Dating Etiquette

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This is something I would be concerned about. But it's just confusing, the whole thing.

On the one hand, I'm supposed to (and do) consider women to be capable adult human beings who are more than able to do, say, and think whatever they want. I have no intention of suggesting that they need coddling or treating like fragile children, it would be presumptuous of me to imagine that I'm somehow important to their suvival or safety. I have no desire, then, to be patronising or cloying. Especially if we just met for the first time. She's survived for this many decades, why should I imagine that I'm instrumental in her wellbeing?

On the other hand, there are opinions and expectations like this, where we might indeed be expected to be "chivalrous". We should continue to be the caring and protecting gentleman, some kind of overseer and benevolently sexist patriarch, because women are loudly proclaimed to be under constant threat of the horrific consequences of being alive. Therefore it would be an abdication of duty as a man to not treat women as weak vulnerable. For context, this is my "natural" inclination, I want to be somebody's source of security and comfort, I want a prospective or current partner to feel as though I am invested and caring.

But then, if you come around to that point of view, you have to contend with "yes, but what if she didn't like you but was too scared to say?" or "how does she know you're not walking her to her car to do terrible things at the end of the date?". How is he, on a first or second date, any less of a stranger (and potential danger) than some other random guy she sees on her walk back to the car, or on the side of the road if she breaks down?

Even without any kind of actual attack, there could still be an implication that a man is returning with her to her car as he wants to indulge in private physical intimacy that she does not want. Which, by some women's standards, is sufficient to consider the man deserving of being treated with suspicion, derision, and disdain. Even if he didn't express that and she merely perceived, by her own thoughts and experiences, that he had that motivation.

So, with respect (and acknowledgement that women are not a hivemind), what are we supposed to do? Either way we risk offending or upsetting. It wouldn't be so bad if the overall opinions of society were clear (as they might've been, say, 100 years ago), but there no longer seems to be a consensus.

Worse, those who argue in one direction or another (and are likely to make a big deal out of assigning malice where there was none) seem to do so from some kind of intense moral stance, where a minor accidental infraction or error - which is measured only by her personal interpretation, bias, or social media standing - could result in a man being pilloried, attacked, shamed, or even reported to the police for getting it wrong.

No longer even just her immediate friend and family group, either, because if she posts that online and it blows up, his (potentially 100% benign and respectful) behaviour might then be deemed an indication that he is a terrible person who should be hated, avoided, and punished. He runs the risk of being assumed to be a terrible woman-hating misogynist who, no matter what he does, is committing some kind of selfish attack on women for his own (or even his sex's) gain and continued oppression of women.

Not because he actually did anything bad, but because everything is now so polarised and men's behaviour so scrutinised that any unwanted or unexpected behaviour (again, as defined by that one woman, with her own past experiences and moods, not by any fixed cultural standard) could be defined and spoken about as some kind of attack on women and womanhood. Yes, of course if he commits or tries to commit a crime, he should be spoken about and shamed or reported, but it seems as though the standards of what deserves that kind of reaction are ever more compressed, so there's no longer any nuance, room for error, or misunderstandings. Everything's just offensive by default, even though every single person is different and men aren't (and cannot be) mind-readers.

Thanks for that very thorough answer. I appreciate your points of view and can see how it must be confusing or even anxiety-provoking to have these conflicting opinions.

How would you feel about asking, “Would you like me to walk you to your car?” Would you trust her answer, or do you think that might sound like you’re asking for permission for more?

Now I’m thinking of women who don’t have cars, too. They might be heading out on public transportation, waiting for a bus, taking an Uber, or even walking alone in the dark. Would you offer to wait with them or walk with them?

Girls and women have an unspoken “Girl Code” to never leave a female friend alone at a pub or party. We will never leave a friend behind. I’m wondering why there isn’t the same rule for dudes protecting us but you’re right to say it’s because they’re often the problem. They’re often the protector too though. If I didn’t have my dog I wouldn’t want to leave any venue by myself, especially in an unfamiliar area or on foot.

I always message the person I was with when I get home. My guy friends ask me to. I thought that was normal but maybe it’s my generation. I wonder how much younger men would have to be to worry about impressions like you describe?

I don't think a brief text or phone call will have that effect. I wouldn't reject someone for not doing those things. It's just considerate unless we obviously didn't get along, and it was a date from Hell. I've never had a date precisely like that. They're usually much better or worse.

If a man drove a long way to see me, I'd text or call him, too, so it's not just about this behavior being expected by men towards women.

