Philosophically, why should men make the first move?

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As is seen ubiquitously in America and as I point out in my essay, Darwinism and Sexual Selection, there are standards by which we judge others' attractiveness and signals of fitness that people find attractive. Today, many people are talking about confidence and its role for men in successful relationships, but in truth, it largely sweeps the issue under the rug as confidence depends on many things, including your perceived attractiveness.

It seems to me that when an 'attractive' man makes the first move, he is more likely to succeed at finding who he wants, while a 'less attractive' man may have to be turned down many times before he finally finds someone with whom he can have a genuine, long-term relationship. This thought of repeated failure could insult the less attractive man's dignity and intelligence.

In all truth, I barely feel like asking anyone out due to the frequency of auditory hallucinations that actually tell me, "I hate you, Charlie Brown," and no, I'm not making this up.

So I come to ask, in all fairness: Why should men make the first move? Is there a good, rational explanation for it? I'm not looking for question-begging appeals to tradition ("that's the way it's always been done") but actual reasons why the one to approach should be a man, and not a woman.

Lately I've been considering the idea of not the man's but the more attractive person's making the first move, as the latter would have confident reason to believe that his or her advances would be welcomed. What do you think of this idea?

P.S. My suspicion is growing due to the snake symbol of Christianity, passages from the Bible, and other reasons, that the romantically unsuccessful man is being manipulated in our culture. I may expound on this later, but I just wanted to remark for now that something sneaky appears to be going on.

In my experiences, there are a lot of men who not only do the asking first but are very pushy about it.

Do I think it's fair, no but I'd have to ask why women are the only ones at fault here. As for me, I have tried asking guys out, but I come off socially akward and unsure. I think men take it to mean friendship rather than an interest.

Two words Alpha men. But I do think most women are socially taught to be submissive which may be why not a lot of them make the first move. But I've known some women who have. Yet there is this double standard that women in the west are too opinionated and slu*ty when they make the first move. So this has always confused me whenever I've asked opinions from men about women doing the asking first.

Maybe women assume that guys who don't talk to them or make any talk assume they aren't interested in them? Then again, maybe women should stop worrying about what men think and get out there and ask guys they're interested in out just like most guys do.

I think this is an empty stereotype, outdated several decades ago. I've had PLENTY of women make the 'first move' to me. Sometimes pleasant, sometimes an annoyance, but there are just as many sexually aggressive females about as males.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.


Oh, BTW, if the snake symbolism in the bible is perplexing you, study up on Gnostic Christianity. Their take on the whole garden of Eden (E. Din in the Sumerian version) story is a novel alternative from the classical interpretation. They believed the serpent was the physical manifestation of the Christos, and that Adonai was not the creator of the universe as he claimed, but an Archon subjugating humankind to his own vanity. That Christ the serpent encouraged man to seek the fruit of knowledge in order to free him from subjugation to the physical world.

Last edited by Willard on 28 Aug 2009, 12:02 pm, edited 2 times in total.

First of all.... who is to say is the more attractive. I think that beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder. I mean really... my BF tells me I'm beautiful... but I don't think I am... and I would have never approached him first. And there are some guys I've dated that didn't think very highly of their looks, but I thought they were hot and I'm so glad they asked me out.

And I've been taught me entire life that men don't like women that ask them out. That it will turn a man off. So if I like a man why would I want to do that ???

A man should make the first move because his interest is usually sparked faster. Men's interest in a woman can be practically instantanous based on physical beauty. Where as women often have to get to know the guy some, get a sense of his social status, feel a vibe of comfortability & confidence, etc.... to be attracted to the same degree.

Guy sees pretty girl, & BAM, he's attracted. Girls sees him, but often doesn't know enough about him to feel the same way. It's up to the guy to change that.

My uncle told me that in the UK, if a girl thinks you're cute, she'll make the first move (can i get confirmation? <.< ) .

I think you are right. The social protocol that men should make the first move is still in effect but is much weaker than it used to be. However, even in the complete absence of this social protocol, I think that men just WANT to go out with somebody much more quickly for the reasons you gave.

edited to add: in light of what granite wrote, I should add that agreeing with deadeyexx (and me agreeing with him) doesn't mean that men always will or should make the first move. It's just that the timing for women is different. Like granite says, women often do make the first move and what a sad world it would be if that never happened. But like deadeyexx says (and I agree) it will take longer for women to get around to making that move because it takes women longer to decide that this is somebody she would like to go on a date with. Putting it all together, men will often make the first move because of 1)cultural expectation and 2)they just come to the decision sooner that they want a date with Ms.X. But if a man doesn't make a move, Ms.X will, in her own time, make a move of her own after she decides that it's what she wants.

The catch for Aspies is that "make a move" may not be synonymous with "ask on a date". Although a woman may, in her own time, decide she is attracted to a man and approach him, her approach is less likely to be, "would you like to go out with me sometime?" It is more likely to be oblique or sideways or something else that makes the Aspie man run to this forum grinding his teeth and asking "what does she mean? There was another thread back a ways where a poster recounted in great detail ways that were hilariously obvious to me that the woman in question was making her move on him. He wasn't 100% oblivious (or he wouldn't be posting) but he was about 50% oblivious and didn't seem to realize that every anecdote he typed was an example of a woman literally throwing herself at him. But she never said, "would you like to go on a date with me?" so he wondered. It pains me to think there are probably many, many Aspie men, some on this forum, who have missed out on dating women who were attracted to them just because they missed when a woman was making her move.

Last edited by Janissy on 28 Aug 2009, 3:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Having men make the first romantic move on a women works really great.......in fairy tales.

Let's look at this realistically. If the world's population of women waited for all the men to make the first move the only men that would be having romantic relationships with women would be the ones that were romantically aggressive. Women would be stuck choosing from a very limited supply of men and not necessarily the best ones.

