At the end of my recent post about playing hard to get, I asked whether women initiating is a good idea and promised a post on the topic. Why should women even consider it? Aren’t men traditionally the ones to pursue? Yes, but note the word traditionally. Today’s SMP bears little resemblance to the one I inhabited. Twenty-five years ago a much broader segment of the male population was dating and having sex than we see today. And a much narrower segment of the female population was having a steady diet of no-strings sex.

I’ve estimated that about 20% of both men and women are promiscuous. That leaves the vast majority of young people sidelined in hookup culture, either voluntarily, which is true for many women, or involuntarily, which is the case for many men. Obviously, there’s great potential there for like-minded people to get together in relationships, which would meet the needs of many. Yet that potential is largely unrealized, as evidenced by the dearth of quality relationships on college campuses.

Is increased assertiveness among women one potential solution? Consider this matrix of assertiveness in mating rituals for both sexes:

As you can see, the strategic options are limited.

1.       The majority of males are not highly assertive, so Traditional Dating has no traction. 
2.      A minority of highly assertive and risk-taking individuals occupies the Casual Sex quadrant. 
3.       The vast majority of those discontented and sidelined in the SMP are at a standoff.

The only viable strategy for real change at the present time is one where women take a larger role. What should that look like? Should women ask guys out on dates? Make their interest more obvious? Send secret love notes?

I’ve been collecting informal feedback on this question for a while, via comments from readers and posts from fellow bloggers. Here’s the best of what they had to say about women initiating outright by making a real, tangible move.

No! Don’t Initiate!

Andrew, Rules Revisited:

“A woman’s “game” can be broken down into the following three parts:

1.       Making herself as attractive as possible
2.      Making herself approachable
3.       Filtering out the men that just want to fuck her from the men that want to date her

While there is a lot to learn about the first part of female game (optimizing attractiveness), there is just as much to learn about the latter part (filtering). Filtering is necessary because the men that a woman wants to date are a subset of the men that want to have sex with her, and by making herself more attractive to potential boyfriends she also is making herself more attractive to all men. 

When you initiate contact with a man before you know his intentions, you are denying yourself the least equivocal and therefore most important indication of his interest. I will go as far as to say that you are denying yourself the only reliable indication of his interest.

A man might make eye contact with you from across the bar, but unless he overcomes his fear or leaves his buddies in order to approach you, he isn’t into you enough. Don’t approach him. A man might say he wants to see you, but unless he calls to set up a date, he doesn’t care enough. Don’t call or text him. A man might tell you to come and visit him, but if he cares enough, he will come to you if you suggest it.”

108Spirits:

“I’m a dance instructor in partner dancing. Man leads, woman follows – that’s the default. Often you’d get the girls bitching about the guys not leading well enough, and occasionally guys bitching about the reverse. One perfect way to cure that is to do role reversals for a lesson or two: getting the guys to follow, and the girls to lead. It doesn’t make the girls any better at leading or wanting to lead (just the opposite), and vice versa, but it does make them appreciate & understand what the other side have to do, and stick to performing well in their given role while helping the other side do theirs.

Advertisement 

Minneapolis Loveawake

Boise Loveawake

Tucson Personal Ads

Spokane Singles Ads

Tampa Dating Ads

Seattle Craigslist

Sacramento Ads

Phoenix Dating Ads

Atlanta CL Ads

Dallas Craigslist Ads

Same thing in dating. I don’t expect or even want the girl to initiate or lead it, but I’d expect her to play her feminine role well, which means making it easy for me to lead and perform my role. This “making it easy” part is what’s gone missing with modern young women. They are not doing their part of the dance, and usually they are not dancing at all nor even realise there is a dance going on.”

Johnny Milfquest:

“How To Give Men Completely The Wrong Idea About You”.

Three kinds of responses.

1. Indifference or contempt.

2. Deer-in-the-car-headlights response.

Betas love the idea of woman approaching them in theory, but they often can’t handle it when it happens for real.

3. Seeing a female approach as the green light for sex.

That’s fine if sex is all she wants, but its totally the wrong approach if she’s a wait-till-marriage girl.

Dablues:

“When is a female approach something to be concerned about rather than pleased about? A few years ago a friend of mine almost got cuckolded when a girl approached him with clear sexual intentions and he turned her down (something I questioned at the time), only to find out months later that she was already pregnant and obviously looking for someone to dupe.

via Bellita:

I asked a man I know in real life the question, “I really like this guy and want him to know that if he wants to make a move, I won’t shoot him down. How do I do that?”

These are the exact words of his reply:

“It’s difficult to be in that position. Some men are just dense, and some men (many men, actually) fear an assertive woman. For me, if a woman seems too interested it can be a turn-off, or at least cheapen her somewhat in my eyes. So, it’s not easy. Just create situations where he can easily show interest, without pressuring him, I guess. I dunno. I’m always the one to show interest and take risks with girls. I’m not an expert on getting the other person to make a move.”

Yes! Or at least it’s worth considering.

