Dating : People who wait for others to ask them out for a majority of their dates, do you ever have a problem with finding someone you really like?
I worded the question so that all people who do this feel like they can answer but my personal experiences are all about women waiting for men to ask them out. Reddit and my own experience as a guy would have me believe that women play no active part in choosing who they date besides rejecting men they aren’t interested in. Does this not make it so that these type of people can never get the date they want?
If I just imagine a random bar and break every single person (as in every person not in a relationship) into people who would initiate conversations and people who only respond to them then the initiators would hold most of the power in that dynamic. An initiator could approach every single person they want in order of attraction and stop when someone gives them a yes. On the other hand, responders don’t get to choose who comes up to them and if they aren’t among the top percent of generically attractive people at the bar they might not even get approached at all. This works out into a situation where initiators get the best outcome possible for them while responders end up as someone’s second, third, fourth, etc. choice without the opportunity to ever get what they actually want.
So, am I correct in thinking that as a guy I have a lot more power in choosing dates than I feel I do or am I just displaying my inexperience with dating in a crazy post? Also for those of you who are “responders” do you ever find yourself waiting for that one person to come over and talk to you or do you find that enough people come up to you that you don’t need to do it yourself to get what you want?
Well, for online dating it’s different I guess because we both are somewhat interested at least and at most very interested.
You might be thinking about confidence rather than initiators. Sure, someone who is confident in themselves will have the guts to go up to a random girl they are attracted to and see if they’re interested but that doesn’t mean they have the upper hand. It just means their odds of connecting with someone are greater than the people who sit back and wait for it to come to them. The thing about the person who initiates is that they probably have had practice and been rejected. But they didn’t get there out of no where. They had practice, which helped them build their confidence. Failing is the best way to learn what doesn’t work. But the fear if rejection is what keeps people from initiating. I wish i win the lottery but my odds of winning are far greater if i buy a ticket versus if i don’t buy a ticket.
No because it called looks match.
this is how it works……. it’s real simple……
when a woman likes you, shell remove barriers and make it very easy for you to initiate contact with her… or she will flat out contact you…
this heavily depends on her personality…..
at the end of the day you, as a man, will still have to initiate by asking out and facilitating quality time….
there’s gonna be girls you like that won’t like you back
there’s gonna be girls that like you that you don’t like back…
Every now and then you find where it’s mutual but the chemistry off…
and then you find it where it’s mutual, the chemistry right. and you are ready to give and she is ready to please. those are few and far in between but if you not initiating or trying, your odds of reaching that is slimmer than someone who does.
Guys on reddit seem to be like « women never make the first move, they just reject when they’re not interested blah blah blah » but as a young woman I don’t think that’s true. I’m always trying to give my crush hints and even if we both have initiated hanging out sessions before (I think he likes me btw), I still feel like he doesn’t want to show his feelings, wouldn’t give me a clue. I know he’s an introvert but so am I and I still make efforts. Makes me lose my confidence really
Also I’m usually the one starting conversations. I try not to text too much cause I don’t want to be annoying but I literally have to refrain myself from doing it
I am 42(F) single mom and like this man 48. We both are busy professionals and stay miles apart in two diff cities. We have been talking on and off since February this year. Wanted to meet in March but for some professional (legit) reasons he couldn’t make it. Our connection was strong at the very beginning. But after the failed attempt for meeting he had to travel internationally and our texts got farther and farther almost 20 days apart. I got tired of waiting for his texts and told him that I wasn’t liking it. And that’s would appreciate much regular connection which he agreed to initially. After that things slowed down again but this time I kept things light and continued texting in hopes of keeping the strong connection alive (good strong Vibes are so rare that at this age I don’t want to loose something because of me not understanding the dating game). Over the last one to two months I have kept the connection alive and he does respond. We still Share the same chemistry. But now I am getting tired of being the only one initiating the conversation every few days. I also know he is legitimately busy in his line of work. Am wondering should I continue carrying the conversation till we meet or should I let do. Dating online isn’t certainly for the faint of the heart!
I get approached. But waiting to be approached isn’t something I sit around and actively do. I’m generally oblivious to the people around me. It just happens. I’m always nice about it because I feel like it takes a lot of courage. But it isn’t always a yes. 9/10 times the yes is because the guy is funny and friendly. For me personally humor is extremely attractive. The funnier the guy is the cuter I find him.
Some people have the luxury of being able to just sit around and enough potential partners will present themselves. Most don’t
>If I just imagine a random bar and break every single person (as in every person not in a relationship) into people who would initiate conversations and people who only respond to them then the initiators would hold most of the power in that dynamic.
In a game theory sense I think you’re right. But let me nerd out on this way harder than I should… 🙂
In practice it’s hard to produce a total ordering of the potential mates (ie, strict 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc ranking). Instead they’re probably loosely grouped (9’s, 8’s, 7’s, etc) and just hoping to get somebody « good enough ».
Probably initiating will always get you a better outcome. But what about responding?
As the total size of the dating pool goes up, any given responder’s odds of finding someone in a better group go up, potentially quite quickly. In a sufficiently large dating pool responding might get you a nearly-as-good outcome as initiating, but with a lot less effort. ie, maybe you end up with an 8.8 instead of an 8.9, or something like that.
Conversely, in a small dating pool you have a much higher chance of never hearing from the better mates because there just aren’t as many going around. ie, you might end up with a 6 instead of a 9. So there’s probably a much bigger impetus to be an initiator.
The viability of being a responder likely also depends on your relative attractiveness. If you’re a 10+ god/goddess, it probably doesn’t matter what you do. If you’re a 4, then you probably want to be an initiator. And the dividing line (or, more likely, gray zone) moves around based on the size of the dating pool in your area.