I rarely ask because I’m afraid they’ll take it to mean, “I want to have sex with you in the broom closet in 10 minutes” and sometimes I’m really just interested in getting to know them better first.
That said, I appreciate men’s assertion that women should be willing to make the first move once in awhile because it’s not fair to ask men to bear the entire burden of insecurity.
Do you ask men out? Why or why not?
I’m not single. If I were, no, I wouldn’t ask men out.
I have NEVER had it go well when I’ve been the one to make the first move; it’s always ended up in heartache. Men are wired to chase. I certainly don’t think women should just sit around feigning disinterest and expect to be adored - you’ve definitely got to show that you’re interested, too … after he shows interest first. 
If he’s into me, he’ll call. If he doesn’t call, he’s not that interested – if I had had this drilled into my head at puberty I could have saved myself a LOT of tears.
Excuses like “he’s just shy” don’t cut it with me and never will. My husband is painfully shy and still managed to pick up the phone and call me.
If I don’t, it’s because I’m a little shy and not the best at reading social cues. But I do try to stand up for myself and make the first move. I think guys appreciate it.
I never directly ask, and I am usually very good at making my feelings known. But the one or two times I’ve asked I’ve been shot down pretty badly, even when there is chemistry. But there are lots of other ways ot make your intent known.
Heh.
The only time I did, I ended up with the guy that I’ve been with for about ten years.
It was an online forum (not this one) and I had a very weird schedule and I noticed he was online all the time when I was.
We’d commented on each others posts, so one day, I just said hello in private.
Later I felt like I’d chased him b/c he couldn’t believe a female talked to him!
If we didn’t work out, I wouldn’t be afraid of hitting on a guy ever again.
Oops, I didn’t realize the poll was exclusive - I am not single. Sorry.
If I’m parsing this sentence correctly, there are times when you do want to have broom closet sex… 
I’m married now but back when I was single I used to ask men out all the time. I got asked out regularly too but I never had a problem asking men out. Sometimes I got turned down and sometimes the relationships worked out for a while but either way at least I knew for sure that I wasn’t leaving my love life in other people’s hands.
Bzzzzz. “The Chase” sucks. I get no satisfaction out of chasing women.
Y’know, every woman I’ve ever heard say this never seems to understand two things.
First, that they don’t communicate nearly as well as they think, so that it’s entirely possible men have no idea you’re even available, let alone interested.
Second, The Chase is an ongoing adventure, which is most fun when there’s a possibility of success. It doesn’t even have to stop with marriage, let alone dating.
Short version. If you’re interested, invite us to do something very platonic. We may try something from there. IMHO, one problem these days is that there is no accepted, discrete path to pursuing a woman. Unless you know her friends very well, it’s often hard to socially meet a woman and learn what she’s like without dating. To me, that’s rather putting the cart before the horse, and it really used to be the other way around.
Think of it as a litmus test: if the guy that you’d consider asking reacts weirdly or badly if you ask him out, he was probably kind of flaky in other ways as well. (A certain rigid and old-fashioned set of ideas about gender being likely among them).
I will get very close and set it up very well, but generally I try my best to wait for them to do the formal proposing. I’ve become a believer in the “he’s just not that in to you” school of thought, and if he doesn’t ask you out, he’s just not that in to you. If a guy gets a perfect setup from the woman of his dreams, he’s going to jump on that. If a guy doesn’t jump on that easy set up, either he’s just not that in to you or he has something going on that probably doesn’t bode well for a good relationship in the long run.
That doesn’t mean he wouldn’t go out with you if you initiated something. He likely would. But I’m less interested in guys who are on the fence about going on a date with me, and more interested in people who make it clear that going on a date with me is what’d they want to do.
That said, I can talk the talk, but my current beau came out of a situation where I acted very aggressively. I think the relationship has deepened, however, as I’ve let him do the leading.
I’ve never been asked out by a woman before, but as a man, and through everything that I’ve been able to glean from discussions with my other male friends, I can’t imagine that any guy wouldn’t feel flattered at having the girl doing the asking and making the first move. If he says no, that’s just because he wasn’t interested anyway and it has nothing to do with some kind of failure on the part of the woman.
