“In the entire dataset, 29% of men said they never approached a woman in person before. 27% said it had been more than one year. This was larger for men in the age 18-25 group: 45% had never approached a woman in person,” according to the study.
A majority of single males surveyed reported fear as the main reason they do not approach women for dates in person. Fear of rejection and fear of social consequences were the two most common responses.
The data highlights a growing concern in the United States and abroad — loneliness. A 2023 report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services found that almost half of U.S. adults report “measurable levels of loneliness.”
It’s interesting to say the least. It seems as though the social repercussions and rejection are the most profound reason. While the fear of rejection is easy enough to digest. But I think the fear or social consequences is a relatively new construct.
From what I understand it’s the fear of being viewed as a creep to approach a woman out of the blue. Which to me, is reasonable enough. But I don’t think I have ever heard my old man or anyone of his generation bringing this to the table.
Yet I do remember asking my friends about picking up hints and whether or not men are really that bad at it. And most them saying the just don’t want to risk misinterpreting it.
Perhaps there is an argument to be made that approaching women like this, has fallen out of social fashion. What do you guys think?
p.s. I hope this is casual enough of a conversation. I kinda screwed up my last one, I admit.
Edit: Here is a more detailed paper on the survey for those that are interested
I feel like this whole conversation is so alienating. You talk to people. You interact with people. Some of them are women. Some of the women you interact with are really cool. Maybe you find them attractive. So you say, “hey I know this is kind of a random encounter, but I’d like to see you again. Is there any chance we could hang out and go see a movie or get dinner or something?”
You aren’t making first contact with an alien species. It’s just people. Someone you’re interested in, who might be interested in you. Don’t bring a whole lot of baggage to the dance, just see if they want to go out. Have something in mind to do.
Maybe that’s how you could spend your off time. Engage in something creative. Have tickets to a show or a play or something that you do regularly that you can invite them along on. Listen to live music at some venue. Go to a pokémon tournament if that’s your bag. Just something you can invite them along to, and if they don’t want to come ask what they want to do.
Perhaps you’re right. Maybe we are dissecting a casual social affair a little too much. But then again I do wonder, what do you make of the 45% statistic?
I think the survey is talking about talking to strangers, which is always difficult. I’ve been a salesman several different times, including car sales, and it’s hard to connect with a stranger. But it isn’t a skill one needs to learn.
What would make you approach a woman you’ve never met or spoken to? It could only be her looks, and she knows that. So instantly you’re shallow, to say the least.
Don’t do that. Just get involved in things that are coed in life; work, church, clubs, theater, classes, you name it. Natural socialization. Be yourself. Have fun doing things, then look around at the people having fun with you. And just talk to them.
Let’s stop idolizing pick-up artists. Because they ARE creepy.
https://datepsychology.com/risk-aversion-and-dating/
I did some digging and according to this. 77% of women 18 - 30 want to be approached more. I don’t know about pick up artists. But I wonder if a respectful way of approaching women could in fact be taught.
Whoa, how is it shallow to be attracted to someone’s looks? What a weird take. We’re not doing married at first sight.
Yeah, there’s something about a person you find attractive and you want to get to know them better.
You’ve found your fun circle and talked them up and down. Now how do I pick one to pursue romantically? Can’t do how attractive I find them because that’s apparently shallow. Do I try a random lottery? Or the order I first met them?
Agree. This kind of thing only ever seems to come up in regards to to heterosexual dating and it really imo diminishes the entire whole complex humans that are on both sides of the hypothetical interaction. You’re not talking to ~A Woman~* you’re talking to a person, who might or might not like you depending on 8374684 possible factors about the situation or their/your personality.
If you don’t like anything that sounds like depression. Or just… I can’t say this nicely… Really boring? Why would I want to hang out with someone who has no interests , hobbies, or passions? Nevermind go on a date with them.
I dunno, my mother married a boring man for 11 years. Why not me? Then she re married another boring man, less responsible and with alcoholic problems. Again, why not me?
Get this - if they don’t have similar interests it probably wasn’t going to work anyway.
If you don’t like anything, never go out, how would somebody every get to meet and know you? And I don’t mean go out partying or anything, I mean literally go out.
I dunno. But I can’t force myself to become something I don’t wanna be. What’s worse being a shut in or being miserable outside faking a smile when you’re suffering and cringing thinking “why I’m here?”
I went out to the park, movies, arcades alone for years. I’m done, if the world hates me this much then there’s nothing I can do about it.
A female friend once said that, at least in the US, men are often viewed by women as being either creepy or not creepy. The not creepy men have learned to avoid women due to the creepy men, so the only men who would approach a woman must be creepy.
Make of that, and its consequences, what you will.
Well what I make of that is, that it’s (perhaps) an out of date social norm ;)
It’s such a tired line. You know what everyone finds creepy, people who don’t respect your personal boundaries and don’t understand basic concepts of consent. Neither Money nor looks can make up for that in the slightest.
I would tend to disagree quite a bit. Most of the couples I know say they chose each other because they felt most at home with each other.
Do you think they would have got together if they weren’t physically attracted to each other? Cmon.
