My coworker, who is 58, frequently complains that men aren’t as ‘assertive’ as they used to be. She says they used to be more ‘manly’, coming right out and asking for phone numbers and dates. Now they don’t. (She does say that Black and Hispanic men do approach her on the street.)
Are men less assertive than they used to be? Or is it just that men in her age group are (probably) already in relationships?
She’s 58. I suggest that she’s the one who has changed, not “men”. But I wouldn’t tell her that. Just nod your head in agreement.
I think it’s her age group. When a guy is 50 or 60, he’s almost certainly either married or in a relationship if he wants to be. A guy who is single at 50 or 60, and looking for dates, and isn’t NEWLY single…well, I’d guess that he has problems. Also, men tend to die off younger than women, so that the women tend to outnumber the men by a larger and larger margin as the cohort ages. So, there are fewer men in her age group who are single and actively looking for dates. OK, just actively looking for dates, they might be in a relationship but willing to have a little on the side, too.
I think that younger guys are more likely to ask for numbers and dates on the street. More mature guys are willing to take their time, and flirt a bit, and see if the woman is possibly interested before charging in and getting shot down.
They haven’t had their enthusiasm crushed by start brutal reality yet.
That’s the kind of assertiveness she’s talking about? Total strangers “approaching” a 58-year-old woman on the street?
This woman has issues.
Yeah, I’m guessing that if that is what she is looking for, she’s really in the minority of women. The women I know find being approached by total strangers on the street to be creepy and are thankful men aren’t that assertive.
I’m 51 and single, and in perusing the various internet dating sites single ads for similarly aged local women it’s astounding to me how many available 50ish women are more or less looking for someone to take them on extended vacations and/or to travel with as they glide into retirement.
It’s amazing to me that there are so many well off people. I do OK, but I have nothing like the free time or disposable income for extended touring many of these ladies seem to expect their Prince Charmings to have.
Same age & status as astro, and seeing the same thing. To relate this to his post as well as the OP’s, when I was younger, I’d be more “assertive” to any female who batted her big brown eyes at me.
Now, however, more world-wise and less bedeviled by spontaneous erections than when I was 12, I’m "assertively’ not intersted in being someone’s winer & diner, tour guide and kayak-toter. I’m “assertivley” more interested in someone who gives a damn about me.
Maybe men just aren’t asking HER for her phone number, for dates.
Most people don’t like to be judged based on one person’s assumptions of an entire demographic. So methinks perhaps she gives off a b!tchy and judgemental vibe. Or a desperate one. Either way, people can smell it.
You might direct your co-worker’s attention to the multi-page thread on “Things people have yelled out their car window at me” or some such. Those men described seem rather … assertive. And I suppose hollering “Oooh, baby, nice tits, let’s fuck!” counts as asking someone out on a date. At least, by your co-worker’s standards, it sounds like it does. :rolleyes:
Good grief. She wants random men on the street to hit on her? I wonder how she felt about that when she was in her 20s.
In my humble opinion (and I recognize that as a 33-year-old woman, I probably don’t know much about it), I’d hope that by 50 or 60, men would’ve learned that an approach like that isn’t welcomed by most women. Or, maybe they’re just governed less by their hormones.
On a related note, are many men that age looking for a longer-term relationship (i.e., more companionship), or are they more likely to be seeking no-strings-attached sex? I’d guess that, just like with any other age group of men, what they want would differ from person to person.
Yeah, that’s pretty much what I do.
Whenever she asks, ‘Why do men do [this]?’ I just tell her we’re clueless. Or that everything comes down to sex (men being simple creatures, and all 
)
Aiyiyiyiyi…
So she met this guy online. They exchanged phone numbers. They agreed to meet up sometime soon. He hasn’t called, and he didn’t respond to an email she sent him on the weekend. She did see he was online at the dating site (something about fish). Question for me: Should she call him?
I said if she wants to meet up with him, send him a ‘Wassup?’ email. If he doesn’t answer, forget him. If she doesn’t want to meet him at this point, forget him. Simple enough.
But then I had to listen to her complain about how men should call if they say they will, return emails, follow through on things, and by the way, do you think I should call him? Twenty minutes, when I could be doing something else. How many times do I have to say, ‘Call him, or don’t.’? And every time she seemed finished and was going back to her desk, she’d turn around and do the ‘and another thing’ thing.
The first husbands either worked themselves to death or considered the expensive divorce worth it.
Statistically speaking, this group of women are to be avoided at all (heh) cost.
It’s women like this who make me glad I’m gay.
Oy gevalt. She may be 58 years old, but she’s extremely immature.
That’s what I was thinking too. I don’t know about the hormone thing, but I’d think most normal men have learned by that point that the “hey baby hey baby” think doesn’t work so well on normal women.
Please tell us more about her, Johnny! She sounds like an interesting case.
You mean that:
is the reality? Because I think that anyone who says “hey baby hey baby” NEEDS to have his enthusiasm crushed.
Counterpoint, if I may…
(damn it, I swore to stay away from these threads)
… but I don’t know that that’s so. I mean there are women who are perfectly normal who appreciate a bit of boldness and, for lack of a better term, trash talk. That type of talk has worked for me – especially among black women – do we define ‘normal’ as ‘uptight’?
Not saying you are, but there is (thankfully!) a whole range of what women like IME. Otherwise, what a narrow line to walk there is between ‘leg-humping inoffensive nice guy who never gets any’ and ‘street rat who needs only to be ignored because he’s an obvious buffoon’!
There’s boldness, and then there’s just obnoxiousness. I had a guy chat me up and get my phone number while he was filling up my gas tank. But he did it NICELY, and in fact I went out with him for most of a year. He was extremely bold, but he never gave me the impression that I was just another piece of meat to him. And that, I think, is the difference. I think that guys who say stuff like “hey baby hey baby” are very likely to say that to ANY woman, just because she’s female.
Well, you obviously have, as we all do, what turns you off and what turns you on. I think what we might agree on is that what you say is important yet how you say it even more so… maybe the upside to my baby face is that I’m taken as less of a threat, and I tend to smile when I talk. Who knows?
OP: I have noticed, just in the zeitgeist I suppose, the pendulum between ‘macho’ and ‘sensitive’ swing more toward the ‘macho’ end of things. I’m thinking of ‘The 40-Year Old Virgin’ in particular though it’s easy to find other examples in recent pop culture too… it’s pretty well acknowledged that right now women are more independent and want some sort of ferocity to a man, and right now a lot of we men are so beflummoxed by the '90s feminist assertion of ‘No, we mean it, we’re serious about you men having to reform’ that I think there is a lot of reticence where none was before. Of course, that does depend on what exactly you’re looking for…
You’re a wise man. If you’re not into feeding off of other people’s drama (which is, while occasionally a nice source of schadenfreude, usually exhausting), best to just play dumb and non-confrontational.
IME, older men do this, but choose younger targets. Something tells me they’re too ashamed to do it to their own peers, and too afraid to do it to women who look like they might yell back.