I'm attracted to independent women


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melman is offline melman Post #81  November 8,2009, 6:04pm
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peg099 wrote :
If you honestly think that in 1909, one out of every 20 women would have been fine with the idea of asking a guy out, you are completely out of touch with historical reality.
I meant to say "almost none" and I think you know that. So I didn't use a small enough number. I beg your pardon.

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There have been several threads in my time here on the topic of women asking men out, and I've been struck by the number of university-educated, professional, and otherwise independent-minded women who have stated they would not want to as a guy out, that it was the guy's job to do that, etc. And that's coming from a group that's less traditional than many. Even among a fairly liberal segment of the female population, I doubt you'd find more than 50% willing to ask a guy out for a first date.
So maybe it's 50%. Let's not get hung up on the exact number. I'll continue to insist that the women who don't initiate because "they were told not to, and no one does" are not paying attention to the world around them. It's common enough that no one can honestly say that it's just out of the question.

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When I was on eH, I started out initiating contact with whoever I thought was remotely interesting. But after a few weeks I noticed that not a single one of the guys I contacted responded - whereas some of the ones I didn't contact did communicate with me. So out of curiosity, I decided to hold back on intiating contact. Lo and behold, a higher percentage of my matches communicated with me!
That's interesting, but may I suggest that the fly in the ointment here is that you were probably initiating with a lot of inactive matches who weren't going to respond no matter what. And as you note, the numbers involved are too small to draw any real conclusions. Do you think that the guys who initiated with you, are also guys that you would have initiated with yourself? Just curious.
 
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peg099 is offline peg099 Post #82  November 8,2009, 6:23pm
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D_Lion wrote :
Is this a personal poke at me?
Not at all. Simply a comment based on personal experience in the past.

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Do you think I am that uncommon, and / or the values I hold which are incompatible with yours are consistent enough to preclude all men who are willing to give youa chance for having asked?
I think your views on dating are not representative of most men. I base my observations on my exeperience with men whose values - at least on initial observation - seem to be fairly consistent with my own.

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Keeping in mind, that asking gets you additional options, thus it is hard to argue that asking can not help (unless the argument is too much time is wasted.)
But if asking results in their opinion of me becoming more negative, then it actually decreases options.
 
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peg099 is offline peg099 Post #83  November 8,2009, 6:47pm
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melman wrote :
I meant to say "almost none" and I think you know that. So I didn't use a small enough number. I beg your pardon.
*shrugs* Well then when I proposed alternate numbers, you shouldn't have continued to assert that your numbers were closer.



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So maybe it's 50%. Let's not get hung up on the exact number.
You're the one who brought in the fake numbers in an attempt to invalidate the experience of the women present. And you're the one who, when presented with my numbers, asserted yours were closer to the truth. Now you're closer to my numbers - and because someone has made a cogent argument against your figures, all of a sudden you try to dismiss them as unimportant.

Besides, I doubt it's 50% anyway. It may be 50% among the youngest cohort, but any numbers about 'women today' need to include those cohorts where the numbers would still be closer to the 10%. And, based on the experience of many women here, we're saying that in our cohort (mostly 40s) the numbers are very low.

wrote :
I'll continue to insist that the women who don't initiate because "they were told not to, and no one does" are not paying attention to the world around them. It's common enough that no one can honestly say that it's just out of the question.
Nobody was saying it's out of the question. They were simply saying it wasn't as common as you made it out to be, and were simply relating their personal experience and upbringing. Most of the comments were about prevailing attirtudes, not about excuses for not initiating. Though some of us HAVE explained that based on our experience, it actually works against us. So based on my experience I can say that anyone who thinks that the majority of men are receptive to women inittiating (unless we're talking casual sex) isn't paying attention to the world around them.


wrote :
That's interesting, but may I suggest that the fly in the ointment here is that you were probably initiating with a lot of inactive matches who weren't going to respond no matter what. And as you note, the numbers involved are too small to draw any real conclusions. Do you think that the guys who initiated with you, are also guys that you would have initiated with yourself? Just curious.
And suddenly, when I stopped initiating communication, a much larger portion of my matches were active?

