Guys, do you like, or dislike, the idea of a girl asking you out?

[AmandaYVR]

'Cold War'

Guys, Do You:

• Lose respect for her
• Think she's low-value
• Get turned off
• Feel emasculated
• Get the upper hand
• Consider it easy to manipulate her
• Think she's a loser
• Think she's pathetic
• Think she has low self-esteem
• Or dislike it...

... when a girl reaches out, asks you out, takes initiative, is clear and communicative, shows interest in a relationship or date with you, or getting to know you?

The poll is simple. Yes or no.

Hint: They don't believe you. You'll have to be very convincing. Why is it important/beneficial, in today's climate and society?
(Hint: #metoo, sexual harassment fears, gender equality...)

I know you have something to say about this. I know you've said it before, it's old news to you, but please say it one more time, this time addressing these bullet points, if you can.
49 upvotes on this mytake, the highest number of all topics I've ever written about.
The Personal and Societal Benefits of Girls Taking the Initiative With Guys in Relationships

Look at all those poll results.
Girls, want to know how to ask a guy out?

I may write another mytake about it, from a different angle. I tried encouraging and supporting. Next time will be something different.



Success!
"I asked! I asked him today and he put my # in his phone and we have been texting so we can grab food soon. I thought I would update, especially since a lot of you were happily shocked a woman wanted to ask a guy for a change. Was nervous but couldn’t have done it without your help & encouragement! 😊"
How Do I Ask A Guy Out As A Female (never done this)?

I like it.

I dislike it.

[Juxtapose]

Imagine trying to find the door to Heaven in a hallway full of mostly doors to Hell.

Then the door to Heaven just swings on open for you, saving you from countless Hells.

How can a man not be happy when a woman finally shows initiative? How can he not feel like a stud when a woman is so into him that she pursues him?

This is 2021, not 1950.. you ladies need to catchup & stop buying into this old fashioned bullshit. NOBODY likes that shit anymore, it's corny & hint.. the 50's were built on liiieees.

I have a girlfriend now so I am fine but for the love of God ladies don't make the rest of these guys play guessing games when you could just make it easy for them.

[Juxtapose]

Thanks for mho.

[AmandaYVR]

I loved it! It was exactly the kind of strong, impactful wording I was hoping for. 🙏

[Juxtapose]

You did encourage us to be convincing so I tried my best to convey how I personally feel.

Thanks :)

[SomeGuyCalledTom]

A girl asking out a guy is like a hot day in winter: we don't expect it to happen, but it's a nice surprise when it does.

[SomeGuyCalledTom]

"Guys, Do You:
Lose respect for her
Think she's low-value
Get turned off
Feel emasculated
Get the upper hand
Consider it easy to manipulate her
Think she's a loser
Think she's pathetic
Think she has low self-esteem
Or dislike it...
... when a girl reaches out, asks you out, takes initiative, is clear and communicative, shows interest in a relationship or date with you, or getting to know you?"

None of the above. If anything it shows me she has empathy for what men go through, because a girl who asks out guys will at some point experience rejection, rather than being swaddled in the safety blanket of" never needing to make the first move".

Ultimately I don't really care who initiates, as long as ONE OF US actually does initiate. What matters is whether we feel a connection after interacting for some length of time.

[SomeGuyCalledTom]

Honestly, I think women just convince themselves "men hate women who make the first move" because they're afraid of rejection. And I know this because, speaking as a guy, I'm already familiar with my own excuses to bottle out of making a move. Men are experts in avoiding rejection, but women will avoid rejection without even realising they're just bottling it. Instead they'll complain that there aren't any good men or that "men don't want a woman who goes after what she wants". Us guys see through that shit, we've already come face to face with all our own excuses, so when we see women do the same thing yet fail to recognise it in themselves, we find it bemusing to say the least

[SomeGuyCalledTom]

"Why is it important/beneficial, in today's climate and society?
(Hint: #metoo, sexual harassment fears, gender equality...)"

