as a guy who approches me is nice, I am always nice to him. “Well, I’ve been with the same guy for 7 years, but I’m flattered that you asked. Us old maids don’t aren’t used to the attention…you made my day!”
That’s a perfectly clear response, and lets the guy leave with a smile on his face.
Now, I could tell you multiple stories about creepy jerks who just don’t get the clue, but that’s another thread (matter of fact one the other evening was so persistent and weird that I was afarid to leave alone and asked another man to walk me to my car…eeeeeech!)
See the end of the paragraph you quoted. If she’s interested in you and has a SO, she’ll probably allude to such. Or if she’s not interested, it will be her “out” if you will.
Yeah… that’s not quite what I meant. The funny part was supposed to be “and be sure she is into really really attractive MEN” thus demonstrating the irony of expending energy to chat up a hot lesbian at a gas station. But…sorry if I offended.
Sure, chat up whoever you want to. But be prepared to get shot down in a situation like that unless you are pretty careful about how you go about it, because while some girls might equate getting hit on at a gas station with a possible date, many, MANY more will think back to horror stories they’ve heard about women getting abducted near the interstate and succinctly shoot you down. (Or spray you with gasoline and light you on fire ;))
-foxy
Do NOT use the following:
While talking to her, mention her husband… that is, not in asking, but as a statement.
Do not ask if she is pregnant.
If you’re talking to a girl, please chat for her more than a couple of minutes before asking her out. Especially if you have a few more minutes to spare.
If a girl is on a bus stop alone, do not tell her you can give her a ride. If she learned anything from her parents, she won’t get into a car with strangers (and if it’s broad daylight and said woman has a t-shirt and jeans on, chances are she is not a hooker).
I don’t know if guys can detect that I’m lying when I say I have a boyfriend (and I don’t have one, never had).
It doesn’t really matter whether they can or can’t – “I have a boyfriend” means “Sorry, not interested.”
Yea, but they keep insisting (which in turn makes me less likely to change my story, with one exception).
Explain to them that it means “go away and leave me alone, you loathsome toad.” Sometime you need to be direct.
There’s also the simple, direct approach: ask her out.
I mean, that’s why you want to know if she’s available, right? So cut to the chase. Whether she says yes, or she says she has an SO, or if she declines for some other reason, you’ve got your answer.