When one has to “audition” in order to be get a date it tends to create a bit of tension. When you know the girl is judging you the whole time are you really going to feel comfortable enough to share anything with her?
I don’t mind being flirted with or hit on if it’s done with some class and the man seems to have a genuine interest in me. If it’s crude, vulgar, or flip, I don’t appreciate it because it’s disrespectful. Time and place matter, too. I don’t want to be hit on at work. Ever. By anyone. (Pleasant conversation is okay, and getting to know one another casually is okay at work.)
A few years ago I met a guy who looked at me shyly a few times and then struck up a conversation about my body piercing. I didn’t mind at all, and I knew he was interested without him having to be crude about it.
Or, sometimes, on the way to work I get leered at and asked if I wanna go party. Um, no. One time some guys were looking me up and down and laughing amongst themselves and then one of them asked me to marry him. That’s not a good way to hit on someone. heh
I understand that people look at one another, and that someone might look at me and think, “wow! Look at those legs!” or any other sexual thought, but sharing it with me is not a good idea!
Depends on what you mean by “being picked up or hit on.” If you’re talking a low-key greeting and some casual conversation, possibly followed by a request for a date after it’s clear you have something to say to each other, I have no objections at all. In fact, I wish it would happen more often. If you’re talking about blatantly sexual remarks from a complete stranger, we hate it because it’s scary. (I’m continually amazed at how many guys fail to grasp this – sure, you know you’re not a stalker or a rapist, but the person you’re hitting on doesn’t know that, nor can she be expected to take your word for it.)
I don’t mind being hit on. What I do mind, however, are pickup lines. A simple “Hi, I’m so-and-so” works just fine, and comes across so much better than the over-used, stupid lines. Also, if you want to come introduce yourself, talk to my face, not my chest.
I don’t do it. I never makes passes at, propose dates with, ask for telephone number of, or otherwise hit on or try to pick up women. There just isn’t enough basis for knowing that I want to be with them, and I’m not interested in negotiating the minefield.
When I have been single and have sought companionship, I post a personal ad.
I’m not sure, thye never tell me what hit on means. I think they mainly refer to being asked out, or having remarks made, or people approaching them.
I dont mind it, it depends on how you do it, what you say and how I feel at the time. Sometimes like others have said, Ive felt really threatened other times I’m just flattered. I usually like doing the picking up but it was mutual and was with someone who liked me too.
The friends thing I’m not sure… you are put in the friend zone, I would sometimes feel apprehensive because I’ve lost male friends in the past when they express interest other than friendship and is something I try to avoid. No dating in the friend pool because I want to keep my friends and I would not like it if I was close to someone and we decided to date and then it ruined our friendship.
One simple reason–she may be married or have an otherwise significant other.
The reason dating advice so often recommends joining some kind, any kind of group–a club, a volunteer organization, a church, a sports team–is that it gives the members a milieu, a shared social group. This gives people a chance to see one another in action. Think of the information you have about someone just by virtue of belonging to the same group–he has interests, he has an address, he has some sort of “accountability” to the members of the group.
In a “pickup” situation you have no extra information about the person. This is why many women don’t like to be “hit on”–that is not how they are conducting their mate search(and this is assuming she is even conducting a mate search). They have no interest in meeting a man they have no information about. It puts her on the spot to be either receptive or rejecting–there is no neutral response for her.
As far as I’m concerned one of the benefits of getting older and fatter has been a relief from guys hitting on me just because I want to buy groceries or go to the library.
You get dressed up for a night out because it makes you feel good. Sometimes you want a night out with the girls and the last thing on earth you need is some blokie getting in way of the serious and earnest intention of getting hammered and having fun.
OK… one question…
How can we know you arent interested if we arent allowed to approach you to find out if you are (or if we find you interesting for that matter)? I have never understood this. I know that chances are that we are not going to hit it off completely and wind up married with 2.4 children one day, but if you get annoyed just from a guy coming up and saying hello to you then what exactly are we supposed to do?
The other thing to keep in mind ladies is that not all of you are “all that”. Sometimes saying hello, is jsut simply that. Not all of us want to take you home and sleep with you on the basis of saying hi… Sometimes we just to talk too.
So what exactly is the answer?
You sound like my type of woman 
I’m a weirdo, of course, but I like getting hit on.
