meeting women is really easy if you’re friends with women. they always have single friends who they’d be happy to introduce you to. obviously don’t be friends with women just for this purpose though
Agreed, but seems like then you should do it for yourself (physical and mental health, stimulation from learning skills, broadening horizons) and if you make friends in the process that’s cool.
Most people have good qualities that make them attractive (if you have none then that might be something to work on). Just treat women like they are ordinary human beings (which they are) - ask questions, listen to the answers, check back with them at a later date to see if that thing they mentioned worked out, offer to help if they have a problem, etc.
Most men can drastically improve their appearance with some effort. Best plan for this is to ask your closest female friends what you can do. Also, having an attractive personality counts for a lot (potentially more than looks depending on the woman) assuming you aren’t fuck ugly.
If you want, send me a pic (privately) and I’ll tell you if it’s really over or what you can do to look better. As for friends, that’s more complicated, but I got all my friends by talking to strangers in public.
Opposite for me. I’ve gone on plenty of first dates via apps, and a few second dates, but have only ever “dated” people that I happened to meet organically.
Honestly, I’m good. I never really used apps but I have had a lot of girlfriends through mutual friends and such. I’m just over it. I’m tired of romance and especially tired of sexuality. I just want to program computers.
Yes, I understand. But it’s less about the sex & moreso the companionship. When you’re 58 years old hanging out by yourself day in/day out, you may wish you’d put more effort into developing relationships.
I have sufficient companionship. Plenty of true friends who know and love the real me. I’ve been more fortunate in this than most people could hope to be if I’m being honest. I really think that when you take sex out of the equation, most of modern dating is a feeble attempt to foster this type of relationship. People are afraid to reveal their true self and so they seek one person they feel safe enough to do so with, when you can actually have this relationship with everyone you’re close to if you’re brave enough.
I love being friends with women but I don’t love being romantically or sexually entwined with them. And I’m not attracted to men. So why pursue it? I socialize when I have the energy for it. In the rest of my free time, I want to write code.
I agree that physical intimacy can make people become closer, but I’m not always sure that’s for the best. I think it’s better kept as something to enjoy after a deeper bond has already formed. Anyway, I’m not asexual but I am somewhere on that spectrum, not sure where though. Also yeah… when my friends tell me about their tinder dates I can’t believe how transactional and almost algorithmic their date sounds. It’s such a shame that it’s the norm now.
Women as a whole want different things, and often don’t know what they want from moment to moment. In my experience, most women prefer to be approached in public under some circumstances, and what those circumstances are differs wildly from woman to woman.
The thing is, there are signals - open body language, frequent glances around the room, etc.
The tougher bit for some folks is also seeing, and respecting, when they clearly want you to go away, AND not taking it personally. They may want someone to approach them, but for whatever reason not you. That’s perfectly OK, and says nothing about your general worth, just their interest at the moment.
Go, initiate contact, and if you’re getting one word replies, crossed arms/body facing away from you, refusal to meet eyes, inauthentic laughs, etc., exit cheerfully, move on with your day and let her move on with hers.
The biggest problem I’ve had women tell me about is not being approached, but guys not taking the hint if it’s not clicking and leaving them be. Be the guy who reads the situation, takes the hint if present and doesn’t get all fucked up about it, and you’ll probably end up talking to someone who does want to talk to you later.
Should note this is often just human stuff, and holds for a lot of guys as well with the caveat that they’re often, though not always, more direct.
If you don’t mind me asking, how is this reading minds? This is watching for behavioural cues, which lend some evidence of interest/disinterest. Men exhibit similar cues as well - think about the guy sitting at the bar, facing the interior with a grin looking about, versus the guy hunched over with a scowl counting the bubbles in his beer. Unless you’re moved by pathos to clink scowling guy’s glass, who seems more approachable?
Will admit there are folks who see a single behavioural cue and immediately jump to “They want to jump my bones”/“They wish me and my family were dead”, which is dumb. What I’m talking about is more “Oh, looks like they may be open to chat with someone, go say hi”, then noting if that impression stays or dissipates on fresh evidence. Again, the biggest problem I’ve heard of is people, but particularly women approached by men in a social setting, not wanting to tell the approaching party to fuck off (politely or otherwise) because of a perceived or real threat of violence. But this feeling often comes across pretty clearly in body language - if you’re a decent person, reading those cues and and exiting gracefully just makes sense.
