Hey, I was raised on the premise that women want to be left alone and be independent which taught me that there is no environment or time where an approach would be appreciated. In return I assumed that in time and when ready, they would be the ones to initiate. Guess they really haven’t held up their end of the bargain. Or maybe I’m just a dumb fool for assuming that.
I may be getting downvoted for this but women do want to be approached, you just have to have 400 IQ and make it work.
As an autistic person I already fail because I cannot read their expressions, but some women will do things like touch your forearms or smile a lot at you. These signals like any other needs careful thinking because some women just like to play and flirt.
Women in 2026 do not want to feel like they’re being preyed on, having a welcoming but safe body language is an extremely difficult game.
I think our societal norms for dating will shift as no one likes the dating apps, who knows what’s next.
If you’re autistic and you fail at reading facial expressions, study them, academically. Like, find papers on this, read up on it.
Its more to do with microexpressions and minor details, and the underlying mechanisms of anatomy and how emotions affect the human body.
Think of the difference between a real smile, where the upper cheeks and lower/outer eyes shift upward along with the smile, vs a fake/forced smile that only involves the mouth.
Think about how a major difference between dogs and wolves is that dogs, as our human partners, literally evolved more eyebrow muscles to be able to communicate their emotional state to us more effectively.
Its not that you can’t read expressions, its that your model for doing so is wrong, its too simplistic.
You don’t need a 400 IQ, you just need patience and humility. Its not a one size fits all perfect rule set that works 100% the same on every different person, but we are all human, with fundamentally the same basic anatomy and physiological wiring.
Nah, I’m full on defensive and guarded until very clear words are said
I mean, absolutely fair, I’m just trying to say this is a thing you can study independently, and then when you’re ready, have as a kind of improved toolset for evaluating social interactions.
Though I also totally understand just being fucking traumatized by normies seemingly expecting you to read their minds and then getting angry at you for not being able to do so.
I’m autistic too, it has been a struggle, lol.
Not trying to pressure you into more immediate, complex social interactions, no, not if you are not comfortable with that.
I’m saying its a thing you can read up on, alone, independent study kind of thing. Gradually, eventually useful, when you are ready.
When they say they want to dismantle gender roles, they only mean the gender roles that they perceive as disadvantageous for them. They still want men to perform the gender roles that are disadvantageous for men.
Taking the risk of making the first move is just one example. They don’t want that responsibility, they just want guys who aren’t attractive to them to stop trying to make a first move. Might as well rephrase it as “Just give up, loser. No one will ever love you” because that’s basically the sentiment that’s hiding behind “stop approaching women,” especially when it’s followed up with something like “why won’t men notice me?”
Those are some broad brush strokes.
You mean like the broad brush strokes that men get painted with on a daily basis? 🤯
So you’re saying those are true, and not absolute BS?
I’m saying that they often get excused with an explanation like “many women have XYZ experience which leads them to making LMNO inferences about men.” And if anyone has the audacity to say “well I’m a man, and I’m not like that,” then they’re flamed even harder. There’s even a hashtag for it. People will hit that dude with a bitingly sarcastic “#notallmen”
And yet when the roles are reversed and someone says “many men have XYZ experience which leads them to making LMNO inferences about women,” suddenly that’s painting with broad strokes and making uncouth generalizations. But nobody can make a sarcastic “#notallwomen” to justify it when faced with pushback.
So yeah, as long as the double-standard exists, then I’ll continue to deconstruct it. I can’t force the world to stop making harmful generalizations about men, but I can revoke the respect that I previously offered that went unreciprocated.
If that makes me a hypocrite, then what does that say about the people who created and reinforced the double-standard to begin with, even when I respectfully pushed back on it, and who will defend it to the bitter end no matter what I say or do?
I’m willing to call a truce whenever the rest of the world is ready, but not if I’m the only one standing in the negotiation field while shells continue to fall around me.
I’ve spoken to Women, and they’ve offered to bring this up on the next Womens meeting this Thursday. I doubt you’ve ever spoken to a woman, you probably don’t even know the secret handshake. Go back to Twitter.
You’re a dumbass. I read the opinions of women. I didn’t just pull this out of my ass. Clearly you don’t take the time to listen to the things they say and internalize it, because if you did you would have heard the message loud and clear: “women don’t want to be approached by men they don’t know”If you’re pretending no woman has ever expressed that, then you haven’t spent much time listening to them. And if you hear that and conclude "I can write myself an exception and approach women because I’m me, then you’re the problem; not the guys who say “Heard you loud and clear; I will adjust my expectations and learn to be content with single life.”