This whole idea of men and The Chase just seems so friggin’ antiquated to me. The ladies here really need to ditch their preconceived ideas about it somehow being a “bad idea” for them to ask guys out; the bottom line, girls, is that men need to be pursued just as much as the women, so making the first move shouldn’t always be relegated to males.
I have asked men out in my life, but I’m not doing so at present. Why? Because I’m content to be single, and pretty fuckin’ lazy. I put up an okcupid profile and let guys come to me. If they don’t, it doesn’t matter because I’m not in need of a relationship.
If/when I feel less inclined to be single at some point, I’ll change up my strategy. But this has worked just fine for me over the last year.
What if she’s ugly and has an obnoxious personality?
When I was single, I don’t think I ever formally asked a man to go on a date… or did I? I definitely flirted, and occasionally, when I found someone interesting, I suggested things like “Hey, my friends and I meet up to play trivia on X day at X time at X location. Wanta join us?” Or stuff like that. Is that asking for a date? Or “I usually stop off at Joe’s for happy hour with friends on Thursdays if you’d like to meet us there.” In my head, that’s not asking for a date, since it’s a group outing to which he has been invited. But, like any other dating situation (on-line dating, strange man in bar inviting me out,) personal comfort levels and security played a role in those invitations - new dude and I could join the gang or sit at our own table, depending on preferences, but my friends were there in case things started to go pear-shaped. (And yes, that’s how I became more closely acquainted with my now-husband. Even though we’d known one another in a friendly social way since high school, we started dating after I invited him to join my gang for drinks or trivia or something. And I’m glad, because he has admitted that he wouldn’t have asked me out first, because I was “out of his league.” Bwuh?)
Sure, provided it’s a well-ventilated broom closet. But not like, with everyone I’m interested in, at the very moment I decide to ask them out.
Oh dear! I know so many men that realize five years later that they had the perfect set-up and missed it. They are like, “She was hitting on me and I thought she was insulting me.” Even as a woman I sometimes look back and think, ACK! He was so nice and he was asking me out! AND I MISSED IT!!! Though, I’m pretty literal. I miss a lot.
Plus, I think there’s a certain combination of shy to speak and having experienced rejection at home or in a past dating life that would make a man too hesitant to ask out his dream woman.
Of course asking a man out could lead to rejection, but what I’m saying is, what makes you think you shouldn’t have to share in that risk?
Everyone I ever wanted to date (well, who was attracted to women) liked me back, and made that very clear from the beginning. So it just never came up I guess.
Ditto. I hate chasing. Guys that want to chase are interested in women that like to be chased and they go to places where that’s understood, like bars or whatever. If you’re meeting a guy in any other capacity, making the assumption that the guy wants to chase you is stereogyping and limiting your options.
The issue here is that what you think is the perfect setup may or may not be perceived that way to him. This sort of thing seems to be pretty common with men and women varying greatly on what constitutes obvious signs. I’ve been in situations where, apparently, a woman practically threw herself at me and I was completely oblivious to it. In at least a couple cases, I didn’t find out until much later and, had I realized she was interested I would have done something. In a few other cases, she ended up making the first move and we dated for a while.
I’ve known a few women who would lament about not meeting any nice, but were terrible at getting across their interest and wouldn’t make the first move so they would only attract guys that would approach even her with weak or non-existant signals and so that a majority of them were jerks isn’t surprising. But if you’re really interested in a guy, unless you know he’s the type who will do that, he may not be getting your signals or he may not be confident enough in them to overcome his shyness. Its up to you what kind of guy you’re looking for.
Because I feel like the risks are greater than the rewards, I suppose; I know that I would find rejection deeply upsetting and humiliating, whereas I don’t find being single unpleasant at all. (I’m also pretty sure that if I asked a man out, I would have a much-greater-than-50% chance of being rejected, on the grounds that 1) I do not seem to be the kind of person men are attracted to, in general; and 2) if he were interested, he’d probably have asked me first.)
Not really worth it. And I’m pretty much fine with the prospect of never having another romantic relationship in my life, if it comes to that. The only part of it that I’m truly bummed out about is that this also means never having children, but it seems like a very bad idea to try to date someone only for the purpose of having kids.