Remember, I wasn't simply commenting on how few guys in total responded. I also said that when I stopped initiating, a larger proportion of my matches entered into communication with me - a very noticeably larger proportion. That really does suggest that for many guys, having a woman make the first move is a turn-off. This is not something I had ever thought about before - but it's something the evidence led me to suspect.
Last edited by peg099; November 8,2009 at 6:50pm.
 
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ming_on_mongo is offline ming_on_mongo Post #84  November 8,2009, 7:06pm
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peg099 wrote :
I said 'how' not 'how many'. I was referring to the manner in which they respond rather than the numbers.

Anyway, if you read the post I was in the process of writing when you posted this, you'll see that I have no expectation of any kind of guarantee. Guys risk rejection, and I have no problem doing the same. I did however notice certain patterns to my taking initiative, that make me wonder if asking a guy out tends to work against a woman looking for a serious, long-term relationship. There's more detail in my previous post.

While my observations are not based on any scientific data, my sense from my own experience as well as that of women I know who do initiate is that women who ask men out have a much lower success rate than men do - at least in situations where they're looking for potential long-term partners. On the other hand, I wouldexpect men have a far lower success rate when asking for casual sex. In that situation, women have the upper hand.
Nope, understood and I did see your later post. And my compliments re: your "style" . You explain well, and you're also good at keeping your "powder dry"!

Perhaps already mentioned, let's not forget that alot of how "hard and fast" the "role expectations" are, is going to vary tremendously, depending on the local values & culture. For example, I would presume that folks in many parts of the midwest or perhaps rural Canada, are probably going to be much more "conservative" in their expectations of what's "proper for a woman", than say, in California!

And related to your observation re: "egalitarian" women, my own sense is that a woman's "rejection" is often related to her own basic attitudes and the type of guys that she's attracted to, to the point that outcomes are often self-fulfilling. If she's basically conservative in her values, and presumably attracted to more "conservative" men, that's obviously a more "risky" proposition for "female initiators", than maybe approaching some other types of guys.
 
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melman is offline melman Post #85  November 8,2009, 7:46pm
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peg099 wrote :
You're the one who brought in the fake numbers
Guilty as charged. And it was a mistake. I did not mean to focus on the specific numbers. I simply meant that it was almost unheard of 100 years ago, and it's quite common today. I thought numbers would be easier than using lots of "less than this but more than that, except on Tuesday" reasoning. But I was wrong.
 
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peg099 is offline peg099 Post #86  November 8,2009, 8:05pm
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ming_on_mongo wrote :
Nope, understood and I did see your later post. And my compliments re: your "style" . You explain well, and you're also good at keeping your "powder dry"!

Perhaps already mentioned, let's not forget that alot of how "hard and fast" the "role expectations" are, is going to vary tremendously, depending on the local values & culture. For example, I would presume that folks in many parts of the midwest or perhaps rural Canada, are probably going to be much more "conservative" in their expectations of what's "proper for a woman", than say, in California!

And related to your observation re: "egalitarian" women, my own sense is that a woman's "rejection" is often related to her own basic attitudes and the type of guys that she's attracted to, to the point that outcomes are often self-fulfilling. If she's basically conservative in her values, and presumably attracted to more "conservative" men, that's obviously a more "risky" proposition for "female initiators", than maybe approaching some other types of guys.
I do acknowledge that those factors all play some role. Yes, sometimes the outcomes are indeed self-fulfilling. Though I would hardly be considered 'conservative' even in Scandanavia And the guys I tend to be interested in would be more egalitarian and open-minded - some would even consider themselves to be male feminists.

And yes, some women, when faced with a rejection, will fail to put that in the proper context and recognize that even will face multiple rejections for every 'yes' they get.