[Edit: it was a bit uncalled for]
You do have a point, but you’ve applied it to every aspect of all women and you sound short sighted. That was the theme of my previous post and you missed it. You’ve read what some women want you to read, and have reacted in a way that is advantageous to them and their goals. This does not extend to all women, like at all - it’s not even possible ( you can’t even explain how it works ). I know plenty of women that like to be approached, I know plenty that don’t. People are always more interesting and diverse than what your ideologies can explain. You’ve put both feet in a bear trap and jumped my friend. You’re so wrapped up in assumptions you’ve missed the forest for the trees, probably for someone else’s gain. Whatever twitter handles you follow, or Manophere youtubers you listen to, it’s not constructive to your individual experience in anyway that related to women. I’m sorry, it’s just not. That means it’s stupid, and you should try something else.
Okay, I’ll admit it was an overly broad generalization, and I shouldn’t have called you a dumbass. So I’m sorry for that. I was a bit heated because the other commenter had me riled up.
But I’ll start this by saying I don’t follow any fucking twitter handles or manosphere youtubers. I’m chagrined that you would even assume that about me. You have me mispegged, and that’s causing you to view everything I say through a lens where you’re already making assumptions about the intent.
I’ve listened to the opinions of many women. I’ve read what they say online and in women’s support spaces. Yes, that doesn’t mean it represents the opinion of every woman, but to discount it entirely just because it can’t be framed as an absolute would be the wrong approach.
The best conclusion one can draw is, that of the women who have expressed their opinions in formats that I have access to, the majority of them seem to agree on the “man versus bear” narrative. And if I, upon learning that, don’t conclude “so I shouldn’t approach women then,” then I’d be in the wrong.
Even if there’s a smaller percentage who think “But I want to be approached,” the reality is, I can’t read their mind, and I’m not going to guess. There’s no way for me to spot “Oh this woman wants to be approached” from visual cues alone. So I’m going to err on the side of caution and treat every woman like she wants to be left alone.
Anything else and I’d be in the wrong. So if you really want to claim I’m being toxic and misogynist by literally going out of my way and changing my behavior based on what I’ve learned in order to make sure women feel more comfortable in public, then this is a really topsy turvy world and there would be no point in trying to comprehend something so self-contradictory.
A lot of these are just that, Narratives. No woman would jump into the arms of the bear, literally. Focusing on the details of wanting to be approached or not, it’s playing to the whims of content creators and rage baiters. People are people. If you see an attractive woman, make a move, and move on. So much of this just melts away under scrutiny. It’s only supposed to distract and serve the ad loops we’re all trapped in, not us. It’s not constructive, leave it behind.
But I don’t want to make women feel uncomfortable. That’s the core of the issue. If approaching them or treating them as a potential dating partner even might do that, then I won’t do it. That’s the sum of what I’m trying to say.
That’s a lie. You never know a result of approaching. She might be not in mood or crazy or friendly. You are not doing bad things by approaching. You are not r aping her. Just approach and if you don’t like her personality back off
You are not doing bad things by approaching.
I thing you and I have vastly different experiences with rejection.
Yeah some women will be kind and say something like “Sorry, I’m not interested, but thank you for asking!” But they’re certainly the exception rather than the rule.
More often it’ll be like “Ew, I can’t believe you would even ask that! What’s wrong with you?!?” And then she’ll go tell her friends about you and suddenly you end up on an app like tea where the rumor-mill’s game-of-telephone effect morphs it into increasingly grotesque distortions of what actually transpired.
Talk about it, communication is everything
So you were taught wrong, and/or made incorrect assumptions, and that’s the woman’s fault she didn’t live up to the bargain you invented? Do you really think that women who don’t “initiate” are breaking some kind of pact? Do you think being decent and non-creepy entitles you to attention from women? Are you respectful because they deserve respect or because it’s your “end of the bargain”?
You know that common culture dictates that the man be the aggressive one? If you think that’s not fair, I agree, but flipping the script can’t be fair either.
You may want to consider that your difficulty with women is not because you’re overly respectful.
Nope I don’t think any of those things. I’m just sad that there was nobody in my life to teach be that you shouldn’t base your happiness on the expectations you put on others.
I wish I would have realised that before reaching an age where it would be embarrassing to try to become a functioning person.
About learning to be a better person: you can either start now, or think about it for a couple of more years. I think, better start now!
Or, I can do nothing, stay “barely passing”, continue to mask the rest and deal with the mental consequences of that on my own time. The silver lining is that fortunately life and it’s bullshit are finite.
I get that change is hard, but masking and dealing with the mental consequences isn’t easy, either. It’s just what you’ve grown comfortable with.