Discounting non-verbal cues in IRL communication is silly. We give out a lot of information about how we’re feeling with our bodies to those paying attention. I’ll admit it can sound kinda creepy when writing it all out, but for some folks this is all intuitive. For other folks, thinking about this a bit helps with being more at ease in talking with new people, whether platonically or with an eye to something more.
This is going to come off terribly, but do you talk to many people IRL? There’s no game here, just humans being humans.
That said, perhaps not your preferred types of humans, which is perfectly fine. If anything, not engaging people the way I describe here could be a filter for the kind of people you prefer to interact with. Really isn’t anything wrong with that, though others may find it a bit constrictive.
If what you’re doing makes you happy and secure in your relationships with people, then more power to you!
That’s not reading minds though. What was being described are social skills you very likely already have, but are used to applying to non romantic interactions with men.
I have no idea how that is anything like saying common sense is common. That did not address what I said. Someone has failed in some aspect of this communication. Since it may have been me, I’ll try rephrasing.
Do you talk to people you are not romantically interested in sometimes? Are you able to generally guess whether they would be receptive to interacting or not? Could you conceivably guess if a person waiting in a waiting room might be open to chat, versus wants to be left alone?
The point I was driving at is people often behave as though interacting with those they are sexually attracted to is different. While it can be in some ways, the way you can identify whether someone you’re not sexually attracted to would like to interact can be used with those you are sexually attracted to as well. It’s not mind reading.
If you cannot do these things with people you are not sexually attracted to either, that’s a skill that can be developed, and the issue is not an inability to read women’s (I’m guessing) minds.
Yeah, I’m autistic so reading behavioral cues more or less doesn’t work for me. It’s not impossible but my error rate is significantly higher than most people’s. I just focus on being friendly and honest. I always take an opportunity to be introduced to someone. I always take an opportunity to become closer to someone if they want that. I also focus on being pretty (I only attract bisexual women, lol)
In my perception, approaching women like the days of old (pre social media) is dead as a concept. There are two ways forward: women become more explicit about when they want to be approached, or they themselves do the approaching. It seems to me that the latter is the path they’ve chosen. Every woman I’ve ever dated has come to me and made it clear they want me in that way. Is this a good solution? Probably not. More people are single than ever but that is caused by a lot of factors, not just this social change.
Women are human individuals and not a single-minded monolith.
What women universally don’t want is to feel threatened, creeped out or objectified. It is perfectly possible to talk to someone without doing any of these. Though it gets a lot easier when you view them as humans.
When & who it is/is not appropriate to approach is a totally separate issue from what I’m talking about.
I think the problem has more to do with the expectations of meeting people via dating apps vs organically irl, especially through common interests/activities.
Also, let’s be real, regulating Capitalism does not work (look around).
Also, let’s be real, regulating Capitalism does not work (look around).
*looks around*
It seems to work fine around me. I peeked at your profile to confirm my assumption that you’re American, and it seems I’m correct. I’d say it’s partly a cultural issue in your country. The whole rugged individualism thing leads to a whole lot of anti-regulation sentiment. In my country even the ultraconservative “let’s throw the gays in the oven and deport all black people to Africa” party isn’t considering privatizing healthcare or education. The classical liberals are considering this, but this is where having a sane election system comes in. Since neither the conservatives nor the socdems agree, it’s pretty hard for them to enact anything even if they do win an election, because “winning” an election usually means like ~30-40% of parliament seats and the ruling coalition is always a minimum of 2 parties, often 3. Plus the president’s one and only power is that he can tell them to fuck off if a law seems unreasonable.
We currently have people from 6 parties in parliament, plus some people who were either thrown out of their party, or left it willingly.