I don't care for the politics of "who must initiate". To me that's all just baggage, its like the ancient fear of rejection mixed in with the additional fear of societal or legal consequences. But it's all just fear, at the root of things. And fear is all the same at the amygdala level. It's fight or flight, its red light or green light. So we've got this situation now where men see only red lights, and women aren't even aware that green lights ever existed for them to "go first". It's all a collective fiction we've implicitly agreed to as a society. It's communally mandated (yet largely imagined) fear, devoid of any critical interrogation or counter-narrative.

So here's a better narrative:

Whether your male or female, there's a blockage of fear separating you from what you desire. Walk through the blockage and you'll see its only a thin, permeable membrane. On the other side is freedom. Not because you'll necessarily get what you want. You may even get rejected outright. But you'll be okay afterwards, and what's more, you'll be stronger for having faced what you fear. And that strength makes you free, and in your freedom you'll carry in your gait a certain lightness, and it's that quality of lightness that makes you attractive, and that attraction will only increase your chances of getting to where you needed to be.

[AmandaYVR]

lolol. "Bemusing", mmmm. I see through it too. And I am not bemused. But I appreciate your very deliberate restraint.
I feel like I've heard every excuse now. The challenge is just to remember them all. Blah blah blah. It's a smoke screen. You're absolutely right.
Mytake may come one day. I wrote the encouraging one, and have answered dozens of girl's qs about it in support, and read their many, many justifications against. This mytake... they're not going to like it. Huggy time is over.

[AmandaYVR]

Beautifully said! 🎯

[SomeGuyCalledTom]

Yeah, it's like, I'd actually be fine if they just came out and said "I won't approach a guy first because I have too much approach anxiety". Like, welcome to the club 😅. But the self-deception and mutual coddling is like watching some absurdist farce comedy. There's an "elusive obvious" they're just not seeing, like a sitcom where the audience sees something obvious in the background that the character in the foreground totally misses.

[SomeGuyCalledTom]

If women knew how men deal with other men's approach anxiety, they'd be aghast. Men get zero coddling from other men. People see movies and think "oh the guys go out Entourage-style to arrange all these elaborate seduction tableaus on an unwitting female." In reality, men need "wingmen" just to make sure we don't bottle it at the last minute. And I KNOW that y'all ladies know what I'm on about lol. You know that moment where you see a guy make eyes with you, he starts walking over, and then at the last moment he suddenly peels away and returns to his guy friends with some excuse. I know girls see this shit, and yet they either fail or refuse to connect the dots to their own approach anxiety.

[AmandaYVR]

I haven't heard that "bottle it", "bottle out" phrase. I understand though.

What [disgusts] me, is the lack of sympathy for guys on this. I think every damn female out there should be thanking her lucky stars when that any man approaches and she didn't have to do anything but wait, relax, enjoy herself. (Provided, of course, he's not accosting her in a rude or overbearing way; which some certainly do.) The denials of "it's their responsibility", "His job", "He needs to man up", "I never chase", "I am the prize", etc etc... these phrases should never be uttered in today's world. The mental gymnastics that goes into the justifications and lack of empathy... ridiculous.

[SomeGuyCalledTom]

Yep, facts.💯

It's like women demanded "equity" in dating, but don't want to make any extra effort to move the needle even a fraction towards being 50/50 input. Men are so used to women making zero effort, that a woman who makes the first move just 5% of the time would be seen as the dating equivalent of a freshwater spring in a desert. And even if women actually did split the approaching 50/50, they STILL wouldn't face even a fraction of the rejection men face. Its not even close. I even crunched the numbers on this during my first big phase of actively dating. (it started as a joke between me and my friend/wingman, to tally up approaches and see who gets most lol, but it actually revealed some stark statistics.) When the number were all tallied up, my success rate of converting an approach into a first date was about 1 in 50. And the success rate of approaches to first dates that led to *actually dating* was probably closer to 1 out of 150-200. And I wasn't a bad looking guy, didn't have vad breath or crooked teeth, or shoulders hunched by quasimodo. I was a pretty regular guy doing about a hundred times more effort than most of my guy friends, whose sole means of meeting women was "we met through school friends" or "we work together". I remember on GaG I pointed out this immense failure rate men get from "cold approach", and I suggested to her that she as a woman could get just as many dates with LESS THAN 1% of the efforts I'd gone to (ie: just approach a few guys and let an orderly queue form). And she STILL couldn't accept those terms. So women like this won't even give ONE MEASLY STINKING PERCENT of the input, yet they expect 50/50 equitable outputs. Like, they can't have it both ways. I don't even think women SHOULD do 50% of the approaching. It's just in men's coding to do most of the initiating. But I'd just like women to drop the bullshit about why they won't even do a fraction of the initiating. Lkme, ladies, I love y'all, but woman the fuck up lol