As far as walking women to their cars, I think it depends on context and time of day. If it's late at night and/or a sketchy neighborhood/near bars, nightclubs, or anywhere where alcohol is consumed in vast quantities, it might be a good idea. That's not saying that women can't take care of themselves; it's more like there are as*holes out there. Walking her to her car just shows consideration about her welfare. As Isabella mentions, if a person is unsure if it will be well-received, he could ask his date.

One of my guy friends lives four hours away on country roads. I always ask him to let me know when he’s home. Mind you, he has a history of drunk or stoned driving AND I’ve known him for 25 years.

I would probably expect to be given some kind of excuse at that point, if she wasn't comfortable with me doing that, although I could never be quite sure. We're increasingly told that consent is never truly consent, because any apparent consent could be the result of (un)intentional coercion. If there's going to be a point at which she would seed doubt that I should continue, however, that would probably be it.


If they were known friends, I would. A woman I just met, though? I don't know. Again, she might've been humouring me, either for my sake or hers. I wouldn't know for sure whether staying there and waiting would be intrusive or unpleasant somehow.

I'm sure we've all had those times where we've finished a social engagement, even if we enjoyed it, and hit that point where we just want to be alone, we're done, we need to start processing it. When that time comes, it can quickly get unpleasant if people won't leave you, even if they're doing it for 100% excellent reasons. So I wouldn't want to inadvertently be "that guy" who won't just go and leave her to start decompressing, especially in a scenario where the purpose of the meeting in the first place was something that might involve high emotion.


Well, there was that expectation for men, but since we've been branded such severe threats ourselves and strongly warned against doing anything which might even be potentially perceived as problematic behaviour, how can we reasonably continue to adhere to that old standard? Even if we want to, the risk seems much greater for us to do that than it ever did before.

If I'm in a 1950s movie and I'm escorting a date home from the theatre, I would expect that to be my duty, I would expect that her parents would look poorly upon me if I didn't, I would expect that she herself would appreciate it. That is a known scenario that I can, do, and would understand. It's an expectation that a man would treat a woman as special, fragile, vulnerable, and in need of being escorted home in the dark, without the trappings of rabid extreme feminism and social media, without some competing cultural message blaring in their faces about how that's not what women are and that they don't want to be treated as such.

I genuinely believe that as a result of that feminism a lot of confused (particularly young and/or neurodiverse) men are having to guess, more than ever before and with much higher stakes, what we're supposed to do in these situations. Many simply don't even try any more, because the risk is too great. Those who do still try are, with unclear rules and too little structure, vulnerable to making more frequent innocent but offensive mistakes, which does nobody any favours, not them and not the women who are made uncomfortable by it.

Of course I respect women and understand that there is a balance to be struck, but perpetually assigning negative and dangerous motives to men at all times just isn't the way to go, that's not a healthy counterbalance to assuming that men are trustworthy protectors.


That would be less risky, to my mind, than attempting to outstay my welcome by walking her somewhere after the date, although it still presents the potential scenario that she thinks I'm clingy or disrespecting of her ability to independently navigate safely home.

It is a much lower risk, granted. It's more likely to result in annoyance than concern, were she to react badly to it, which isn't ideal as it lowers the chance of a relationship forming. But I would at least imagine it to be perceived differently to my physical presence.

In essence then, you’re saying that today’s men are paying for the bad ways other men treated women in the past. In the 1950s things seemed more respectful and chivalrous when walking women home, but we all know men were often objectifying women, cheating with their secretary, and expecting dinner on the table at 6.

The fault then lays with men of previous generations.

It’s all so sad.

^^ You seem to be viewing receiving consent to walk a woman to her car the same way people view consent when it comes to sex. If a date walked me to my car when I didn’t really want him to, I wouldn’t be devastated. My need to decompress could wait 15 minutes or less.

Most women don’t want “protectors.” That’s too strong a word. It’s more like common curtesy in specific situations where there could be safety concerns.

Feminism is not the problem. Feminism helps raise awareness about core issues in our society. It’s not typically about “perpetually assigning negative and dangerous motives to men at all times.” Maybe people should avoid dating women who think that way.

That wasn't exactly what I meant, no.

I see that several responses have contained pointed references to actual (and potentially widespread) offensive behaviour by men, but that's not my point here. The more you focus on that, the more those of us who are concerned about doing the right thing receive unhelpful, abusive, and conflicting messages about who we are and are supposed to be.

Which, especially in online discussions (but in real life too, echoed by the media and police/government), has reached a point of distorting the discussion such that the only people willing to actually make any moves are those who are either too oblivious or too self-interested to care about them.

