How can I initiate a date?

Post Reply New Topic

You know, it's interesting, goldfish -- your idea of what's reasonable, and what people want, seems to be centered entirely on what you want. You like compliments, so yeah! Come on up and hit on goldfish. You're not afraid of being raped or otherwise attacked by men; therefore it's unreasonable for women to be afraid. You like to "feel the moment" and just go for the kiss, so everyone should be cool with this. You see dating as a numbers game, therefore it is, universally, a numbers game.

Are you understanding the part where the world is not you? And that other people have legitimate reasons for not reacting as you do, and that there are in fact people who are vulnerable, and reasons why the setup is not "Everyone follows rules that would best suit Goldfish"?

Compliments are not unreasonable or disrespectful treatment. If you believe they are, then there is something wrong with your thinking and you should seek some sort of professional mental help with it.



Whether someone consciously plays a numbers game or not, the statistics still apply. The more people someone meets, the more likely they'll meet someone they're compatible with in whatever capacity they're looking for. It doesn't have to be a numbers game that someone is keeping track and score of for the mathematical principles to apply.



No. I'm just telling the 2 or 3 of you. Further, how ironically hypocritical of you to say I shouldn't have an opinion on how you're reacting to these things, yet somehow you feel you're The authority on what all women want or do not want. Newsflash: You are not all women. You are an Autistic women with different views on social interactions and comfort levels with others than the majority of the population. You may also have been a victim of some sort of sex crime and thus carry some deep rooted PTSD symptoms that affect your paradigms. You do not speak for all women. Stop pretending that you do - it's offensive and insulting to others who you assume you speak for.

Oh the irony!

I don't receive compliments often. I don't crave them, either. I'm somewhat indifferent about them, but when one is paid to me I tend to be flattered by it vs. jump to conclusions that it means that person wants to rape or kill me.

I do like to "feel the moment," and think that asking permission for every little move dates make with each other is absurd.

Like I pointed out, statistics apply whether you like it or not. Math is math. Period.

..and of course, the irony in all of this is as I pointed out in my last post, YOU are NOT all women. You can't speak for everyone. Stop pretending you do.

Most people have an intuitive understanding of the rules of social interaction. Therefore, most people have the social skills to attract people of the opposite sex without scaring them or making them feel uncomfortable and that's how they do it successfully, so it's not a numbers game, it's about social skills.



She's not autistic, she's actually neurotypical and is on this forum because she has a family member with Asperger's. Therefore, she has the same views on social interactions and comfort levels as other NT's. Nice try though and how ironic it is for you as an autistic gay man to tell others how neurotypical straight women must see things.

Last edited by Jono on 27 Jun 2014, 3:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.

**Note: the following does not apply for bar scenarios. I think it's fairly safe to assume that singles at the bar scene are "looking" and are less likely to be put off by such an approach.**

I'm another woman here who finds compliments from strangers uncomfortable, at best.

Please, if you insist on complimenting a stranger, don't make it about they way they look......but wait, what else do you know about them to compliment them on?

Like most women (and here I think I can safely say, ALL American women of my generation), I've been trained practically since birth that if a stranger pays me a compliment out of the blue, it means he/she wants something from me. What's the mostly likely thing that a man complimenting an unknown woman on her looks might be wanting? Yes, he is assumed to be exactly the person our mothers warned us about.

I've said this many times, here and elsewhere - if your first words to me are about me being attractive to you, I'm going to assume that my physical attractiveness is the only thing you're interested in.

Here's where it becomes a reasonable (and non-threatening) tactic: if she's wearing an article of clothing with a college name or a sports team on it, comment on that. Ask her if she liked living in (whatever town the college is in), or if she goes to many of the (sports team's name) games. If she's holding a book, ask her if she's read anything else by that author and does she recommend his/her books?

And guess what? Women can use this tactic on men, too. And it's not creepy and threatening.

But if looks are all that matter to you, by all means use the "you look beautiful" line. If nothing else, it will let the poor woman know what's important to you - and if she doesn't care that you apparently value her looks more than her personal space, well, she may just be a good match for you.

P.S. *After* we start dating, you can compliment me all you want.

