Women, when do you decide to go out with someone?

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I've been having a pretty rough time lately. The last 4 girls I got the chance to ask out have all said yes only to cancel later. The last one gave me her number and messaged me for an entire month saying she wanted to meet. Then after we finally set something up she cancelled a few hours before, promising to reschedule. Two days later she broke it off. I really thought she was starting to like me.

Anyway, I want to ask when do you girls decide to go out with someone? When someone approaches you, what makes you interested? Also how can I let someone know I want to go out with them without making them feel uncomfortable. I can't seem to figure this out. For some reason I can't find anyone who's even willing to give me a chance.

Initially for me it's sort of based on if I think we may have anything in common, and could have fun just hanging out...as well as dating. Honestly though most guys I've gone out with I met online before meeting in person so not sure if that effects it. But yeah I have never been interested in guys who initiate with short messages that seem to be looking for a simple hook up like 'hey sexy wanna meet up' are the sort of messages I skip over. My reason for that is I don't enjoy one night stands or hooking up just for sex really which that hints at to me. When guys have left a well thought out message, tell me a little about themselves and inquire about getting to know me then I'll be interested in getting back to them and potentially meeting in person.

But yeah if I told a guy I was going to meet them I would have no intention of just backing out at the last second. I've been late plenty of times cause I travel by walking and bus but in those cases I am still on my way and will tell them that its just taking a while. Though there is a good chance there will be no more OKcupid(dating site) for me since I am dating someone now. Uhh I wish there was some way to determine beforehand if someones going to be flakey or not....sounds really frustrating to get hopes up and have that happen. I haven't really had that initially but I've had guys end relationships with me via being very flakey which is annoying.

I am wary of my relationships with men, especially when I'm single, as I often miss signals. I do struggle to get the boundaries right, I've had male 'friends' drop me when I've declined their offers of something more than friendship, and I do try very hard to be tactful without being patronizing. I've found myself 'dating' people by accident, because the 'rules' haven't been clear. I don't pick up on subtleties.

If someone just asks me to meet up, I assume they just want to get to know me better, or that they prefer one-to-one interactions with their friends.

If someone makes it clear that they want a romantic relationship with me, I tend to to take a few days to think about it (unless I already have!), just to try and work out if we want the same things from a relationship, and whether we'd work well together as a couple. And then I give a full answer, being as honest as possible.

I'll generally agree to go out with pretty much any guy (I know in person) who asks me out, provided I don't get creepy vibes off of him. Online, I screen hard on education (proper graduate degree; no issues with guys who don't have on IRL, but too many horrifyingly bad online dates without this criteria), spelling/grammar and exclude any guy who mentions hunting/fishing (while I don't participate in either nor do I have issue with those that do, so long as they eat what they kill, this got implemented in order to cut down on horrifyingly bad first dates. It's a proxy for "good ole country boys") and prefer to meet up in person after exchanging just a few messages.

There's no way to ask someone out without POTENTIALLY making them uncomfortable. All you can do is be polite and accept a no graciously when you get one. Or 4.

Is a Bachelor's included in that?

I have 9 credits towards my Masters

0.o but those guys who you reject online you'd date if met in person?

I avoided college girls for this reason as I'm not good enough for them
Seems pretty much all women go to college now and are super successful at least where I live . Probably only 1% don't based off online profiles .
I don't think I going try dating anymore and just be sad forever til I die.

There's a good chance I'd accept an IRL invitation from a guy who I'd reject based on their online profile. The above-listed criteria are because otherwise I end up on so many awful first internet dates that I get discouraged and quit internet dating for 3-6 months. I read, love theatre, am a policy wonk and love to travel. My criteria more or less ensure that my internet first dates don't consider an opinion on foreign policy a social handicap. I will also concede that my criteria eliminate 98% of the profiles out there (and accordingly a ton of guys I'd probably get along very well with if the wheat-from-chaff process didn't put me off dating yet again).

My differing standards for IRL vs online dates is that there's SO much more information to go on with IRL guys -- at a minimum, there's independent information that corroborates they are who they say they are (ie really do work at Company X) and usually a reference (he's a friend's colleague or cousin or whatnot), so if something goes wrong the police will at least have some leads on where to look for my corpse.

I am also fully aware that there are tons of super-smart, interesting and amazing people who don't have degrees, that hunt and love fly-fishing. Whom I'd happily date IRL.

(All my school friends, all six of them, went to college, I met a lot of my friends in college/grad school and every job I've ever held has required a graduate degree. With the exception of one old school friend, I don't think I have any friends who don't have grad degrees).

Or, you could enroll in a community college part-time and focus on bettering your situation as well...Even if it is not meant to impress anyone, it would be better for your self-esteem and future.

To answer your question:

I decide to go out with someone when I know them well enough to know they are a good person and I feel like they would be a great friend that could turn into something more down the line. I think you need to have a mixture of casualness and sincerity when approaching a person for the first time and trying to ask them out. I definitely would not recommend asking someone out whom you just met out of the blue unless that person were giving you MAJOR signals that they wanted you to ask.

I always like it when guys keep it casual, tell jokes, and want to just hang out like friends do. I like it when I am the one that decides if she wants to initiate a relationship and really don't like it when guys become overly pushy or aggressive.

AND, whatever you do. Don't play mind games- such a major turn off and makes guys who I otherwise would have liked look completely undesirable and immature. Just my two cents.

^^^ yes. No mind games. I accept invites from guys I'm interested in and reciprocate them. I decline invites from guys I'm not interested in and assume they do the same. Mind games don't work if you refuse to play them, ie any guy playing "hard to get", well, I assume he isn't interested and move on.

No I already have a useless degree and 11k school loan to go with it.

Sly,

What is your degree in?

There's no such thing as a useless degree. You can't spent 3-4 years in college not learning anything. The person I know who got the coolest, best-paying job right out of undergrad got a supposedly "useless" liberal arts degree in Women's Studies.

Also, after you get your first job, literally nobody cares what you studied not where you went to school.

I'm married and I've never figured out how people date. I never really dated, in the sense of dating being a trial period. I was usually not very subtle about letting them know I liked them and if they didn't turn me down it turned into a more serious relationship. I'd probably want to do things differently (to avoid getting stuck in abusive relationships) if I were to do it again but dating has always been something that mystifies me.

Honestly I neither would want to see any woman again that has declined my offer because she would remind me of it each time, maybe she would get a boyfriend and talk about him, how much she loves him and getting married and having kids, while I still have feelings for her and have to watch.
It would be torture and a disrespect to myself to stay in contact.
No offense but I'd rather move on. Maybe you can understand this.

You know it doesn't mean that these guys wanted you as their girlfriend from the start, feelings can develop over time.

Oh, I understand it.
It sucks though, as I literally can't stop it from happening. It's also often very distressing