Esau:

(This is from the comment thread on Player or Beta?, the email I received from Connor on why Adam has seemed interested but not proactive for three years and counting. That was a fascinating conversation because it included many male first-time commenters who could relate to Adam.)

“I think it’s worth expanding on what can be meant by the phrase “women initiating” or “women taking the initiative”, since people use the same term to cover a really wide range of behaviors.

The first thing I see is a spectrum across at least one dimension; the two extremes might look like this, as described by the message the woman is delivering with her initiating action:

A) The woman is saying “I know you well enough that I’m sure I’d like to be with you.”  It helps make this statement credible if the woman can show that she is attracted to some quality of his that he actually has! and not something she simply assumes or imagines (or wishes) he has. It’s hard to make this kind of statement credibly to someone you’ve just met, unless it’s about something shallow, i.e. looks or charm.

B) The woman is saying “OK, you’ve cleared the first hurdle by getting my attention and my interest up. Now you have the chance to try and clear the next ten hurdles in a row, by doing everything right at each stage. Let’s go.” This is, of course, not what one would call “solid reassurance”, perhaps more like offering a challenge or an adventure.

Both presentations might have their advantages; for instance, I would guess that (A) will work better for shy betas, while (B) would be more enticing to outgoing alphas. So for any woman who’s considering taking some degree of initiative in some situation, one thing to think about is: How do I want to come across on this scale from reassuring to challenging? 

Some women may be surprised, or puzzled, or disappointed that a bold and unambiguous come-on to a shy guy didn’t get a good result. What gives? After all, isn’t this exactly what he’s been waiting for, a woman showing desire with him not needing to interpret any subtle signals? But it’s easier to understand if you keep the reassurance-challenge spectrum in mind. A woman making a direct come-on, especially if they don’t know each other very well, signals that she is OK with pickups and probably has had a lot of experience; and so, she will likely expect, in turn, that he has a lot of experience/competence as well. This is fine if it’s true, but if he doesn’t have a lot of experience then it’s more likely frightening: he’ll probably under-perform at some point and wind up with a worse-than-nothing experience.”

AlekNovy via Bb:

“Men are 10x nicer about being approached or propositioned or flirted with than women are – even when she’s not his type.

Men just don’t feel the need to embarrass or reject women in humiliating ways. It just doesn’t happen.

This make it even more illogical that men are the ones doing the approaching, when it is the women for whom approaching is 10x easier.”

Bb Sezmore:

“You’ve never dismissed a woman? That’s interesting. I have been dismissed by men: walk up to a guy at a party/club, say hello, get the eye sweep (up, down), then the flick of the head to friends and the bug out. In those times, when I was younger, I’m sure I was radiating awkwardness. And yes, I’ve also been approached by men. Sometimes I’m a man’s type, sometimes I’m not.”

Alek Novy:

—> 99.99% of men that I have asked this question claim they have never not once been asked out or approached in their life EVER not once.

—> 90% of women I have asked this question claim they have approached and been brutally rejected by men.

Anyone see a mismatch here?

- Either one of the groups is lying
- Or women are all approaching the same guy

Mike C

“One comment/question I see repeated here quite often by a number of young women is why is that guy is with that woman, whether they are bitchy, or slutty, or make duckfaces, or are disagreeable or whatever the particular issue might be. In 95%+ of the cases, those women were simply decisive about making the guy their boyfriend of husband.

Guys do the vast amount of approaching, and even for the best looking guy with the tightest game, rejection is still a fact. It would be an interesting stat to see but my guess is 99.5%+ of all hookups, boyfriend-girlfriend relationships, and marriages are the result of an INITIAL ACTION taken by the guy, either starting a conversation, making a move, whatever. A guy can only be as choosy/selective as his options permit, and the majority of us have a pretty good sense of what are realistic options are. So when a girl chooses you, more often than not, the default response is going to be to run with it, and see where it goes. That is why those guys are with those girls, and the overly picky girls are watching from the sidelines wondering why that guy is with THAT girl.”

Dude at College Candy:

“Depending on the situation and the guy, the first move can mean different things to us as men. I think first and foremost, there’s an overall opinion that you guys should go for it more often. A lot of men feel like chivalry is dead and ‘the chase’ is next to go, and would prefer that women be upfront about the relationship. All the ducking and maneuvering can get tiresome.

Many times, physical contact is the ‘signal’ to us that you want to get more serious. That being said, it’s important to know what you’re saying with your move. I don’t think I have to tell you that getting all up on it in the bar reads more as ‘I’M LOOKING FOR CASUAL SEX AND THERE’S A DECENT CHANCE I DO THIS PRETTY OFTEN/AM HAMMERED’ than, “I really like you and want to establish something long-term.” If you wanna get down, alright; but if you’re looking to let a guy know you really like him this probably shouldn’t be in the play book.”

What do you think? How should a woman who is interested in dating play it?

In the next post I’ll write about the indirect route  - how women can indicate interest and make themselves approachable.