do men appreciate when a woman approaches them first?

[Alvi]

4 hours ago, mark clemson said:

I understand that this thread is more general. I was just making a point that was on my mind. There are women who can be quite brazen, although yes, that isn't the usual case.

I am definitely not brazen, lol. I am more on a shy side of thigs. 

[Alvi]

Just now, a guy on the dating site blasted me for simply looking at his profile. I haven't even messaged him. He accused me of creeping his profile and point blank asked me what I want from him.  Guess I missed the memo which said that I wasn't supposed to look at his profile. Some people are full of themselves, I suppose. Guess the crown is too big for their heads. Not only I am not allowed to message guys, i am not even allowed to look at their profiles anymore, lol.

I honestly don't know what else to do. Have no idea where or how to find a guy for a relationship.

[basil67]

As you're using a dating app which shows who has viewed your profile (I didn't know this was a thing!), what kind of men are viewing your profile and moving on vs contacting you?   Are you missing out on men you'd want to date?

Edited November 8, 2020 by basil67

[Miss Spider]

7 minutes ago, Alvi said:

Just now, a guy on the dating site blasted me for simply looking at his profile. I haven't even messaged him. He accused me of creeping his profile and point blank asked me what I want from him.  Guess I missed the memo which said that I wasn't supposed to look at his profile. Some people are full of themselves, I suppose. Guess the crown is too big for their heads. Not only I am not allowed to message guys, i am not even allowed to look at their profiles anymore, lol.

I honestly don't know what else to do. Have no idea where or how to find a guy for a relationship.

Wow. Are you sure that he wasn’t just being trying to be funny? I guess I don’t even slightly understand why a man or woman would act this way. 
 

how about meeting people Irl? Maybe a more ‘natural’ connection. Hobbies, small talk out and about, through friends etc 

[Alvi]

6 minutes ago, Shortskirtslonglashes said:

Wow. Are you sure that he wasn’t just being trying to be funny? I guess I don’t even slightly understand why a man or woman would act this way. 
 

how about meeting people Irl? Maybe a more ‘natural’ connection. Hobbies, small talk out and about, through friends etc 

No, he wasn't trying to be funny. Guess he thought that I was not in his league, way beneath him. Nonetheless, I've never encountered anybody who said that I wasn't even allowed to look at a profile on a public dating site.

Men don't approach me anywhere, friends cannot introduce me to anybody. Don't know where to meet men other than the dating sites. But boy oh boy, dating sites sure suck.

Edited November 8, 2020 by Alvi

[Miss Spider]

Leagues are bogus and this guy is a clown. Try to make more connections irl. Improve your approachability and presence

[basil67]

18 minutes ago, Alvi said:

No, he wasn't trying to be funny. Guess he thought that I was not in his league, way beneath him. Nonetheless, I've never encountered anybody who said that I wasn't even allowed to look at a profile on a public dating site.

As unpleasant as he was, try not to internalise this.  Remember that his behaviour reflects some issue he's got.    If you're worried about this happening again, switch to an app which doesn't flag who has looked at profiles.  

[Alvi]

57 minutes ago, basil67 said:

As you're using a dating app which shows who has viewed your profile (I didn't know this was a thing!), what kind of men are viewing your profile and moving on vs contacting you?   Are you missing out on men you'd want to date?

I am on Plenty of Fish. Perhaps a dating apps would be better? Who knows. Might as well try it. Mostly men who are not looking for anything serious are looking at my profile and contacting me. I do get contacted by guys who want a serious thing, or so they say, but they are very far in between. It hardly ever results in a date but it is either convo goes nowhere or I find them not what I am looking for. But good, decent guys are very far in between.

 

[Alvi]

32 minutes ago, basil67 said:

As unpleasant as he was, try not to internalise this.  Remember that his behaviour reflects some issue he's got.    If you're worried about this happening again, switch to an app which doesn't flag who has looked at profiles.  

Thanks, I am trying not to take it personally. But it does sting. Never encountered that kind of behariour before. But live and learn.

[Alvi]

47 minutes ago, Shortskirtslonglashes said:

Leagues are bogus and this guy is a clown. Try to make more connections irl. Improve your approachability and presence

This guys is a new level of stupid. I am trying to make real life connections but I am shy and guys do find me invisible.

[Miss Spider]

Yep . You probably have very closed off body language as well if you are shy. You are probably sending all the signals of “stay away from me” unintentionally. 

[Miss Spider]

14 minutes ago, Alvi said:

I am on Plenty of Fish. Perhaps a dating apps would be better? Who knows. Might as well try it. Mostly men who are not looking for anything serious are looking at my profile and contacting me. I do get contacted by guys who want a serious thing, or so they say, but they are very far in between. It hardly ever results in a date but it is either convo goes nowhere or I find them not what I am looking for. But good, decent guys are very far in between.