Women have been complaining in popular media for decades about random dudes approaching them and asking them out. How is it a surprise that the trend is dying out? It’s clearly something that most women don’t enjoy to begin with.
Ya it sounds like it’s at a good thing it’s falling out of fashion from what I’ve heard from women. The problem is that it just being replaced with dating apps, so we as a society just need to find something to replace it with that’s not so packed and sold lol.
There are plenty of environments where you can still meet potential romantic/sexual partners offline, and approaching people you don’t know is considered acceptable conduct.
The thing that’s dying out is hitting on women everywhere.
You just need the confidence and dedication to actually go out to bars or attend singles nights and meet people.
Apps are only the new norm if you decide that wagging your fingers back and forth is the maximum effort you’re willing to put in.
I can speak from personal experience only, but bars also don’t really tend to be the place go for that as much anymore either, women tend to want to go and have fun there and feel just as bothered by being hit on (again this is only my personal experience from myself and men/women in my life). My experience with singles nights is that it is predominantly men, by a wide margin and that puts the women that go in a bad spot again. I’m just really unsure of where the proper place is anymore. Outside of dating apps which even those seem to be more of an annoyance to people inundated with messages, it seems you just have to stumble across a new friend group and find someone there.
It feels like an overwhelming effort for both sides at this point and casual interactions are becoming increasingly rare
Don’t know how old your father is, but at least among Gen X women, creepy men absolutely have been part of the discussion. It just wasn’t a public discussion until much more recently. Hell, the fake phone number thing goes back to landlines.
We’re still at a point of significant cultural change in gender relations, and until an equilibrium point is reached, there’s going to be apprehension about approaching others. To that end, it’s important that we keep small gaffes made in good faith as social misdemeanors (to allow for opportunities to correct behavior) and not career-ending incidents. It only takes a quick browse of social media discussing one of these incidents to see why said apprehension exists.
That said, I still don’t think we’re having enough conversations about consent around positions of authority and social hierarchy in general. Too many people don’t understand that being nice to someone when you’re on the clock isn’t implied consent for continued interaction with that person off the clock. That’s the light stuff; it can go all the way to gross stories about cops and women. It all stems back to authority and power imbalance. This might be more of an issue in the US than elsewhere; I think ideals of “equality” and “social mobility” are so ingrained in our culture that some Americans don’t have the social intelligence around the very real stratification that exists at the workplace and elsewhere.
Fear of rejection is a whole other problem that likely stems from everyone having more anxiety now. I was around a bunch of people in their late teens/early 20’s a lot more than usual the past couple years and holy crap. I thought my social anxiety was bad. I don’t know how these kids are going to function.
OP didn’t really bring up trying to pick up your work colleagues, I think that’s pretty universally a bad idea, though it certainly happens. The risk of consequences is absolutely going to be high in a professional setting
Not just talking about work colleagues, also client or customer relationships.
I ended up marrying my work colleague. By the time we started dating I was already slated to leave the state for another gig in a couple months. Figured if it didn’t work out, I’d be completely out of the picture soon anyway. If it did work out… well a year of long distance turned into a marriage, so it really worked out.
That said I have a more corporate long term job now, so I’d certainly have to be a lot more socially careful if I were single trying to meet someone at work.
Ever since I was a young teen, I’ve been exposed to a lot of messaging about mean and harrassment and rape. I was already an extremely isolated kid, and it really drove me further away from women. I really didn’t want to be a creep or make someone uncomfortable, and already had major self-esteem issues, and it really screwed me up tbh. Even during college, the school was super condescending about telling men not to rape people, and it really made me ashamed to be male. 2nd year, I started dating someone, but I just couldn’t continue because I was so uncomfortable with it. I’m certainly an extreme case, but there is a lot of messaging out there affecting people, and not necessarily for the better. I’ve realized I’m trans since then, and apparently this is common in mtf people. In the end, I’m way more comfortable being with men, even though I’m generally less attracted to them physically in general. Anyways, I would LITERALLY NEVER approach a woman romantically in person, it has to be over a dating app of some sort where I know they’re looking for something romantic and we can be upfront about needs and wants. That or they have to be very assertive and unambiguous in person, which very weirdly has actually happened to me.
the exact same thing has happened to me.
went to school and the general social narrative was that “men are all bad people, we should avoid them altogether”, which, of course, is discrimination. The consequence is that you mostly intimidate sensitive guys that way, the guys that aren’t actually a problem. It definitely leads to a lot of mental health issues for young men, especially (later) mtf ones (as i’ve observed).
What we can do about this, I think, is the general strategies against discrimination (point it out, talk about it, etc.) and ask questions such as “she may be offended if i ask her out, but she also may be offended if i don’t ask her out” (girl not feeling pretty, wanting/needing attention, etc.).
Yup. Same exact problem I had growing up. I’m autistic and so I need social rules spelled out for me. The only rule that was explicitly taught to me was that you should never approach a woman unless she wants it. Of course, if you’re autistic, there’s no way of knowing if a woman wants you to approach her, so my reasoning was “okay, that must mean women will proposition guys that they are interested in, or otherwise make their intentions known”. But obviously that isn’t true either. I never fully got the hang of it and have only been lucky that dating apps somewhat streamline that process.