[SomeGuyCalledTom]

P. S. "bottle it" is probably a British expression, probably didn't make it across the pond :)

[NathanDavis]

I like it, I lived it... I loved it.

- No, I would never lose respect for some that is interested on me, or is initially intrigued by me... I just don't see why would that make any sense to me.

-No, I would not think she's low value, why would I... again I don't see why this would be my reasoning... am I such a bad choice? a poor choice? what some would consider a low-value or lower-standard individual? because so far, that's as much as I know, that's she's interested or intrigued by me, I don't know more about her, so I don't have any real reason to consider she is not worthy of respect or that she "must be low-value."

-Someone is interested on me? intrigued? attracted to me? and she's actually doing something to get to me. Don't see why any of that could be a turn-off.

- Feel emasculated? I am nothing near of being or having a fragile masculinity, I would never feel emasculated by she, taking the initiative on this, her own resolve does not have to affect me in a negative way

- Get the upper hand... Let's say she actually has the upper hand... then, having the upper hand would be a temporary state of affairs, had I been "concerned" about this, I would be confident enough to get on the lead, when the time is right. But I honestly don't see things that way. It's not a competition, nor a confrontation... and if it were, I am quite experienced at that.

- The chance to manipulate or... take advantage of the situation, it's not something I would do selfishly... if anything, I will see it as a chance to improve my chances to end up with her, getting to know her, and not to trick her into something.

- Think she's a loser, pathetic has low self-esteem? To me it would not be thinking, to me that would be assuming, and assuming the worse about someone... Besides, in most of my relationships I was approached, they took the initiative and acted upon their interest... and after about 12 to 15 years in relationships with them, what I saw was strong, determined, self-sufficient, capable and driven women, quite sure of what they wanted and needed in their lives.

- So, what's there to dislike really... I just can't see something to dislike, because in all these years and all the times it happened... it ended up being a great thing afterwards.

[AmandaYVR]

Amen, hallelujah! 🙏

[NamerOfStars]

37 to 2? I didn't think it'd be so divided. A woman defying social expectations is either a woman who's got a backbone (a plus in itself) or one who's so interested in me that she'll overcome her own reluctance to ask (which is pretty darned flattering, I should think). I have no idea where so many people got the notion that masculinity is something fragile, something that can be injured or broken because of another person's actions, or even words. It just seems so... silly.

Now yes, it is true that taking strong decisive action is a more masculine trait, but that doesn't mean that women aren't expected to ever do anything of their own volition. The existence of a woman isn't supposed to be merely passivity and nurturing and cupcakes, as I think I put it in an answer the other day, and I heartily agree with myself. A woman is a product of a woman and a man, just like I am- no reason she shouldn't have some masculine traits, too. Everybody does, and that's part of WHY we're attracted to one another. In much the same way that women have looked appreciatively at me when they see me making faces at a baby, guys appreciate some masculine attributes of women. As someone who's butted heads with social institutions in a life-altering way consistently since I was seven years old, I know how much it can cost- and I have a great deal of respect for those who do it. Similarly, the guts and determination it takes to make that step means that a person does it is probably going to be HARDER to manipulate, not easier- they're strong enough to deny their own urges toward complacent cowardice, after all.