 

Plenty of fish is wack even buy dating site standards. 
 

Basil is right though. An app where you match would probably solve this problem. Also one where the woman has to message first, like bumble. 
 

 

Edited November 8, 2020 by Shortskirtslonglashes

[OnlyHonesty]

The main issue is that women have no idea how to approach because they have never had to, thus are out of practice. Some of us guys learned in the heat of battle and became good at it. Therefore when we approached a woman we knew how to do so without awkwardness. But the women that have approached me were impatient, asked for my number without even knowing my name, and others had no idea what to say.

[MeadowFlower]

@OnlyHonesty, so, what are your tips then? 

[Woggle]

For a man or a woman just go up to somebody and talk to them like a person. I don't know why people treat this kind of stuff like it's cracking some difficult code. Just go up and talk to somebody. 

[Miss Spider]

Haha true. I guess because a great many of us lack any type of social skills whatsoever

Edited November 8, 2020 by Shortskirtslonglashes

[MeadowFlower]

1 hour ago, Alvi said:

Just now, a guy on the dating site blasted me for simply looking at his profile. I haven't even messaged him. He accused me of creeping his profile and point blank asked me what I want from him.  Guess I missed the memo which said that I wasn't supposed to look at his profile. Some people are full of themselves, I suppose. Guess the crown is too big for their heads. Not only I am not allowed to message guys, i am not even allowed to look at their profiles anymore, lol.

Did you blast the crown off his head!? 

[Maldives]

Yep you bet we do. It's very flattering for a guy 

[SumGuy]

12 hours ago, Alvi said:

I am on Plenty of Fish. Perhaps a dating apps would be better? Who knows. Might as well try it. Mostly men who are not looking for anything serious are looking at my profile and contacting me. I do get contacted by guys who want a serious thing, or so they say, but they are very far in between. It hardly ever results in a date but it is either convo goes nowhere or I find them not what I am looking for. But good, decent guys are very far in between.

Where I live POF is even more of a hook up app and bottom of the barrel than Tinder...another app/site could work better.   For me personally and the women I know and met through OLD the free apps are worse than the subscription.   Again where I live Match seems to work best, and maybe e-harmony but the latter doled out your matches and from the women I talked to had men who were too serious, like let's get married date 3 serious.

As to the guy who got upset at you for looking at his profile.....I've heard some horror stories about men on OLD, but being castigated for looking at a profile on a free, public, on line dating app where you post profiles for people to look at?   What kind douche bag thinks he can get upset for people looking at his photos when he puts them up to be looked at?  That is a whole new level of a**hattery, and fragile toxic male snowflake behavior.....Would make me want to respond...there are reports of you threatening people on the site, this is part of that investigation....true enough if phrased in the present tense  but I wouldn't as this guy is certainly mentally unbalanced.

[central]

Almost all my dating after leaving my ex was via traditional online dating sites.  Nine out of ten dates were from women who contacted me first, including my wife.  There were many, many more contacts that I (gently) turned down as they were not an attractive match for me.  So, yes, I greatly appreciated having women initiate or approach me first.

[princessaurora]

17 hours ago, Lotsgoingon said:

But for many people, they just take a small move. A woman smiles at a guy. Is that an approach? A woman says hi. Guy responds. Or guy says hi and woman smiles. In other words, the best way for either gender to approach is often through small steps. Take a step. See what the response is like. 

I go to dances where traditionally guys are "leaders" and women are "follows." Yes, most of the time men will ask women to dance. But that's only on the surface. Because what really happens is a guy like me will look at around, notice someone who isn't dancing who I want to approach. I will approach. So I'm taking the initiative right? No so fast!  What women at dances do is as follows. They will make eye contact and notice me coming towards them. That indicates they are open to me asking them to dance. And when they aren't interested in me approaching them, they'll move. They turn their vision in a different direction, start walking as if to meet someone else. The reality is they see the man approaching them. They stand still if they're interested. They move and avoid all eye contact if they're not.

I think you hit the nail on the head Lotsgoingon! Back in my single days,  if  I was attracted to  a guy I saw out somewhere, I would look over at him, flirt a little, and wait for him to approach, or if I ran into another group of friends that had a cute guy with them, I'd say something to one of my  friends like "hey, that guy you brought tonight is really cute" and of course then just like in jr high, it's going to travel back to him in less than 2 minutes whereas if he's attracted to, he's going to say " I think she's cute too"  which your friend is going to immediately relay to you and then shortly after he'll approach. If some guy I happened to lock eyes with for a split second while I was randomly looking around got the wrong idea and started to head towards me, I would turn away and hope he'd take the hint or if some guy a friend brought finds me attractive, when word gets back to me, I would just say, I'm flattered but I'm already seeing someone or something along those lines. 