This idea that men should make the first move is societal and cultural, but not what happens in reality. Most women that I know, including myself, have no trouble approaching eligible men and asking them to have a cup of coffee with them, take a walk or letting them help out with a minor car repair.

And many men that I know are more than happy to accept the offer. Men that won't let a woman make the first move might have more issues than being stuck on dating etiquette and he will do the world's women a favor by politely declining any dates offered to him.

Yes


And to answer your question, I'm quite sure throughout the animal kingdom the males fight to win over a female, I don't know if that has anything to do with it. Generally the males have always been seen as the dominant, first mover, I could be wrong though.

yeah, that's true, it is somewhat outdated. times, they are a changin'. lol

and i think i've heard of that take on Christianity somewhere.

something about an archon simply being an enormously powerful entity, but not truly omnipotent or omniscient in the true sense.

'Cause the one showing interest is the one prepared to pay up.

Very interesting observations. You know, I find it interesting how you say that if an "attractive" man confidently makes the first move, he will usually succeed and will get what he wants, while the less attractive male may use the same tactic and will more than likely be rejected because of it. It creates the question "What does the attractive guy have that the unattractive guy lacks?"

If both carry out the same action, in the same confident mood, what separates them from each other? I honestly believe it has to do with physical attraction. This is merely my speculation, but I'll go ahead with it.

We know that men seek out attractive women, right? Why? Well, according to a book I read, males subconsciously look for attractive females because of their replication value, their (women's) ability to successfully reproduce and their sexual attractiveness, so that males can (sooner or later) successfully pass their traits on to the next generation. Which would explain why many males are more than eager to mate with females, although the intention usually is NOT to impregnate

As for women, I read that women (consciously or subconsciously) seek out men with high survival rate, especially later in life. Survival, and its interpretation, depends on the age group in question though, although this is my interpretation. Younger women (teens - mid 20's, in my opinion, gravitate towards guys who are physically able to protect/defend them. Which would explain why a lot of younger girls go after jerkish guys, tough guys, etc, because they can offer the girl physical protection, which in turn causes the girl to feel confident, loved, etc.

Supposedly, when women are older and decide to stop acting so petty and superficial (mid 20's onward), they will look for guys who can financially support them, which is a means of "survival". They will also look for guys they can depend on.

As to how this all ties into why guys ask out girls, and girls don't ask out guys, I believe there is a reason for it. Man has always been seen culturally and socially as the main provider, the guy who goes out and does the hard work. If you think back to the times of early man, like the Neanderthals, women and children were the gatherers, they collected nuts and berries for consumption. Prehistoric man, however, went hunting, and hunted mastodons, saber tooth tigers, and other animals for food. The prehistoric man was the one who provided shelter for his family.

You can look around at most cultures, and it is predominately governed by man. Man is seen as the emotionally reserved, confident, go-getter type, whereas women are generally considered to be more passive, emotionally inclined, and more interested interested in social relations (friendships, love life, other social interactions, etc). It is ironic really because females are much more emotionally and socially inclined than males are, therefore you think women would be more inclined to ask out men because they are better at socializing.

You know, the only way to really understand is to have a woman explain why women don't ask out men, just like you stated in your post. My honest guess is that women are just as nervous as guys are when it comes to asking members of the opposite sex out. I figure that there is a certain level of miscommunication. I think that women find certain guys attractive, and they may or may not be flirtatious with them, depending on how shy they are. If they flirt around guys, I believe they are sending their own message that they are interested, and that the guy is "allowed" to ask the girl out. They aren't very blunt and open, like guys tend to be, they don't say "Hey, you want to date?" or "Hey, you want to go out?". They do it in a manner that isn't easily identifiable by us guys, so we are often left perplexed and confused. I think girls don't really want to take a risk and have their feelings hurt by rejection. Therefore they expect the guy to make the move instead of them.

Then you have guys like myself, who women ignore and really give no thought to because of our assumed mediocrity. Guys who aren't bad looking (average to cute), but whom women are not potentially interested at first glance. The only way a guy like myself would "date" is by natural charisma and intelligence. I believe there are guys out there that women don't really notice or care about until they personally get to know them on an intellectual and emotional level. I believe that only through close friendship and displaying one's natural charm and intelligence can a guy whom a girl would consider ordinary will in turn think they extraordinary. I have a friend who is an attractive gal who had a guy friend whom she knew on more or less a superficial level. She told me that although this guy was romantically interested in her, she would never consider dating him because he "wasn't her type". Well, a couple months later, after she spent a lot of time with this guy, she felt romantic feelings for him, and they started dating, and have been dating ever since. I have a similar story, although I won over a girl with humor, intelligence, and kindness.

I think that's also a remnant of the 1950s gender roles that a lot of people keep talking about...

Right.

If you don't ask the man out you gain nothing and that is guaranteed.

If you do ask the man out there is a chance that he will say yes. In which case it's a win for you.

He may be turned off by your invitation, but then again he wasn't asking you on a date either.

Unless someone invents some sort of ESP channeling for women to let men know they are interested, then women are going to have to get over themselves and learn how to speak up.

A woman who takes the initiative to show interest generally knows what she wants, and that's an attractive quality to me. I've played the role to no avail, so I'm tired of bothering.

I dunno where you live, but in my area this rarely happens. In several occasions, I heard guys debating about this issue (at work, at uni) and what it seems that they've never encountered girls that ask them out.

I think most girls prefer this way, it gives them the power of selection without the taste of rejection (rhythmic! awesome! XD) , so why they're gonna give it up?

Besides, it's a way to measure the guys' "confidence", a quality that girls usually claim to like.

Last edited by LePetitPrince on 31 Aug 2009, 3:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.