Why I don't approach women I don't know?

[Steelbookcollector217]

It doesn’t matter to me whether or not I’m an initiator. What matters to me is if they’re a reciprocator.

Well there's no denying the fact that men are still expected to talk to women first and ask them out first and take the lead

 

[Hypnalis]

I made that comment due to my lifelong hatred and resentment on how nature and reality dictates for all time on men always being expected to make the first move and do the approaching and asking out, I'm sure I'm not the only guy in the world that's always hated and resented on how the world has to be that way on men always being expected to be the initiators

You're not obliged to like reality, but it won't change just for you.

More specifically, people "feel" that kind of resentment. So the issue reinforces itself.
BTW it's not really "feel" of course - but non-verbal and indirect communication are definitely a thing, and Aspies are rightly known for being bad at it.

Can some people hide that kind of attitude? Yes. But not you, it you would have done so already.
Could you? Possibly.

But it's much easier to work on the attitude.

Happy men have a huge edge in the "dating market".

PS
I agree about the extreme unfairness of the wildly asymmetrical initial contact process. And most of the rest of it too. Especially given the social developments of the last 45 years.
But the options are simple enough: Play / Don't play. The game is rigged, but it's still "the only game in town".

 

[Steelbookcollector217]

You're not obliged to like reality, but it won't change just for you.

More specifically, people "feel" that kind of resentment. So the issue reinforces itself.
BTW it's not really "feel" of course - but non-verbal and indirect communication are definitely a thing, and Aspies are rightly known for being bad at it.

Can some people hide that kind of attitude? Yes. But not you, it you would have done so already.
Could you? Possibly.

But it's much easier to work on the attitude.

Happy men have a huge edge in the "dating market".

PS
I agree about the extreme unfairness of the wildly asymmetrical initial contact process. And most of the rest of it too. Especially given the social developments of the last 45 years.
But the options are simple enough: Play / Don't play. The game is rigged, but it's still "the only game in town".

Regarding nonverbal and direct communication well it's an understatement that women are known for being subtle

 

[Hypnalis]

@Steelbookcollector217

I know (reasonably well) how and why it works this way, and why it's so exceptionally messed up at the moment.
But this isn't "useful" knowledge in the sense that it's possible to apply it to any productive goal.

BTW women aren't subtle. There are good explanations in Evolutionary Psychology and Evolutionary Biology for all the apparent M/F differences and seemingly irrational behavior.

For example, under the old social contract (ripped up without replacement in the post WW2 era) men paying for the first date was natural, and not just because they had more money. Of course women with an unbroken genetic line of successful breeding want potential partners to demonstrate both commitment and the ability to support them during the early years of their childrens' lives.
And in the pre-hormonal birth control era (which goes back to before the evolution of homo sapiens), that requirement started immediately.

There's a lot to criticize in how this is playing out IRL at present of course. But what women are demonstrating is shared with men - humans in general are wired to justify their selfish behavior with 100% BS they manufacture on the spot.


We can hardly turn against human genetics though.
There's enough of that kind of crazy thinking in the world already without Aspies adding to it

 

[Steelbookcollector217]

@Steelbookcollector217

I know (reasonably well) how and why it works this way, and why it's so exceptionally messed up at the moment.
But this isn't "useful" knowledge in the sense that it's possible to apply it to any productive goal.

BTW women aren't subtle. There are good explanations in Evolutionary Psychology and Evolutionary Biology for all the apparent M/F differences and seemingly irrational behavior.

For example, under the old social contract (ripped up without replacement in the post WW2 era) men paying for the first date was natural, and not just because they had more money. Of course women with an unbroken genetic line of successful breeding want potential partners to demonstrate both commitment and the ability to support them during the early years of their childrens' lives.
And in the pre-hormonal birth control era (which goes back to before the evolution of homo sapiens), that requirement started immediately.

There's a lot to criticize in how this is playing out IRL at present of course. But what women are demonstrating is shared with men - humans in general are wired to justify their selfish behavior with 100% BS they manufacture on the spot.


We can hardly turn against human genetics though.
There's enough of that kind of crazy thinking in the world already without Aspies adding to it

Yeah it's like men have to learn all of these behaviors or skills or talk and behave or act a certain way or do all of the learning or learn a lot more things or abilities than women ever do in human mating

 

[Neonatal RRT]

I just realized something walking home after my latest encounter with women. The few times I actually approached a woman mainly from Church or yoga I did not know she was standoffish and would not remember my name. Then whenever I would see her again she would completely ignore me. This happened at church with two women that made me so severely depressed it took weeks and much consoling to get out if it.