 I think this is the best way to indirectly approach because you are showing interest without taking away the man's instinct to pursue. And if he's not interested you spare yourself the embarassment of being rejected. If he's not attracted or he's already in a relationship, he just won't approach.  Now once you accept a date if he's sending signals he likes you, but hasn't made a move I think it's ok to do so as long as he's showing interest. I had to make the first move on my husband because I had a boyfriend when we met and I was trying to stay loyal so I agreed to be just friends with him as long as he promised not to kiss me. He made the promise but he did everything in his power to break me (sat really close to me, leaned over and smelled my perfume). I couldn't resist his clever advances and grabbed him and kissed him. I also made the first move on my fwb, but he was always bragging about  all the women he slept with,  how good he was in bed and how big his penis was. I really wanted to find out if it was true, so I went to his place and seduced him one night. (It was true and we had amazing sex for months.) But he was sending signals, so I  wasn't just jumping into a pool without making sure there was water in it. 

You may find a few men that like a direct approach, but most of them will not. Like others have said, they may think something is wrong with you just because they're simply not used to it, or they may think it's a joke, or they may be so intimidated they won't know what to do. Men are alot more used to being the chasers and are biologically designed for it. I wouldn't recommend  approaching unless they are clearly showing interest and even then it's best to just keep encouraging them to approach. If they seem interested but shy, you could find an excuse to walk by them (go get a drink, go to the bathroom)  and smile but keep going. On your way back, if he's interested 9 times out of ten he's going to stop you. 

 

[poppyfields]

15 hours ago, Woggle said:

For a man or a woman just go up to somebody and talk to them like a person. I don't know why people treat this kind of stuff like it's cracking some difficult code. Just go up and talk to somebody. 

I agree with you Woggle, but as shortskirts said, many lack social skills and don't know how!  

I witness this all the time in my neck of the woods (southern Cali).   Women so focused on themselves and their looks/appearance that they've never acquired effective social skills, how to interact and connect with others. 

Many are so overly focused on themselves and their appearance, they have no clue how to interact.   Or how to simply be kind.   

God forbid they smile at a man, let alone engage in a simple friendly conversation.  I've witnessed women belittling a man for approaching, shoot him down in the nastiest way.  For having the nerve to just say hi.  

The attitude is - how dare you, a simple average guy, approach ME!  The self-entitement here is beyond belief sometimes, not sure how it is in other areas. 

OP, I'm sorry you experienced that.  That man was obviously a bitter jaded product of too much OLDing.  

Try to not take it personally.

 

 

Edited November 8, 2020 by poppyfields

[Woggle]

10 minutes ago, poppyfields said:

I agree with you Woggle, but as shortskirts said, many lack social skills and don't know how!  

I witness this all the time in my neck of the woods (southern Cali).   Women so focused on themselves and their looks/appearance that they've never acquired effective social skills, how to interact and connect with others. 

Many are so overly focused on themselves and their appearance, they have no clue how to interact.   Or how to simply be kind.   

God forbid they smile at a man, let alone engage in a simple friendly conversation.  I've witnessed women belittling a man for approaching, shoot him down in the nastiest way.  For having the nerve to just say hi.  

OP, I'm sorry you experienced that.  That man was obviously a bitter jaded product of too much OLDing.  

But it goes both ways.  

 

 

I hate to be old men yells at cloud but millenials and younger could benefit from learning how to interact without technology. I spent my younger years in the 90s in clubs and bars when it was cool to be social and talk to people so I am used to it. At the end of the day women are simply people just like men are simply people. They are not some alien where you need to crack the code.

As for the other thing people who view the other sex as the enemy will naturally have a hard time connecting with somebody who is a member of that group.

[OnlyHonesty]

17 hours ago, MeadowFlower said:

@OnlyHonesty, so, what are your tips then? 

I think they just need to get more practice talking to guys, then understand flirting.

[Miss Spider]

2 hours ago, Woggle said:

I hate to be old men yells at cloud but millenials and younger could benefit from learning how to interact without technology. I spent my younger years in the 90s in clubs and bars when it was cool to be social and talk to people so I am used to it. At the end of the day women are simply people just like men are simply people. They are not some alien where you need to crack the code.

As for the other thing people who view the other sex as the enemy will naturally have a hard time connecting with somebody who is a member of that group.

Unfortunately, that is probably not going to happen. We are only going to get more and more inept at talking without a screen in front of us. It’s very sad. 

Edited November 8, 2020 by Shortskirtslonglashes