To provide an real life example of what I mean, let's consider for a moment that it's a given that autistic people often struggle with finding relationships, right? Let's also consider that a part of that difficulty resides in an inefficiency or inability in processing and reciprocating body language.

Now, on the London Underground there have been posters (produced by the local city government) which demonise and imply that it is illegal to engage in "sexual staring". Can anybody define what that actually means, or measure it by any practical standard? I don't think so. Not even the people who designed, approved, and put those posters there.

So you now potentially have an autistic man - me, for example - who has been told and is aware that eye contact is important, who knows that he is not proficient in performing it correctly, but who is also aware that it's critically important as part of body language and connecting with others.

What we have, at this point, are two strong conflicting messages. On the one hand, you have the long-understood and frequently discussed need to learn how to perform eye contact, to avoid avoiding it even if it's uncomfortable, the knowledge that most people expect and require it in order to feel as though a social interaction is normal and healthy. On the other hand, you have posters explicitly forbidding some undefined type of eye contact.

The message here is, effectively, "if you do not perform eye contact, you will make people uncomfortable... but if you do perform eye contact, it will still make people uncomfortable, and it may be illegal". That's an impossible situation.

So how is the autistic man in this scenario supposed to navigate these two completely opposite demands? He is told that he must make eye contact but is forbidden from making it (or looking around/at anybody) lest they deem him to have some kind of sexist or criminal intent.

Therefore, to actually try to continue to learning, to continue trying to connect with people, he has to ignore the message that any eye contact he makes may be perceived as problematic (because it has not been properly defined what "sexual staring" is). Otherwise he cannot make any at all, he must disregard what he was told about masking and repairing his social behaviour, in case he is unknowingly doing something he shouldn't, which makes others uncomfortable.

He must either be self-interested to the point where the poster does not affect him or he must be so oblivious that he does not consider anything he does to contravene the poster's message. Because any man who has not had sufficient experience, practice, and positive social feedback to confirm their ability to perform that body language safely and inoffensively is constantly at risk of violating poorly-defined rules which may change according to the perception of any recipient or onlooker.

Any man (without existing context to confirm his behaviour) who cares about not breaking those rules, not making dozens of random women uncomfortable, cannot (according to the vague and incomplete information he's been given) look at or make eye contact with a woman, because he does not want to cause distress, he does not want to accidentally convey to a woman that she is at risk.

For the purposes of civil discussion and not going off on a tangent of assigning blame to vast populations of people who do not necessarily share the same opinions, I'll clarify:

Feminism itself is not necessarily an issue. Not necessarily an issue. However, some branches of it, or some women who express opinions which are implied to be given on behalf of all women or for the benefit/under the banner of feminism, are that extreme in their views, opinions, and discussions with men.

I think my post above, regarding the London Underground, should demonstrate exactly what I mean. Not all feminists necessarily agree with the way those posters are implemented, but they clearly come from a feminist-inspired place and many feminists would unquestioningly approve of them, because they appear to be in service of protecting women from dangerous men. They were put there on behalf of women, or at least with the political intent to appeal to women, which follows the general feminist creed of raising up and making the world safer for women.

There are women (who may or may not claim to be, or be recognised by other women as, feminists) who express much more severe opinions than that. But I would rather, on this occasion, stick to a real world example of actual policy which has real world effects, which does not rely on pointing to venomous anti-male internet commenters who (I would hope) do not represent the majority of feminists, or women at large.

i am slowly learning to do this. never had to do it for anybody before. was given a smart phone so i have no excuse not to keep up. but it is something i'm very clumsy at. it was just me for decades.

^ Are you in a relationship now?

I just now googled "sexual staring." Judging by some of the pages that came up (here, here, and here), "sexual staring" seems to refer primarily to staring at a woman's breasts or hips, NOT an excess of eye contact with someone you are talking too. While the latter might be deemed to be creepy too, it's NOT the same thing as "staring of a sexual nature."

Be that as it may, I can certainly see how today's world can be very unnerving for autistic young men as well as for autistic young women.

Switch games made you broke I guess.


But it’s worth it!

But those links aren't official definitions (nor are they British or related in any way to the authority that put the posters up on the trains, but I don't mean to be overly picky, I see what you're saying).

Besides which, the headline text that you're going to see doesn't actually say "sexual staring", it simply says "staring":



Now, OK, yes, if you read the rest of the text, it does elaborate somewhat. But it still doesn't define what it's talking about. It's one thing to point at a guy who's repeatedly looking somebody up and down, rubbing his thighs, and licking his lips, while grumbling lasciviously like a drunken uncle, but that's the obvious extreme, it doesn't account for any nuance between "absent-mindedly staring out of the opposite window of the carriage" and... well, the drunken uncle scenario above.