Then I realize the past couple if years every woman from church and a couple from yoga who say hi to me, know my name, talk to me and even sometime walk with me partway home all approached me. Every single one. Even when I meet my married friend at the coffee shop a woman approached us looking for a church. I told her my name. She came to our church today and sat in front of me. She saw me and knew my name and talked to me and everything. Again she approached me.

So you see why I don't like approaching women I don't know. I know it's more rare for women to approach men even though it's been happening much more now but when it does they are polite, respectful and remember my name.

There is a bit of a double-standard you are experiencing. Basically, there's often a need for many females to feel safe before approaching a man. It's common practice for men and women to "check each other out" before approaching, and if this other person just happens to catch you at a "bad moment" when you don't appear friendly or are in a bad mood, then that meeting might not happen. Men often times don't need to feel safe, per se, as they are often more likely to simply approach someone. Often times, if you are surrounded by other people, especially if you are interacting and appear friendly, someone who is checking you out may perceive you as being "safe" and then approach. It's a bit of a game, but if you know the rules, you can be successful. What you experienced is actually quite common. It's called being "shot down in flames", and that's some "old school" stuff right there. Before dating apps, social media, and forums,...we had to walk up to people and just take our chances. We just got used to the routine of women "shooting us down". No worries. Pick yourself up, brush yourself off, and do it again.

What many people do not understand when it comes to meeting someone and initiating a meaningful relationship is that you have to be happy and content with yourself first. It is often a prerequisite before meeting any potential partner. So many people have this idea that they "have to meet THE right person", when in reality if you are happy and content with yourself, you can get along with almost anyone. It's when you are unhappy and depressed that you falsely think that someone else is going to make you happy, and then are disappointed when people reject you or they don't make you happy. Some people never learn, bouncing from one relationship to another, never being satisfied, not realizing it is THEM, not the other people, all along. Other people don't make you happy, per se, but they can make you more or less happy than you were before. You have to have that positivity beforehand.

But, more to you point, not approaching women you do not know. That sounds like a bit of a conundrum, a "catch-22". How are you to get to know someone without approaching them?

 

[Tony Ramirez]

The one time I approached a woman at church during the coffee hour it was a success. I also notice you have a better chance approaching a woman who smiles back to you and sometimes says hi back. Of course even then most of the time I am afraid to approach her.

 

[Steelbookcollector217]

The one time I approached a woman at church during the coffee hour it was a success. I also notice you have a better chance approaching a woman who smiles back to you and sometimes says hi back. Of course even then most of the time I am afraid to approach her.

Part of me feels like it was a mistake for me to register for this forum

 

[Neri]

Yeah it's like men have to learn all of these behaviors or skills or talk and behave or act a certain way or do all of the learning or learn a lot more things or abilities than women ever do in human mating

It's also like, when woman who are the recipients of such male attention, for ever and ad infinitum, have a HUGE amount of efforting thrust upon them, in the form of managing pregnancy, birth and child-rearing, so it kind of evens out in the long run, doesn't it?

 

[Steelbookcollector217]

It's also like, when woman who are the recipients of such male attention, for ever and ad infinitum, have a HUGE amount of efforting thrust upon them, in the form of managing pregnancy, birth and child-rearing, so it kind of evens out in the long run, doesn't it?

I guess so but us humans do not solely have relationships just for reproducing only.

I've heard some people say that pretty much the only skills that women need to know or learn when it comes to forming a relationship or being able to get a guy is just learning how to not get used by a man or just being able to distinguish or filter out the guys men who actually want a relationship or just want sex only.

To sum it up, women just need to learn how to not get used by a man or just to be able to learn how to tell the difference between the guys or men coming on to them, the guys who actually want a relationship or the guys who just want sex only.

And once women learn and figure that out well it's just unlimited options after that it's just a whole world of endless opportunities with men.

 

[Neri]

I guess so but us humans do not solely have relationships just for reproducing only.

I've heard some people say that pretty much the only skills that women need to know or learn when it comes to forming a relationship or being able to get a guy is just learning how to not get used by a man or just being able to distinguish or filter out the guys men who actually want a relationship or just want sex only.

To sum it up, women just need to learn how to not get used by a man or just to be able to learn how to tell the difference between the guys or men coming on to them, the guys who actually want a relationship or the guys who just want sex only.