Grown comfortable? Please… I have my 10.000 hours in, I am a master. Any effort for improvement has to compete with the effortless act of doing something by instinct.
There’s no point in becoming a better person for me. For whom even? I could be the nicest, smartest, most capable, most empathetic, most charismatic version of myself I’d still be blindly stepping around in a dark forest alone.
All my life I’ve missed every off-ramp, every warning sign, every speed bump, I flew through the dirt after the road has ended and now I am stuck in a ditch.
I’m somebody who need to be thrown into the water to learn how to swim instead I’ve been told not to step in it because there might be sharks.
But enough with the metaphors for now.
You could be satisfied with who you are, which has nothing to do with material conditions.
Learn yourself.
Find what you enjoy, what makes you happy, what drives your curiosity, what stirs you to anger, what makes you weep, what fills you with awe and wonder.
Discover who you really are, and, so long as your enjoyments and proclivities do not cause harm or grief to others, you can live a full life, a good life.
To the extent that you do discover elements of yourself that scare you, vex you, dissapoint you, or give you pause… when you have the energy, interrogate them, when you don’t have the energy, jot them down for later.
Maybe the path you’d want to walk involves many other people, maybe it involves very few, but it will certainly involve yourself, so I’d recommend getting well acquainted with that guy, he ain’t going anywhere.
Yeah, the world certainly is rough, unforgiving and quite homestly bleak in a lot of ways… but that doesn’t necissarily mean you must also be that way, simply a product of your environment.
It is what you do with the life that you have, that is who you are. There is no preset rubric, no universal standard for what that life should look like, other than the one that you might compose for yourself.
It is pretty funny to accuse a person of believing a bunch of things they do not believe, where one of those bad things they are said to believe is that they invent things and make incorrect assumptions.
You’ve managed to project projection, you did a projection inception.
Like, your instincts are terrible, but the unintentional comedy is grade A!
My partner of 16 years basically told a mutual friend that she liked me and then the friend did all the logistical stuff.
Lucky.
Brittany has a crush on you
All of my best relationships started that way. I was just going about my life, and some girl decides to chase me down
In the words of my ex, “I saw you and decided I had to get to know you”
Hasn’t happened in a while, but I should probably get out more
I was a dumb idiot in college and I started talking to this girl over Facebook, we fell in love immediately but she lived 5 states away at the time and I was super hesitant to do long distance. 3 weeks into meeting each other, she kept begging me to be her boyfriend, and after about another week I caved.
After a month or so, she moved to my state, completely overhauled her life, started at the same college as me…
Now we’ve been together for 13 years and I can’t imagine my life without her. We’re excited to get old together.
It happens fellas, just don’t be an idiot like me.
Super happy for you that your partner took that chance for both of you. I was lucky enough to have my wife make it obvious I had a shot, and I took it, and we are also enjoying growing old together.
How did she make it obvious
Remarked about my kids with the phrase “good genes.” Some of them came from me!
Were some of them adopted? If not… How did you get the kids that didn’t come from you?
Some of the genes.
Being an idiot seemed to have worked in your favor. This is reassuring.
You lucky sob. The only people chasing me down are handing out flyers about finding Jesus outside the door of the local supermarket.
finding Jesus outside the door of the local supermarket.
I looked everywhere for Jesus and this whole time he was at Tesco
The ones who chase me more often say “Have you put your faith in our lord and savior Stablecoin?”
Hou you supposed to find a dead man anyway?
I don’t know, let’s start digging
Where did this happen?
I was at my friend’s house. We were hanging out with the group and drinking when some former classmates from highschool decided to stop by, and she came with them. They didn’t stay long, I barely remember her being there. But the next day she messaged me on Facebook, we talked for a long while, spent the next day together, and we ended up glued together by the end of it
Every time it’s happened it’s been a girl I didn’t know who I shared some kind of second degree connection with, and I wasn’t looking for romance at the time
I’m not going to make another person suffer through a relationship with me. I’m horrrible and very difficult to be with!
See there’s the mistake. You’re capable of enough self analysis to understand you’re flawed. Like 60% of people just aren’t capable of that and are actual shit.