As an added bonus, asking guys out teaches women to be assertive and ask for what they want- and to take steps to get it if should prove difficult. It teaches them that it's not so scary as it seems at first (lots of guys have trouble with this, too, but we usually go through it and so get over it), and that rejection isn't the end of the world. It also gives both sexes a better understanding of what the other's traditional role is like, and more empathy for them for its difficulties. A more understanding and egalitarian world-what's not to like?

And why, in a more personal and immediate sense, should they be denied a relationship they both want, just because he happens to be shy? My own mother, frustrated at the slowness with which my father was moving on one of their early dates, bent over and kissed him- then took his hand and put it on her knee. At the time, it that would've been considered kind of shocking, but she simply understood that he was hesitant about moving too fast for her, so he wound up going to slow for her instead. Now, this ties in to what you noted, that there are issues of sexual harassment allegations, but remember that that has to be repeated; if you ask and he says no and you accept it, no harm done- and at any rate, he's probably more scared of the same thing from YOU. I can't comment on how "#metoo" affects this, since I don't know what it is, but since I keep seeing it here, I've opened up a tab to find out once I finish writing this.

Ultimately, think of it not like the pretty girl who's besieged with suitors and has guys hitting on her all the time- she's likely to just be annoyed or insulted- but like the shy, quiet one who's starved for male attention. Even if she's not interested, just being asked will probably make her day. This is something most guys live out their lives and die never experiencing. Why not be the one who changes that?

[magiusX26]

damn well put.

incase you haven't read up on it yet, #metoo is a call to stop all sexual harrassment, assaults, etc that unfortunately got turned into a more insidious thing where there are now places with strict laws that can put a man (mostly men in some cases) in prison for years just for asking a woman out or giving a compliment just by being "creepy" (not her type/up to her personal standards). it started off with things like harvey winstien, bill cosby, and i think r kelly. has since ended many big name stars' careers. some stars no longer able to work due to it (sometimes false allegations but mostly just really old complaints just now surfacing) danny masterson (hyde from that 70s show), kevin spacey (this is why "house of cards" got canceled, and as mentioned previously bill cosby (this is why his statue in disney was removed, his hollywood walk of fame footprints were removed and the cosby show reruns are hard to find). its also a part of what got jeffrey epstein.

[NamerOfStars]

So. Having done that reading, and some more reading, since I didn't believe what I was seeing, and then some more this morning after sleeping it off to give the gods a chance to correct what I could only pray was some sort of horrible prank, I can now say you may consider my previous comment withdrawn. And most of my other ones, too. It's not even "guilt by accusation", it's TRIAL by accusation. I could dismiss it as gripes from the usual gaggle of idiots, but the widespread public acceptance says otherwise. You take a man accused of something, backed up evidence that wouldn't pass muster at a Stalin-era show trial, and thousands of people demand his removal from whatever job he has- or might happen to get. And the masses? Oh, they call for more.

[NamerOfStars]

Several years ago, I was visiting a friend at college, and happened to be there when he was accused of raping another student, which I flat-out KNEW was untrue, because at the time it was alleged to have happened, we were both sitting on his couch with our writs tied together. But thanks to federal rules created to combat a non-existent campus rape epidemic by none other than Joe Biden, he was specifically forbidden a lawyer, or ANY of the basics of due process. Everyone turned on him- friends, classmates, even his parents. My calls for reason and evidence went absolutely nowhere- they wouldn't even let me into the building where the hearing was taking place. It got so bad that when he was attacked on the way back from the hearing that expelled him and beaten so badly he had to be hospitalized, the people I went to for more information were CHEERING at the news. Literally cheering. I watched a good man- and more relevantly, and INNOCENT man- wither under the onslaught of mob rule. I was the one who found him after he put a shotgun in his mouth. And now I learn there's a massive crowd who thinks he got off too easy. I suppose I can understand the lack of anger at the Kavanaugh debacle, now. At least that's something.

So like I said, disregard my previous comments. Stay away from men, ladies- it's not safe anymore. And frankly, if our society tolerates that kind of awfulness, we don't deserve to be happy.

[Lliam]

Doesn't bother me at all. It's flattering. It also shows initiative. It takes courage to put yourself out there and risk rejection.