We’re pretty good at making noise if we don’t like something, and while a lot of people complain about our MPs and ministers getting paid so much, it means they can live well enough without taking bribes. Party donations have limits that can get people into actual trouble if exceeded, and individual campaign donations aren’t a thing. Political corruption gets the party fined and potentially individuals punished too. Even in municipal government corruption cases. There was a case that took several years, where a businessman approached a politician in the same party as the capital city’s mayor, implying that if the mayor were to reduce certain legal costs on the department store his company was building, the party would receive a major donation - which it then did. The party got fined nearly 10x what they made from this deal, and two people received probationary sentences. This party, formerly a major player, can now barely afford their next election campaign. The company that owns the future department store has been fined more than once for not getting it done as fast as promised - because it’s in a prominent location along the promenade.
We have tons of consumer protection laws too. Plus a government entity for consumer protection so you don’t have to hire a lawyer and go to court to get your justice in a lot of cases. Similar for employment rights, etc. Fire someone without a paper trail to prove their incompetence or malice? You’ll be paying them a hefty severance.
Agreed that the capitalist commodification of love sucks, but also, who even does things IRL anymore? And if you do, success rate isn’t that great either, unless you abide by rules 1 and 2.
I’m no longer single, but when I was, there were two main activities I did outside of work. Gym - a place where it just feels wrong to approach women. And women never approached me. Bar - cozy local small community place where I had plenty of great conversations with a lot of people, many of whom were women, but most were in relationships already. Maybe it’s the same for women as it is for men, where in a relationship you’re more confident and thus have an easier time talking to strangers. Made some friends though.
When I was on Tinder, though, with my fairly mediocre appearance, I’d still get matches. Not every day, but at least a couple a month in even the slower periods and like half of them evolved into at least conversations (not a simple “hey” -> unmatch). Met some IRL. Both times I’ve been on Tinder, I eventually found someone there, though it was over a year in both cases (nearly 3 years second time). And both times the person I found was someone who’d pretty much just joined. I don’t live in what I’d call a big city though.
Nowadays, I also work from home with no office option (unless I rent one for myself), so even shitting where I eat is not an option if I become single. What DO people do in their free time where they meet new people, besides nightlife activities? I’m not interested in drinking 2-3 nights a week anymore lol
If you want to meet women, take a pottery class, join a softball league, take knitting lessons, join a book club, volunteer at a local animal shelter, go to the library regularly, join a protest, join a running or biking group, or even look around on one of those meetup apps for activities in your area
Maybe your problem was that you only went to your gym and your bar, instead of trying to meet new people? The point is, it’s easy to get stuck into a routine, and swiping on Tinder often becomes part of the routine
Maybe your problem was that you only went to your gym and your bar, instead of trying to meet new people?
I guess I wasn’t super actively trying to meet new people, I was focusing more on my career. Most of those activities unfortunately sound boring to me. Biking group sounds nice. In fact, the only two ways I can do cardio is with a podcast or with other people. Otherwise I go flat out because to my ADHD mind, the end goal of all movement is to get to your destination ASAP. Book club sounds like a great way to get some accountability for my total lack of a reading habit these past few years, so I might look into that as well. There apparently is at least one in my city. As a kid I’d read several books a week, now it’s several years per book :(
Fuck the Capitalist commodification of love.
Drop the dating apps & muster up the patience go do things & meet people irl instead.
I don’t think I’ve ever met someone organically and then dated them
They say workplace relationships don’t work and they’re probably right, but the problem is that’s the only place you ever meet anyone these days.
Before you started working you meet people at school, well, take classes and meet people you don’t work with!
meeting women is really easy if you’re friends with women. they always have single friends who they’d be happy to introduce you to. obviously don’t be friends with women just for this purpose though
That requires having time to be friends with and meet people
If you don’t have time for friends you definitely don’t have time for dating.
It feels Machiavellian to do something like befriending people or playing sports that I would not otherwise do
Agreed, but seems like then you should do it for yourself (physical and mental health, stimulation from learning skills, broadening horizons) and if you make friends in the process that’s cool.
That only works out if you are attractive to begin with.
Most people have good qualities that make them attractive (if you have none then that might be something to work on). Just treat women like they are ordinary human beings (which they are) - ask questions, listen to the answers, check back with them at a later date to see if that thing they mentioned worked out, offer to help if they have a problem, etc.
I lack good qualities, true. I don’t know if that could be worked on, as large part of it is me being ASD.
