Offline Dating

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Saw this tonight, thought it was cute and worth sharing. Short film about a guy who decides to meet women "the old fashioned way." He starts out with a very blunt "Are you single?" "Will you go out with me?" kind of approach. Really cute.

It’s kind of weird. If a random person asked me out on a date, I’d say “no” because I’d want to know something about someone before going on a date with him (or her). I also prefer the idea of being friends first, so I don’t think this is a great approach. It wouldn’t work for most people.

Agreed. That point is actually made in the film. But I do see online dating just as problematic because of the anonymity. It's not "real." And meeting IRL inherently changes the nature of the relationship.

But because we're so used to hiding ourselves online, RL meetings ARE weird because they've been pushed so far out of the norm.

The guy is persistent in this case, and notice how his approach changed towards the end. He was getting better acquainted with women rather than just "Hai! Wanna go out?" There was that one girl who was like, "Wait, is this a DATE???"

I haven’t really done online dating. When I think of old fashioned, offline dating, I think about developing friendships with people (without having an initial romantic intent), meeting friends of friends, meeting people at social functions I go to, and things like that.

Even at the end of the video, I wouldn’t go for his method.

I can honestly see pros to both methods: cold/casual dating, and getting to know a person before developing romantic interests.

Cold/casual dating helped me establish a baseline normal for human male behaviour, so it's much easier to recognize dangerous outliers (note, I am not talking about quirkiness, but truly scary behaviours).

Plus as an ASD person, who has trouble distinguishing others' intentions, I think this extra edge to reading people is crucial.

Getting to know a guy without any romantic inclinations helped me realize when I'd found someone truly special to me.

I noticed I was going to great lengths to spend time with this man, whom I had zero romantic attraction to, so he must be something really enduring and wonderful (my own gaga brain wasn't making him look better than he really was). (Note, so far this is my best romantic relationship to date; he makes all my previous relationships feel so shallow, and I'm totally crazy about him now).

I'm also a proponent of pursuing all available avenues.... Online, offline, clubs/hobbies, casual, getting to be friends first, meeting people through mutual friends, I even went on some blind dates.
If something doesn't work, what have you lost? A day, a couple of hours?

If someone does the cold approach, I initially wonder: “What is wrong with this guy that makes him have to resort to this method? What’s so unappealing about him that makes none of his acquaintances want to date him?”

These sorts of things would be swirling around in my brain which would make me give an emphatic “no” to anyone that would ask for a date in such a manner.

It also doesn’t seem that safe. They’d have to date in very public spaces for awhile before trust could extend beyond that. It really helps to have friends in common with someone to reduce the risk of getting with a toxic person.

It would probably be hard, too, if someone wasn’t very physically attractive since that’s about the only thing you would know about a person in such a scenario.

I fully support safety practices! Always be safe, first and foremost!

Meeting in very public places is excellent, whenever getting to know a new person (regardless of how you met them).

Also, if it's legal where you live, carry self defense (especially if you're female).

This is just plain stupid, even in online dating no one sane says in an intro message "Hey wanna have a drink with me?".

That guy was cute and charming af. I would have said yes to a public date with that particular person just to get to know him as a friend, if not something more. He was amiable and I prefer old fashioned dating methods, so it would give something to talk about.

For safety, I wouldn't give him my number or any personal details for quite some time. He wouldn't even need to know my name if I didn't want him to. Online dating gives away more of your privacy than sitting down for a glass of wine and then saying farewell. I think sometimes we need to give people more credit, and not assume they have bad intentions.

You are so weird.....

Did any of the women accept him in the video? I watched it halfway and all said no.

That what matters, the opinions of the majority.

I'm not sure why it's weird to sit and talk to someone in public, especially if they have a camera crew following you around and they tell you they are doing an "offline dating" experiment for posterity's sake. Why not? If I'm in a public place and don't disclose personal information, isn't that preferable to sending my name and photo out to millions of strangers online and hoping we can connect via a few clichéed catch phrases or pick up lines? I'd much rather meet a real person than flirt with a photograph.

The funny thing is that I'm so face-blind I couldn't follow the video and couldn't tell the women apart. I couldn't tell which ones had the dates or didn't have the dates. The one with the barbecue seemed fun, but I forgot which face she was.

Meeting new people is good but jumping right into dating a stranger would feel really strange to me, sort of forced, and it’d make the guy look desperate. That’s not flattering!

I prefer friendships that evolve, organically, into something else.

The whole point is that it's forced, in this experiment anyway. He says right up front that he wants to try meeting people offline to see how it works. He has a camera crew. I would participate just to say hello and have a chat about his study, if nothing else. It's not a "private date" but rather sitting down and talking to him on camera.

If it were a random stranger out of the blue, I agree no. I've had my fair share of dangerous situations but this doesn't look like one given the parameters of the video experiment, and that particular person.

I wouldn't expect it to lead to a long term relationship or anything.

He did eventually go out with a couple of girls, even kissed one.

Right!

I wanted to state my opinion so some wouldn’t think that this is an example worth imitating. It’s hardly “old fashioned dating” in my mind. There’s much more subtlety and romance to that terminology which some desperate-looking guy doesn’t reflect very well.

I’ve been asked out in a manner like this, actually, so I just wanted to share my thoughts on it.

That’s probably largely due to having a camera crew following him around.