And once women learn and figure that out well it's just unlimited options after that it's just a whole world of endless opportunities with men.

It's not always that way. I was the initiator in my relationship, as I have already stated in this thread. And the pregnancy risk thing is hard wired into our physiological neural-endocrine responses so just because birth control has been around for a 100 years or so, that doesn't change how men and women are biologically "wired," so to speak.

Men are "active" woman are "passive" in the most reductionist way, that is not across the board and exceptions are always at play.

In my relationship, my guy friend came to visit at my house because our children were friends. And he offered some shopping assistance, as I was without a means to go shopping other than public transport, so, in reality, he still displayed the "active" "initiatory" role, but, I was the one to tell him of my more-than-just-platonic feelings, so I did my share of "making the first move".
It's just the way of things. It's a pattern that usually plays out. Men play a more active, initiatory role and women receive and acquiesce. Then children come along, as is the biological outcome and purpose of attraction from a scientific psycho biological standpoint, and the women, oftentime, take a primary active role in THAT part of the sexual male female dynamic.

You can rally against it, but I think you are wasting energy that you could otherwise expend working towards achieving your goals and aspirations.

That's my two cents, take it or leave it

Edit: actually my story of how I attracted my mate are in another thread similar to this one. But one I seem to remember you contributing on.

 

[Tony Ramirez]

When I was younger I use to daydream of girls coming up talking to me, wanting to hang out with me, date me and be my girlfriend. Not only did that never happen but they ignored me. I could never approach them. I felt like a bigger loser then I do now which now I don't feel like so much. I actually know I touched people lives including women. So now only the past two years they started to approach me after decades of nothing.

 

[Rodafina]

I've heard some people say that pretty much the only skills that women need to know or learn when it comes to forming a relationship or being able to get a guy is just learning how to not get used by a man or just being able to distinguish or filter out the guys men who actually want a relationship or just want sex only.

Could you be specific about from whom you heard this?

Who are “some people?”

 

[Neonatal RRT]

For perspective, I've been with the same woman for over 37 years, and professionally, I work in a neonatal ICU at one of the largest children's hospitals in the world with roughly a 10:1 ratio women to men. I swim in the "estrogen ocean", and have for over 35 years. I have a sense for what most women want in a relationship simply from being immersed in their conversations for as long as I have. I have seen their photos of their husbands and children. I am often the "listening post" for my female co-workers and they bounce quite a bit off of me.

Despite all the transitions in our society with regards to feminism and masculinity and gender fluidity, almost all the women that I have ever discussed this with want a physically strong, mentally disciplined, responsible, accountable man who will provide for, love, and protect his family. The same thing that women have wanted for generations. As a man, if you can check all of those boxes, you're going to be in pretty good shape out there.

 

[Steelbookcollector217]

It's not always that way. I was the initiator in my relationship, as I have already stated in this thread. And the pregnancy risk thing is hard wired into our physiological neural-endocrine responses so just because birth control has been around for a 100 years or so, that doesn't change how men and women are biologically "wired," so to speak.

Men are "active" woman are "passive" in the most reductionist way, that is not across the board and exceptions are always at play.

In my relationship, my guy friend came to visit at my house because our children were friends. And he offered some shopping assistance, as I was without a means to go shopping other than public transport, so, in reality, he still displayed the "active" "initiatory" role, but, I was the one to tell him of my more-than-just-platonic feelings, so I did my share of "making the first move".
It's just the way of things. It's a pattern that usually plays out. Men play a more active, initiatory role and women receive and acquiesce. Then children come along, as is the biological outcome and purpose of attraction from a scientific psycho biological standpoint, and the women, oftentime, take a primary active role in THAT part of the sexual male female dynamic.

You can rally against it, but I think you are wasting energy that you could otherwise expend working towards achieving your goals and aspirations.

That's my two cents, take it or leave it

Edit: actually my story of how I attracted my mate are in another thread similar to this one. But one I seem to remember you contributing on.

Well that's awesome and admirable did you ask him out first or did you start talking to him first

 

[Neri]

Well that's awesome and admirable did you ask him out first or did you start talking to him first

I went up to his place and told him how I felt about him.

 

[BewilderedPerson]

When I was younger I use to daydream of girls coming up talking to me, wanting to hang out with me, date me and be my girlfriend. Not only did that never happen but they ignored me. I could never approach them. I felt like a bigger loser then I do now which now I don't feel like so much. I actually know I touched people lives including women. So now only the past two years they started to approach me after decades of nothing.