I treat women as you said, it’s simply that they generally avoid me.
Most men can drastically improve their appearance with some effort. Best plan for this is to ask your closest female friends what you can do. Also, having an attractive personality counts for a lot (potentially more than looks depending on the woman) assuming you aren’t fuck ugly.
Welp, I am simply at another level of ugliness. Also friends? What is this thing called “a friend”?
If you want, send me a pic (privately) and I’ll tell you if it’s really over or what you can do to look better. As for friends, that’s more complicated, but I got all my friends by talking to strangers in public.
I asked out my coworker about a week ago.
I can’t recommend against it enough.
Yeah I think that’s common, but it’s literally how we’ve been doing it since, well, forever.
Big Tech wants you to think it’s scAAaRRrry BooOoOOo!
(I mean, tbf, sometimes it is. Also humiliating lol).
I have! Once, in highschool, it went poorly
Opposite for me. I’ve gone on plenty of first dates via apps, and a few second dates, but have only ever “dated” people that I happened to meet organically.
Honestly, I’m good. I never really used apps but I have had a lot of girlfriends through mutual friends and such. I’m just over it. I’m tired of romance and especially tired of sexuality. I just want to program computers.
Careful or you’ll get exactly what you’re asking for.
That’s the goal, man. I would be happy to never have sex again. I always felt like it was more for her benefit than mine anyway.
Yes, I understand. But it’s less about the sex & moreso the companionship. When you’re 58 years old hanging out by yourself day in/day out, you may wish you’d put more effort into developing relationships.
Maybe not, I’m just saying.
I have sufficient companionship. Plenty of true friends who know and love the real me. I’ve been more fortunate in this than most people could hope to be if I’m being honest. I really think that when you take sex out of the equation, most of modern dating is a feeble attempt to foster this type of relationship. People are afraid to reveal their true self and so they seek one person they feel safe enough to do so with, when you can actually have this relationship with everyone you’re close to if you’re brave enough.
I love being friends with women but I don’t love being romantically or sexually entwined with them. And I’m not attracted to men. So why pursue it? I socialize when I have the energy for it. In the rest of my free time, I want to write code.
Good to hear. I hope you continue having lots of fruitful relationships, you seem like a reflective person.
I actually think being physically intimate allows two people to become closer, unless they’re asexual, of course (sounds like you might be).
And I agree with you about shallow relationships but, imo, it’s dating apps that cause the problem, not sex.
Dating apps do not always allow relationships to blossom naturally. Tinder dates (or whatever) can feel more like job interviews. Real yucky stuff.
I agree that physical intimacy can make people become closer, but I’m not always sure that’s for the best. I think it’s better kept as something to enjoy after a deeper bond has already formed. Anyway, I’m not asexual but I am somewhere on that spectrum, not sure where though. Also yeah… when my friends tell me about their tinder dates I can’t believe how transactional and almost algorithmic their date sounds. It’s such a shame that it’s the norm now.
Women do not want to be approached in public.
We’re better off regulating dating apps and predatory buisness practices, because people prefer to use apps.
Women as a whole want different things, and often don’t know what they want from moment to moment. In my experience, most women prefer to be approached in public under some circumstances, and what those circumstances are differs wildly from woman to woman.
women ought to have a signal that they are open to being approached, like a PvP flag or something
The thing is, there are signals - open body language, frequent glances around the room, etc.
The tougher bit for some folks is also seeing, and respecting, when they clearly want you to go away, AND not taking it personally. They may want someone to approach them, but for whatever reason not you. That’s perfectly OK, and says nothing about your general worth, just their interest at the moment.
Go, initiate contact, and if you’re getting one word replies, crossed arms/body facing away from you, refusal to meet eyes, inauthentic laughs, etc., exit cheerfully, move on with your day and let her move on with hers.
The biggest problem I’ve had women tell me about is not being approached, but guys not taking the hint if it’s not clicking and leaving them be. Be the guy who reads the situation, takes the hint if present and doesn’t get all fucked up about it, and you’ll probably end up talking to someone who does want to talk to you later.
Should note this is often just human stuff, and holds for a lot of guys as well with the caveat that they’re often, though not always, more direct.