Last edited by Eureka13 on 27 Jun 2014, 3:37 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Spider dance,

I like compliments from men, as does every other lady I know. It's nice. A compliment is him saying something nice about you, to you. Unless it's something really crude and he's really hot and your goal is just a hookup, then a compliment is nice. I'm not a gay guy so maybe I know more than the fellow you were just bitching at about it up there. I don't speak for all of the female sex, and damn sure not for you, but I do speak for me and my friends and every other gal I've heard in the bathroom at the bar or somewhere else near me talking to her friend about what this one said to her, in a good way.

Of course there are things a guy can say to you that will piss you off. He can make it obvious that he just wants to get in your pants and not even try and be smooth about it or he can be stuck up and act all like he's doing you a favor by talking to you etc, and in those cases you should let him have it with both barrels. He may simply not be your type but he's polite and trying, so most decent girls would just tell him no thanks or that they are waiting on someone so as not to be rude and hurt his feelings.

It's not only men who go out and look for a hookup when they are single, or go out and look to meet somebody they might end up in a relationship with. Why you act like all females are just poor little victims of men's desires and disrespect? I've gone out many a night back in the day when I was around 20 and looked for a guy that I thought would suit my fancy and I used strategic moves to get him the same way a guy would for a girl he fancied.

If you feel victimized when you get complimented then state it like that! I don't say all women like it, but I also don't say all women want to have him put away for daring to comment on us either. I most certainly do NOT speak for all of the rest of the population with a vagina, but I speak for me, my friends, people I've known or talked to or even overheard, and I can tell you that unless the guy was a dick or something like that, then every girl I have ever come across who has ever been hit on nicely by a guy, was actually flattered by it even if she wasn't interested. That has happened to you before, right hon? Being hit on in a nice and polite way by a decent guy who looked a little sad when you turned him down but he took it decently and left you alone afterwards, right? Because that's how it usually goes. And yes, I've had my share of guys who don't get what no means and who treat everything in a skirt like she's a whore, but that is not the majority of guys in my experience. When those things happened to me I handled them before they escalated and took care of my s**t. I'm glad I was able to and I'm aware that some girls don't know how to be that ballsy about things and it's not the girls fault. However, every guy out there is not out to harm or disrespect you in some way just by trying to talk to you. People have instincts and desires to couple, whether by coupling they want to become a couple and have a relationship or just to screw on the sink in the girls bathroom and then not see each other again. To each their own, but just because a guy thinks you are pretty and wants to talk to you doesn't make him the enemy.

Or did you just come into that place to change the light bulb?

Right. Most people also have networks of friends, which is how they meet people if they're not meeting online. Friends set up other friends, and they do that based on knowledge of who the people actually are, what they like, what they might be looking for, etc. They also serve as screeners: they're not going to set up a friend with a guy they know is a perv, and they're not going to set up a bright-future nice guy with a friend who's a lovely person but totally a shambles in life, addiction problems, etc.



Well, I've said expressly a few times that not only is this not about all women, but about many women, and how to find out what a woman you're interested in dating actually likes and wants. It involves using words, though goldfish is resistant to that.

Also, Jono, thanks, but I just never got around to changing my profile info, partly because nothing there seems to fit well -- I'm undiagnosed sort-of AS-ish, I guess, though I manage...well, better than most NTs, actually. But yeah, I'll claim a deck chair on the spectrum. I do after all spend ungodly time arguing relentlessly online with strangers.

Spider Dance,

I noticed that last like of yours and it tickled the s**t out of me. I like it! I wouldn't normally go out of my way to compliment somebody on just a line that tickled me, without a reason for doing it, but you and I are arguing about something right now and I thought it would be nice to tell you that. ^5 on that one. I like it!

That all sounds totally reasonable to me, too. And yeah, guys have chatted me up about books I'm carrying, which is (if I'm in the mood) charming and is at least not about my legs. Actually one of the best chat-ups I've had in the last few years was from this drunk young man at a music festival who came up alongside me on the street and started trying to convince me to ditch my book in favor of one he liked better. He was actually pretty well-read and clearly harmless. Eventually I got through the alcoholic haze well enough to convince him that he'd gone for the wrong generation, at which point he just looked confused and his friends collected him and steered him away. He was quite sweet.

When you do that sort of thing, by the way, you allow the woman to remain an actual human being. She's not a piece of meat and you're having a conversation about a book, or a school, or what have you. If she's not interested in you, she can wrap it up and say toodles. It's a mistake to believe she wants you just because she didn't growl at you, or that she wants to date you because she's given you contact info related to what might be a legit question (about a school or book, say), but it means you might have made a friend and that something may develop from there.