But I don't mean to get into the weeds on this poster, specifically, I appreciate that you said that you understand how things can be difficult, and I don't want to seem ungrateful for that recognition.

However, the point I was ultimately trying to get to, of relevance to the subforum and thread we're in, is that if a guy is driven to concern and anxiety by these posters, how is he going to express himself towards a woman he actually wants a relationship with? How is he supposed to overcome the idea that expressions of sexual interest are problematic and that any move he makes might be illegal? How is he going to get into situations where he can learn from the processes which teach you how to enter and maintain relationships safely, respectfully, and without distress for either party?

It's a natural part of forming an intimate relationship, you have to express yourself in some fashion or another, and most people expect that and do it themselves, because that's how humans display and indulge in passion for one another.

So, to my earlier point up in the thread, the men most likely to be inclined/able to ignore these pressures are going to be the ones who do, and did, put themselves out there, sometimes causing unpleasantness or distress. Who do often put themselves and their interests first. Who know that if they don't then they won't get into relationships or encounter experiences with others. They did that, they made their mistakes, they got over them, and they may have had a string of behaviour-reinforcing relationships/encounters ever since, from their mid-teens onwards.

They likely did break social rules, they likely did take a gamble on expressing their sexuality, that's how people learn; they try, they explore, they push boundaries, they take risks. Things that we're frequently told are inappropriate, distressing, or indicative of some kind of criminal deviancy. But, if they hadn't done that, they might never have gained the confidence to keep doing it, they may never have had a mechanism by which to form relationships of that kind.

Which is where the anxiety comes in (and part of how it grows with age), for those who didn't have those positive experiences to inform them that women are (at least) tolerant of those behaviours and potentially (at best) even inviting of them, excited by them, expecting them as signs of interest and passion, this is all one giant, impossible puzzle. You have to step out of your comfort zone, you have to take risks, you have to make moves, you have to show that you're interested. Men, in particular, because we're generally still expected to approach, to escalate, we have to be outgoing and risk-taking, that's our role, we don't tend to get a choice in that dynamic. We either stick our necks out or we experience nothing.

But if you do consider trying to do those things, like you might see other men doing, you're told that it's not allowed, that you are a horrible sexist, that you will upset, offend, and terrify women, and that you may go to jail. Even though all the men who are doing them are seemingly receiving positive attention from women as a result and not being arrested. Because they're allowed to. Because they're socially confident, they're competent, they're experienced, they're charming, they're charismatic, they're welcome.

Those of us who are concerned about stepping out of line on this are not. We've had the million bad social experiences, the "eww", the "creep", the "leave me alone", even when we weren't the instigators or trying to express any interest in physical intimacy. We expect punishment. So, when we see these posters, when we hear these sentiments, our minds immediately respond with "yes, that sounds like what I have experienced, I am not permitted to express my sexuality, or look at anybody, or say hello, because that is a bad thing".

Worse, the older you get without that positive feedback, the less likely it is that you're going to be accepted as bumbling late bloomer. A 40 year old man isn't even remotely likely to be given the kind of benefit of the doubt that a teenage boy is, because we expect that 40 year old men know better and that teenage boys are stupid and horny and are going to make mistakes in the process of learning how to have proper adult relationships, because that's how they learn, that's how they become mature, competent, capable, refined, and stable adults.

That's before you even get to considering how a woman might react when she finds out you don't know what you're doing and you're no more sexually and emotionally mature than the aforementioned teenage boy, despite your age, which is another incredible source of anxiety. Or the ever-present pressure of a heavily sexualised media and a broadly sex-positive culture in which there's no shortage of indications that other people freely ignore the specifics of these "rules", which they may break as they wish and be rewarded, but which you cannot for fear of reproducing any number of terribly negative social experiences from your past. Which are both examples of real world counterpoints to this messaging.

We are simultaneously expected to be experienced, confident, capable lovers by those around us, yet we're constantly being told that anything you try and do to accomplish that is disgusting, misogynistic, and predatory. That's not a mentally healthy environment.

Last edited by bottleblank on 03 Aug 2023, 12:59 pm, edited 4 times in total.

It's a million years since I went on a date but I think surely it's common courtesy to check if your date got home safely.

I'd probably send a text, just saying something like 'just checking that you got home safely '

So nothing too lovey dovey or creepy.

I think I'd appreciate it if a man checked I'd got home safely.

mebbe.