As someone who shares DarkCloud’s opinion about myself, I believe other people being shit in other ways doesn’t make me not shit
Nope, but if you can recognize you’re shit you’re capable of working on those shit aspects of yourself. If there’s something you don’t like, change it
I’m shit, but less shit than I was yesterday. Small incremental improvements add up.
thanks to the modern economics, it’s not like there’s many parties anyway and a drink in a bar costs more than my food for the whole day. plus we let big tech psychos convince us that the paid online dating trap is the way to go. the only people that cold approach me are street shysters and crackheads in the train station, and i like to be left alone in public, so i assume everyone else does too. you’re probably out because you have stuff to do and not just walking around aimlessly, right?
then everyone in college already has their friend group, barging in feels like intruding. if you find someone you have stuff in common with and you don’t have mainstream social media, you’re likely dead to them. then you start a job and get locked in an office cubicle forever.
if you choose to play anyway, make sure you’re not homosexual, or heavens forbid, trans or asexual. you’d be playing the game on hardmode!
Just join any club that women like (no not warhammer or magic). The Genz around me meet at run clubs, but it doesn’t have to be serious or athletic. Concert tickets for Taylor swift are expensive but local music is very cheap. Get a dog and talk to people when you take it for a walk, get into birding, I saw MFers hooking up at the Pokemon convention. Stop brain rotting and just do anything that will get you outside of your house.
no not warhammer or magic
Well, you might find some trans girls there.
Just be careful, because not being able to have a single hobby without just accumulating more weirdos who want to fuck you is super annoying. If you make a real connection with someone, shoot your shot, but don’t like join run club with an “anime dating sim” mentality.
Ok, but as someone who’s trans and homosexual I go out regularly and do quite well for myself. Yeah I have to put in effort to find events and such, but I put it in, find community, and then managed to find myself a wife and regularly have other people I’m flirting with or dating as well as plenty of friends not including the friends from college or growing up.
I’ve accepted my life as a hermit in the forest and have found peace with that.
Same. Moved to the middle of nowhere. Quiet life. I see it as an early retirement. Got three kittens and get visits from all sorts of local cats. In some ways this is the most social I’ve ever been, ironically
For context, I’m in my early 30s
You could do worse
Actually, some girls have approached me after years of having this strategy! Two of them managed to get through my autistic filtering. However, venting time, both cases have followed this pattern: I’m not interested at first and try to keep distance. After some time I get warmed up enough to get interested back and then the other party loses interest. I can still keep in touch as their second therapist and comfort their suicidal thoughts. There was also a platonic internet friendship with one girl when I was a lonely teenager, but she cut contacts and is dead nowadays.
I’ve never made a first move and still don’t feel like start dating. Although, I’m kinda close with one woman, but if I try to touch her, she falls asleep. Also, if she doesn’t have enough clothes, she feels too cold and falls asleep. And we’re both kinda depressed bottoms so usually nothing happens anyway. Is this what a relationship should feel like? At least she doesn’t scream and scratch bloody wounds to her arms. Not sure if I should feel lucky having these experiences. Oops, this was a meme channel.
Edit: for the record, in case my vent tone suggests otherwise, I respect my friends and support them best I can. I just can’t help but feel that I might’ve always lacked a basic nourishing intimacy myself.
I mean… yeah?
Feel sad for you
Yeah you better.
I found what works best for me is to flirt with people online, not on a dating app, but here for example. Then if they respond, become friends with them, learn about each other. If there is good chemistry, ask them out. If they accept, you now have a new person in your relationship, if they don’t, it’s still good because you have a friend :3
I’ve never understood the whole online relationships thing. Aren’t they usually 1000+ miles away?
Depends on where you are, but even then, nowadays 1000 miles is not impossible distance to cover
I didn’t say it was. It just seems a bit impractical for a romantic relationship.
If you are rich, sure, no problem whatsoever.
If you barely get by, try travelling around regularly on a whim like that. I don’t consider myself poor, but I wouldn’t do it, it just doesn’t sound like a financially safe decision, especially considering the times ahead.
It’s definitely not something to do regularly or on a whim, but sometimes people do that. I’m not saying moving like that is simple, just that is easier than when you were more likely to die on the way then to arrive
I’m the type who when I’m not in a relationship long enough I start to think maybe I want one, but then I remember what it’s like to be in one, and remind myself not to be so delusional. I’m very much happier being ‘alone’. Not that I’m actually alone. I have non-romantic relationships. I will admit having two incomes would be nice tho.
The Redditor maneuver
that’s where you’re wrong. I’ll kill myself after 20.
That’s how I do it too!
Nothing so far, but I guess it’s just a matter of time.
Honestly kinda how i met my girlfriend/future wife.
If they’ve committed to being a future wife, they’re a fiancée.
deleted by creator
I harass cashiers until they fall in love with me.
This was how I got my ex boyfriend and my currently… more than friends less than lovers chick.
Somethings in life are without label. You do you!
That’s so much me that I’ve been questioning some things.
I just throw them in a sack and take them back to my place. Got two wives that way. Git gud incel.
The Borat method.
You about a size 14?