Regardless of whether someone has social skills or not, the simple mathematical fact remains that the more people someone meets the higher the probability that they will meet someone they're compatible with.

Oh. Well then she's just her own type of different then w/o an autistic label. It does not change that she does not speak for all women & should consider her perspectives and wishes to be hers and hers alone vs. assume they apply to every other woman out there. I didn't tell her how she must see things, I told her she has no business stating that the way she sees things is the way everyone else does.

But, seriously, even though tarantella may not speak for 100% of the straight female population, I would naturally trust that she knows at least a teensy bit more about how the straight female population's brains work than someone who is neither a woman, nor interested in women sexually.

Think about it. Every strategy you've been describing, goldfish, is probably something that you have discovered through your experience works BY men FOR men. Trust us wimmenz, it is not only not exactly the same for both men and women; it is not the same for all men, nor is it the same for all women.

Every single person is going be in a slightly different place on the human spectrum, with a slightly different place on their respective subspectrums of gender and sexual preference. These "one-size-fits-all" strategies are indeed a numbers game. What if by playing that game you alienated the 1% (or 10% or 50%, I suppose, depending on how picky you are) who you might actually really get along with and ultimately find happiness with?

Doesn't it make more sense just to be uniformly respectful of EVERYONE?

Are you kidding me? You've stated time and time again that women don't like this or that or whatever as if you're the authority on what all women want.

Really? I'm resistant to words? I'm the one who thinks that men should be able to use their words to compliment women. You seem to be resistant to those kind words.

Nice to see you admit that you're perspective on things is not exactly typical.

He was probably confused as to why you thought he was sexually interested in you in the least bit when he just wanted to talk about books. It seems that you equate any attention anyone pays to you with "he wants to sleep with me," and that's just downright bizarre.

I've had many pleasant conversations with all kinds of people I didn't know that I've had no sexual attraction to. That, IMO, is quite common and normal. Stop assuming that anyone near you wants to get in your pants. It's simply not true.

So you don't talk up random men because you don't know if they might harm you? Welcome to the club! Some men react violently to being mistaken for being gay. Some men react violently to being rejected by a woman. You don't know what type of man someone is by just looking at him, and we don't either.



Except when you want to ignore the statistics tarantella provides?



Then why on earth do you think you're the right person to dole out advice on how to ask a woman on a date? You have no experience in this arena, and you disregard the advice of blueroses, tarantella64, starvingartist, Eureka13, and me.

You're talking about a bar scene. As Eureka13 pointed out, that's not the scenario we're talking about. We're talking about the scenario that "dating/life coach" RyanLewty set up way back on page 1.


Someone had better not tell how beautiful I am when I'm at the hardware store, because I actually did go into that store to change a lightbulb, not to get ogled and propositioned.

I'm a straight gal and I'm going on my experiences. Obviously different guys go to different places to meet the type of woman they are attracted to and an approach that would work in one place with one type will be an epic fail in a different kind of place with a different type girl. You tailor your approach to fit what the type of girl you like would be attracted to. People chase the type of person that they want to be with, so I don't really see me and Tarantella sharing the same tastes in men and how we like to talk to men and be talked to by men, so what would make me give him a half smile and a raised eyebrow might make her call the police on his pushy (and probably other adjectives as well) ass.

We all have different tastes. Shy girls, or girls who aren't shy but don't like a lot of social crap would respond to a completely different type of approach than maybe smart and busy career girls or party girls or any of the other thousands of "types" there are of us. One party girl may shoot you down after your approach while another decides that you're also taking her out for breakfast in the morning. Also, depending on the girl, she may fit and her mood and desires at the time, she might very well fit into different "types" at different times.

Most single ladies have some sort of idea in their mind, even if put back somewhere and not thought about, of the perfect guy for them. Girls don't just sit around and wait and hope, we go on with our lives and all, but if THAT GUY walked up and said THE RIGHT THING, bells would go off. The problem is that the type of guy and his words and mannerisms who would cause bells to ring for one gal might cause another one to fall in hate at first sight.

In other words there is no one way to approach women. There is no one way to dress or act or carry yourself. Women of the same "type" don't always like the same thing from a guy either. It's all just a big crapshoot. You roll the dice and see if she is interested and you be very, very careful how much you lay on that roll too.