I'll give one example:
On my first date with my (future) wife, which we had set up through a dating service, we got along amazingly well. We really clicked. But I had other dates lined up through the service and there is a chance that I would have gone ahead with those. If time went by and I didn't call her back right away, I would have become more and more afraid that she would be disappointed or angry.

But two days later, she surprised me with a call to say a friend had offered her to tickets to a rock concert. She wondered if I was interested. I jumped at the chance.
Here's the thing. I knew it wasn't the kind of music she was interested in but she knew that I was. But she obviously wanted to get together again and took a chance by dangling a very tempting carrot. Pretty smart.

We went to the concert. On the way from the car, she slipped her hand trustingly into mine. We wound up having a great time. Afterwards, I asked her on a date to the Huntington Library art museum/botanical garden near Los Angeles the next weekend. We started dating stead after that.

I have to say that I was impressed by her initiative, not turned off in the least.

[AmandaYVR]

Yes! Great story.

I love the Huntington Library. Miss that place. 🌷🌸🌺

[Lliam]

Ah, you've been there? My family, along with my grandparents would go there from time to time from the time I was young. I introduced my friends to it when I was in my teens and started driving. I can think of few places more calming, interesting and inspiring.

[Andres77]

When it happened I was flattered and because I had low self-esteem and felt desperate almost all the time I accepted every time... but was a little resentful because of my aspi brain... she wasn't part of my plan and it was hard to adjust my thinking but I also didn't want to be rude by saying no. So a relationship would start that I was not prepared for. Not fair to her and I'd rack up more frustration and guilt. And those poor girls...😒.

Eventually I realized that turning some girls down did not mean I thought I was too good for them, it was that I was not ready for a relationship and that I was saving them heartache. I think I came to that conclusion subconsciously but when the therapist walked me through what she thought I'd done... I could finally articulate it.

My brain is a puzzle that I'm still trying to figure out... and by the time I do dementia will arrive.

[Jamie05rhs]

Guys, Do You:


• Lose respect for her
No!


• Think she's low-value
No!


• Get turned off
No!


• Feel emasculated
No


• Get the upper hand
No


• Consider it easy to manipulate her
No


• Think she's a loser
No


• Think she's pathetic
No


• Think she has low self-esteem
No (The opposite!)


• Or dislike it...
No




It only makes me uncomfortable if she says what she likes about me FIRST, BEFORE allowing me the opportunity to tell her whether or not I like her.
Once I've confirmed mutual interest, THEN I want to hear why she likes me.

[Lionman95]

I would like it if a woman makes the first move. That doesn´t mean that she needs to take iniative for the rest of the dating period because after one or two dates I can take over but I generally have a hard time understanding female body language and in the past it happened that I´ve misunderstood women and the signals they sent out towards me.

[ShadezMcgee]

I always liked it when a woman had the guts to ask me out and defy the dating norm. It also gave me the indicator that she was very interested too. Didn't need to get about having to ask or wonder where I stood with her because in that moment she wanted/ was interested and focused on me.

Very rarely happens these days, but you have to smile at those little gestures. Dating in general has become a dog and pony, wish washy bullshit game.

[IAMNathanael]

I think I would dislike it... but not for the reason you might expect.

I'd be super flattered and she'd have my respect. I know it takes bravery and I don't want to reject anyone but I'd rather just keep living under my rock, unbothered by the outside.

[kellytheman]

I would like it because even though it's not traditional it is the 21st century and a new generation these days. I wish more girls would use more effort or initiative to ask a guy out than crushing on a guy in secrecy then cry about being single or thinking a certain guy doesn't like her. Also it makes her more attractive if she ask a guy because shows confidence and confidence is always attractive.

[magiusX26]

i like it. i dont get any of your list of possible negatives from it. have only been sort of asked once (she asked if i was single then for my number). at the time i was seeing someone already, and i would have politely turned her down anyways due to not being my type (her age and what appeared to be a long history of drug use/drinking) . i did however politely say i was flattered for the iffer but taken. as to what happened with who i was with, thats another story.