What really struck me with my eH experience is that when I was intiating contact with the guys I was more interested in, I got zero response from them, while getting some communication requests from those of no interest to me. When I stopped initiating, the amount of requests from those I wasn't interested in stayed about the same, but suddenly I was also getting communication requests from the guys I would have prevously contacted myself. Now, I grant that the numbers were small, but it certainly got me thinking - and resulted in my changing my behavior to some degree. In offline situations, I am now more likely to make it easier for a man to approach me or ask me out (i.e. I might start a casual conversation, stand next to him in a group, etc), but I'm les inclined to directly say "I'm interested in going out with you" or outright asking him out.

It would be really interesting to see a proper sociological study of this, but I think that would be hard to design because we'd run into the problem of stated attitudes possibly not aligning with actual behaviors.

My sense is certainly that men have some negative reactions to women who are 'bold' - perhaps based on not-entirely-conscious beliefs about 'that sort of woman'.

Hopefully this whole discussion will illustrate that there really are two sides to every story - and that it does no one much good if we make assumptions about the opposite gender's behavior without really listening to where they're coming from.

And thanks for the compliment.
 
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cp30 is offline cp30 Post #87  November 8,2009, 9:47pm

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peg099 wrote :
And I would expect that in general, women in grad school would be more independent and 'egalitarian' than the average North American woman. They certainly would tend to be women who expect to take care of themselves rather than having a man do so - at least for the most part.
It's kind of funny. I don't feel that society has held me down, or that I was raised to never ask a man out. In fact, my mother didn't really address it, she just occasionally told me I should be nicer to the boys that WERE asking me out, since I never seemed to give them a chance.

For me it was a bit different. Naturally, I was very shy in high school. It didn't feel natural for me to ask ANYONE out. It didn't feel natural to show my feelings or to call boys on the phone.

However, I recall reading bad advice in teen magazines that I should do just this. That I should over come my fears and make the first move.

So, ignoring my comfort levels and going beyond my nature, I did make the first move a few times. I felt like society was telling me that I SHOLD and its OKAY. And boys just didn't know how to communicate or show their feelings so, it was actually more my job ANYWAY.

Well, wouldn't I like to write YM or Seventeen magazing a letter now.....lol. They were wrong...
 
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peg099 is offline peg099 Post #88  November 8,2009, 9:58pm
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I don't think I ever felt like society has me held down. I've always been a pretty independent and critical thinker and walked to the beat of my own drummer. I don't know that I ever really did what was popular just because it was popular. That's probably why I've always been more inclined to make the first move.

But my tendency to be an independent and critical thinker has resulted in my observing certain patterns, which I have found interesting. Again, not anything that's really scientific, but certainly enough to make me go "hmmmm. I think there's a bit of a disconnect between what men say they want, and the way they actually do react."
 
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ming_on_mongo is offline ming_on_mongo Post #89  November 9,2009, 5:09am
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"Peg".... I hear 'ya re: your eH experiences, and that would probably give me a feeling of "damned if you do and damned if you don't" (small sample or not)!

Although referring back to my point about varying "expectations" (i.e. between the midwest & Cali) affecting the outcomes, I'm beginning to wonder how "representative" the eH population really is compared to "IRL" (in real life), and how it may affect your "sampling".

No offense intended towards anyone, but the fact is, that this site was founded by an evangelical minister, it grew largely thru his connections in the evangelical community, and to this day, though Dr Neil has said he's now "broadening the base", you'll still see references all over the place in these very forums, about this being a "christian" dating site (albeit open to "others").

Have personally tried eH a couple times already, and besides being generally unimpressed (few matches, and everybody's way too far away), I do get the impression that it is a generally more "conservative" population, certainly than my experiences with either Match or Yahoo. Which BTW, have been much more successful, and where women can also routinely initiate via a less-risky "wink", "nudge", etc..

In any case, to the extent that eH is perhaps more "Christian-based" (and presumably more conservative), obviously there will be many more men here, who are likely to have certain "expectations" re: "traditional male/female roles". And if that's what someone's seeking, fine. Although as the saying goes, "be careful what you wish for..."!
 
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scarlet13 is offline scarlet13 Post #90  November 9,2009, 6:10am

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what did i miss?
 
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