Women have often had experience after experience from the time they were teenagers of guys asking them out and then turning out to be jerks after “one thing.” Or even after lots of things, but still jerks. On occation (and more often than guys really realize) there has been things like unwelcome physical contact up to and including date rape in their past. Or a guy who tells you he has a job turns out to be unemployed and needs to “borrow” $200. The one who was employed turns out to be married. The one who was employed and single turned out to be possessive stalker guy from hell.
Many (not all) are unwilling to take the chance on actually spending time and effort on someone with whom they’ve spent less than five minutes. Five minutes is enough time to let a girl know she is physically attracted to you, but really not enough time to discover that you have “issues.”
(And, as Eva Luna said, there is the method - I though I was the only one who’d been followed home by a complete stranger looking for a date.)
Yeah, now that I think about it, there have been exactly three times in my life I let myself be hooked by a casual pickup…two turned out to be pretty much out for one thing only, and the third was very nearly a date rapist. (He spent the entire evening trying to get me drunk by buying beers, even after I told him I rarely drink and hate beer…this was Spain, and after he realized that not all American girls were easy and that I wasn’t going to have sex with him on the first date, if ever, he told me, at 4 a.m. in a drunken stupor in a bar, that for as liberal as I said I was, I might as well have been Ronald Reagan. I’ll spare you the near-date rape part, but let’s just say that at that point I fely safer walking home alone through Madrid at 4 a.m. than continuing to sit in a bar with him.)
This works for me, too. I’d be more likely to give a guy my number if he actually tried to converse with me, rather than say something along the lines of “Did it hurt when you fell from heaven?” Not that I’ve ever had a cheesy pickup line told to me. I don’t know whether to be glad, or to wish I could tell a story with that happeneng.
yup. I don’t want to ‘audition’ like i am trying out for a job, i just want to interact with people, come off as their equal, and find out if they are desirable people for me or not.
I can understand why women wouldn’t like sexual comments or people looking for sex, but it sucks that men have become so docile & syncophantic with women that we have given women the image that everyone & their father wants them :(. It makes it harder because some women develop a sense of supercilious entitlement (similiar to what Mith said about attention on their terms) when it comes to interaction. I try to stick to being attracted to plain women as i hope i can come across as their equal when i interact with them, and not as another annoying, syncophantic admirer.
Or, one supposes, they are Aberdeen supporters…
I don’t know. It seems like a Catch-22 to me. If you see a woman in a bar, feel attracted, and want to talk to her, it’s a “pick-up” and most women won’t like it. But if you don’t go over to talk to her, there’s no chance that she’ll come and talk to you. Hence nearly every (straight, natch) bar I’ve gone into features a few groups of guys talking and laughing amongst themselves, and a few groups of ladies talking and laughing amongst themselves. Ne’er the twain shall meet.
It’s like “Ginsburg’s Theorem”: You can’t win. You can’t break even. You can’t even quit the game. Sometimes I wonder whether the surprise about modern life isn’t that there are so many single people floating around, but rather that there are so many attached.
Funny, I got the overwhelming feeling from this thread that it’s not so much the attempt, as the smoothness with which it is done. Certainly that’s been my reaction.
Talk to us like we’re people, not like sex vending machines. And those creepy pickup lines? Never, ever ever use those.
Otherwise, you may be treated to a reply like this, “Any part of you that touches me, you’re NOT getting back!”
And yeah, I met my husband in a bar. We’re still together some ummm, I think fourteen or fifteen years later. He didn’t use any cheesy pickup lines. The successful pitch? “Hey, you know, I got those books, in hardcover. The last two aren’t out in paperback yet. Wanna read 'em sometime?”
My impression from the responses is that women don’t mind being approached if it’s handled correctly–nothing lewd, just nice conversation. I don’t think anyone said they become annoyed if someone says hello to them, or that a simple hello is an attempt to get the person naked.
You’re certainly allowed to approach me, I don’t mind. It’s when it’s rude (“hey baby, nice tits”) that it isn’t welcomed.
Hmm, I must be lucky. I can uaually tell with in the first few seconds or minutes if a woman is attracted to me or not. I really can’t explain how its just a weird vibe thing I guess. (I’ve been wrong on this before but not many)
But anyway I usually only “hit” on women I get these vibes from. And it seems to work for me pretty well. Also by “hit” I mean start up a conversation with some actual meat in it as opposed to “damn baby yada, yada ya” This probably helps a bit too.