Reading minds isn’t a “signal”
I’m sorry but if men and women want equality in their relationships then women need to stop this middle-school behavior.
If you don’t mind me asking, how is this reading minds? This is watching for behavioural cues, which lend some evidence of interest/disinterest. Men exhibit similar cues as well - think about the guy sitting at the bar, facing the interior with a grin looking about, versus the guy hunched over with a scowl counting the bubbles in his beer. Unless you’re moved by pathos to clink scowling guy’s glass, who seems more approachable?
Will admit there are folks who see a single behavioural cue and immediately jump to “They want to jump my bones”/“They wish me and my family were dead”, which is dumb. What I’m talking about is more “Oh, looks like they may be open to chat with someone, go say hi”, then noting if that impression stays or dissipates on fresh evidence. Again, the biggest problem I’ve heard of is people, but particularly women approached by men in a social setting, not wanting to tell the approaching party to fuck off (politely or otherwise) because of a perceived or real threat of violence. But this feeling often comes across pretty clearly in body language - if you’re a decent person, reading those cues and and exiting gracefully just makes sense.
Discounting non-verbal cues in IRL communication is silly. We give out a lot of information about how we’re feeling with our bodies to those paying attention. I’ll admit it can sound kinda creepy when writing it all out, but for some folks this is all intuitive. For other folks, thinking about this a bit helps with being more at ease in talking with new people, whether platonically or with an eye to something more.
Adults use their words to communicate.
Children play games.
This is going to come off terribly, but do you talk to many people IRL? There’s no game here, just humans being humans.
That said, perhaps not your preferred types of humans, which is perfectly fine. If anything, not engaging people the way I describe here could be a filter for the kind of people you prefer to interact with. Really isn’t anything wrong with that, though others may find it a bit constrictive.
If what you’re doing makes you happy and secure in your relationships with people, then more power to you!
That’s not reading minds though. What was being described are social skills you very likely already have, but are used to applying to non romantic interactions with men.
This is like saying common sense is common.
It isn’t. And we can’t expect people to know everything so sometimes we have to use words.
I have no idea how that is anything like saying common sense is common. That did not address what I said. Someone has failed in some aspect of this communication. Since it may have been me, I’ll try rephrasing.
Do you talk to people you are not romantically interested in sometimes? Are you able to generally guess whether they would be receptive to interacting or not? Could you conceivably guess if a person waiting in a waiting room might be open to chat, versus wants to be left alone?
The point I was driving at is people often behave as though interacting with those they are sexually attracted to is different. While it can be in some ways, the way you can identify whether someone you’re not sexually attracted to would like to interact can be used with those you are sexually attracted to as well. It’s not mind reading.
If you cannot do these things with people you are not sexually attracted to either, that’s a skill that can be developed, and the issue is not an inability to read women’s (I’m guessing) minds.
Yeah, I’m autistic so reading behavioral cues more or less doesn’t work for me. It’s not impossible but my error rate is significantly higher than most people’s. I just focus on being friendly and honest. I always take an opportunity to be introduced to someone. I always take an opportunity to become closer to someone if they want that. I also focus on being pretty (I only attract bisexual women, lol)
In my perception, approaching women like the days of old (pre social media) is dead as a concept. There are two ways forward: women become more explicit about when they want to be approached, or they themselves do the approaching. It seems to me that the latter is the path they’ve chosen. Every woman I’ve ever dated has come to me and made it clear they want me in that way. Is this a good solution? Probably not. More people are single than ever but that is caused by a lot of factors, not just this social change.
Women are human individuals and not a single-minded monolith.
What women universally don’t want is to feel threatened, creeped out or objectified. It is perfectly possible to talk to someone without doing any of these. Though it gets a lot easier when you view them as humans.
When & who it is/is not appropriate to approach is a totally separate issue from what I’m talking about.
I think the problem has more to do with the expectations of meeting people via dating apps vs organically irl, especially through common interests/activities.
Also, let’s be real, regulating Capitalism does not work (look around).