See? They’re approaching you. Keep it up.

 

[Neri]

Well that's awesome and admirable did you ask him out first or did you start talking to him first

This happened as well.


Post in thread 'How can I make it happen at my age?' How can I make it happen at my age?

 

[Neri]

Well that's awesome and admirable did you ask him out first or did you start talking to him first

I pursued him with the added advantage of having son's who were best friends after he told me he didn't want a relationship.

He had just gotten custody of his two boys, who were 15 and 11 (their mum was/is a very unwell, abusive person) and I had been quite solid as a support person for his 11 year old son because my second youngest son and he had become besties and so he was over at my place a lot of the time, even before he moved in with his dad.

When his dad (my SO of 14 yrs now) moved to our village, he knew no one and he visited to pick up his son and began to come over a bit, as he had no friends in the village. He moved there to give his boy's continuity as they were settled in the local school.

I was in a bad, bad place when I first met him. Very depressed, very physically unwell, as well. The first time I remember seeing him, I was hiding out the front in a car and he walked out my front door and all I thought was "He must be N____'s dad. He's tall".
He came over again, though, and I invited him to dinner one night. We had a "flow" when it came to conversation.

He was friendly and helpful, but had no agenda other than liking the fact that I was a friendly hospitable person. I had no agenda other than I was a deeply depressed, overworked and abused mother and habitually kind to other's while I ignored how dead I felt inside. He was kind to me though. One day I mentioned the chronic pain I was always in, with a stomach condition and I told him how it had progressed to being a worse thing after a flu, not that long before. He listened and told me he'd had the same thing (we are typical of many autistic people who have had stomach issues our entire lives). I was struck by his kindness and impressed by his lack of agenda, other than he enjoyed that I was friendly and open with him. I have always been friendly to men in the same way or perhaps often finding them easier to talk to, than neurotypical women (allegedly our brains as autistic women look more like neurotypical male brains than neurotypical female brains) and it took me MANY YEARS to work out that the majority of men I was friendly with thought I was interested in them sexually. I thought I was just being friendly, but, then, I'm autistic.

So we were both just happy, at the time, to have a friend. It was months later I realised that I was very attracted to him and after two weeks of 24/7 sexual fantasies about him (porno dreams about him all through the night and sexual fantasies all day long) I decided to go up to his place and tell him how I felt about him.

 

[Steelbookcollector217]

I pursued him with the added advantage of having son's who were best friends after he told me he didn't want a relationship.

He had just gotten custody of his two boys, who were 15 and 11 (their mum was/is a very unwell, abusive person) and I had been quite solid as a support person for his 11 year old son because my second youngest son and he had become besties and so he was over at my place a lot of the time, even before he moved in with his dad.

When his dad (my SO of 14 yrs now) moved to our village, he knew no one and he visited to pick up his son and began to come over a bit, as he had no friends in the village. He moved there to give his boy's continuity as they were settled in the local school.

I was in a bad, bad place when I first met him. Very depressed, very physically unwell, as well. The first time I remember seeing him, I was hiding out the front in a car and he walked out my front door and all I thought was "He must be N____'s dad. He's tall".
He came over again, though, and I invited him to dinner one night. We had a "flow" when it came to conversation.

He was friendly and helpful, but had no agenda other than liking the fact that I was a friendly hospitable person. I had no agenda other than I was a deeply depressed, overworked and abused mother and habitually kind to other's while I ignored how dead I felt inside. He was kind to me though. One day I mentioned the chronic pain I was always in, with a stomach condition and I told him how it had progressed to being a worse thing after a flu, not that long before. He listened and told me he'd had the same thing (we are typical of many autistic people who have had stomach issues our entire lives). I was struck by his kindness and impressed by his lack of agenda, other than he enjoyed that I was friendly and open with him. I have always been friendly to men in the same way or perhaps often finding them easier to talk to, than neurotypical women (allegedly our brains as autistic women look more like neurotypical male brains than neurotypical female brains) and it took me MANY YEARS to work out that the majority of men I was friendly with thought I was interested in them sexually. I thought I was just being friendly, but, then, I'm autistic.

So we were both just happy, at the time, to have a friend. It was months later I realised that I was very attracted to him and after two weeks of 24/7 sexual fantasies about him (porno dreams about him all through the night and sexual fantasies all day long) I decided to go up to his place and tell him how I felt about him.

If only it was more common for women to do that or if women did that just as much as men did then there would be a lot less single and a lot less lonely people in the world