*looks around*
It seems to work fine around me. I peeked at your profile to confirm my assumption that you’re American, and it seems I’m correct. I’d say it’s partly a cultural issue in your country. The whole rugged individualism thing leads to a whole lot of anti-regulation sentiment. In my country even the ultraconservative “let’s throw the gays in the oven and deport all black people to Africa” party isn’t considering privatizing healthcare or education. The classical liberals are considering this, but this is where having a sane election system comes in. Since neither the conservatives nor the socdems agree, it’s pretty hard for them to enact anything even if they do win an election, because “winning” an election usually means like ~30-40% of parliament seats and the ruling coalition is always a minimum of 2 parties, often 3. Plus the president’s one and only power is that he can tell them to fuck off if a law seems unreasonable.
We currently have people from 6 parties in parliament, plus some people who were either thrown out of their party, or left it willingly.
We’re pretty good at making noise if we don’t like something, and while a lot of people complain about our MPs and ministers getting paid so much, it means they can live well enough without taking bribes. Party donations have limits that can get people into actual trouble if exceeded, and individual campaign donations aren’t a thing. Political corruption gets the party fined and potentially individuals punished too. Even in municipal government corruption cases. There was a case that took several years, where a businessman approached a politician in the same party as the capital city’s mayor, implying that if the mayor were to reduce certain legal costs on the department store his company was building, the party would receive a major donation - which it then did. The party got fined nearly 10x what they made from this deal, and two people received probationary sentences. This party, formerly a major player, can now barely afford their next election campaign. The company that owns the future department store has been fined more than once for not getting it done as fast as promised - because it’s in a prominent location along the promenade.
We have tons of consumer protection laws too. Plus a government entity for consumer protection so you don’t have to hire a lawyer and go to court to get your justice in a lot of cases. Similar for employment rights, etc. Fire someone without a paper trail to prove their incompetence or malice? You’ll be paying them a hefty severance.
I missed the part where the person your responding to said in public?
Go to meetups, the climbing gym, run clubs, volunteering, language class, literally anywhere you meet people
Take a class.
Hell yeah!
Agreed that the capitalist commodification of love sucks, but also, who even does things IRL anymore? And if you do, success rate isn’t that great either, unless you abide by rules 1 and 2.
I’m no longer single, but when I was, there were two main activities I did outside of work. Gym - a place where it just feels wrong to approach women. And women never approached me. Bar - cozy local small community place where I had plenty of great conversations with a lot of people, many of whom were women, but most were in relationships already. Maybe it’s the same for women as it is for men, where in a relationship you’re more confident and thus have an easier time talking to strangers. Made some friends though.
When I was on Tinder, though, with my fairly mediocre appearance, I’d still get matches. Not every day, but at least a couple a month in even the slower periods and like half of them evolved into at least conversations (not a simple “hey” -> unmatch). Met some IRL. Both times I’ve been on Tinder, I eventually found someone there, though it was over a year in both cases (nearly 3 years second time). And both times the person I found was someone who’d pretty much just joined. I don’t live in what I’d call a big city though.
Nowadays, I also work from home with no office option (unless I rent one for myself), so even shitting where I eat is not an option if I become single. What DO people do in their free time where they meet new people, besides nightlife activities? I’m not interested in drinking 2-3 nights a week anymore lol
Hobbies, classes, sports teams, volunteering
If you want to meet women, take a pottery class, join a softball league, take knitting lessons, join a book club, volunteer at a local animal shelter, go to the library regularly, join a protest, join a running or biking group, or even look around on one of those meetup apps for activities in your area
Maybe your problem was that you only went to your gym and your bar, instead of trying to meet new people? The point is, it’s easy to get stuck into a routine, and swiping on Tinder often becomes part of the routine
I guess I wasn’t super actively trying to meet new people, I was focusing more on my career. Most of those activities unfortunately sound boring to me. Biking group sounds nice. In fact, the only two ways I can do cardio is with a podcast or with other people. Otherwise I go flat out because to my ADHD mind, the end goal of all movement is to get to your destination ASAP. Book club sounds like a great way to get some accountability for my total lack of a reading habit these past few years, so I might look into that as well. There apparently is at least one in my city. As a kid I’d read several books a week, now it’s several years per book :(
Isn’t great? Eh I’m 1 for 1 and I most certainly do not follow rule one or two. Just talked and made it work with a friend of a friend