Your Trouble Asking Women Out Isn't Because Of Feminism, Asking People Out Is Just Scary
you guys have anxiety
Sometimes I write posts advising men to ask women out, even if they feel anxious. Inevitably, I will receive comments about how feminism caused guys to not ask women out. It can be difficult to know what is and isn’t sexual harassment, they argue. Certainly everyone understands some rules, like that you shouldn’t hit on your employees. But, often, whether a woman feels uncomfortable or creeped out is very context-dependent. If you’re awkward and not good at reading people, you can easily make a mistake. It’s bad enough to hurt someone. But, selfishly, if you get a reputation as a creep or a predator, you can lose all of your friends. Best to not.
To be sure, these are real concerns. It is hard for many people—people who are inexperienced socially or bad at theory of mind—to know whether they’re creeping others out. Some women1 are deeply unreasonable and will accuse you of being a creep because you asked them out and they aren’t attracted to you. And some friend groups don’t do a good job of distinguishing genuinely predatory behavior from a sincere misunderstanding.
But, when I look out into the world, what I see is—
Women who like men say that if a guy were really interested in them, he would have already asked them out, so the fact that the guy hasn’t asked them out yet is a rejection. So it would be pointless to go ask out the guy they’re interested in, when he has already so clearly rejected them. If they go ask him out and he’s not interested in them—like he obviously isn’t—then they’ll wind up writhing in humiliation and shame because they’re not the kind of person hot people are attracted to and they aren’t even dignified enough to realize it and probably he is going to laugh with his friends about the sad desperate pathetic girl who can’t get anyone to ask her out and who is probably also a slut because only sluts ask guys out.
Women who like women say that, okay, it’s true that that woman keeps calling them beautiful, and that she cuddles them all the time, and she keeps saying that she wants a girlfriend exactly like them, and that she tried on all her lingerie in front of them in order to rank which one was sexiest, and maybe they got drunk and made out once. A few times. Twenty times. Who’s counting? Anyway, all of that is normal friend stuff that platonic friends do with each other and there’s absolutely no way she could be flirting or expressing romantic interest in any way.
And even men who like men, whom you would think have this whole thing sorted out because of the cheerful sluttiness of Grindr, keep going “sure, we’ve been having fantastic amazing dirty sex every weekend for the past six months, but it’s just a sex thing, obviously he doesn’t want anything more than that.” As a friend of mine said, fucking is free and feelings are scary.
And, okay, the straight women are sexist and the gays have internalized homophobia, sure. But at some point I start to ask myself, is it the case that society has, by complete coincidence, managed to uniquely fuck up every single category of person in a way that means that they don’t ask people out?
Or is it perhaps that asking people out is scary and vulnerable and awkward? Is it perhaps that, to ask people out, you have to open up about something you want very much, in a way that isn’t cool and chill and unaffected but embarrassing and earnest and maybe even desperate? Is it perhaps that asking people out is asking someone you yearn for the approval of to pass judgment on something that goes as much to the core of your self-worth as your sexual attractiveness? Is it perhaps that, while everyone is grabbing for the cultural narrative that fits their gender and orientation, ultimately asking people out makes everyone feel like they’re about six inches tall?
I think the dating world could use a lot more understanding and compassion. It’s natural to feel like the people (or the gender) you find desirable must be having an easy time of it, able to choose from dozens of suitors at a whim, never suffering from loneliness or insecurity. It’s hard to understand that, as afraid as you are of women you like, many women who like you are also afraid of you—not in the “what if he rapes me?” way, in the ordinary commonplace “what if he doesn’t like me? what if I say something stupid? what if I creep him out?” way. It’s hard out here for everyone. Be kind.
(And ask people out.)
Just like some men and some nonbinary people.
I grew up with a feminist mother and learned to hate myself as a boy. I can't remember a time in my childhood where I felt like being a boy was a good thing or something that my mother wanted. From my earliest memories it felt like something to be ashamed of.
My feelings are easily traceable to the way feminists regularly talk about men. They often range from dismissive to outright hateful. Any pleas that they be more kind or empathize with the experience of hearing their words is rejected with a sneer. Even a simple feel-good measure that could blunt or heal some of the pain like International Men's Day is met with waves of derision. "You don't need it!" I needed it.
It's not some wacky theory that this resulted in my devastated self-worth. It's just straightforward cause and effect. An easily believable story, if you empathize with an emotionally vulnerable child for just a second.
A close friend of mine just *yesterday* talked about how her and her gay male friend both have "a shared hatred for straight men". Come on. That's not a freak coincidence, it's just a fairly common thing for progressive people to say or think. I haven't had the heart to say anything to her about it.
It's true that feeling worthless as a boy/man isn't the only problem I've had with dating. But it was a big one. A huge one. I was one of those guys who was terrified of showing attraction or asking a girl out. And the #1 reason was that I felt worthless for who I was. I felt like I was asking someone better than me to put up with someone who could only bring her misery, because I was male. And I felt like being male made me worthless.
I feel a lot better about being male now. But part of my healing process has been accepting my truth, my lived experience. Instead of letting people like you gaslight me out of my own childhood memories.
When you say "asking people out is just scary [for normal social-anxiety reasons]", I'm definitely on board with "asking people out is scary [for those reasons]", but not the "just". In particular:
> But at some point I start to ask myself, is it the case that society has, by complete coincidence, managed to uniquely fuck up every single category of person in a way that means that they don’t ask people out?
Yeah I mean there's only like, three categories you mentioned, and there's a myriad of ways people are fucked up about sex and dating. Seems unsurprising that every category would end up with a few each.
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Separately, I'm annoyed at people who tell the "feminism gave me dating anxiety" story that you described. I don't think feminism gave me dating anxiety, but instead that feminism and my dating anxiety come from a common cause, which is me hearing a bunch of stories about men being shitty to women, and then other men (their friends, or acquaintances, or random Internet strangers) closing ranks and protecting them from consequences without displaying *any* curiosity (to my eyes) about whether or what harm was done. I heard these stories from my friends, heard their pain, saw them under pressure not to feel angry or protect themselves. I heard them from internet communities I was involved in or peripheral to. Just a lot of my early exposure to stories of heterosexuality was stories of it going wrong. After that, pursuing romance myself felt like listening to someone talk about how they'd been mauled by a dog as a child and still had nightmares about it, and I'm there like "oh no that sounds horrible I'm sorry, also I really want to show you my dog". It just felt really selfish, slimy and unappealing.
I mean, in the years since then I've had a fair handful of happy and successful relationships, so I wasn't exactly ruined by this. But I do stand by the claim that it's made me more timid, quicker to drop interest when I'm not sure it's welcome, put a bunch of labour into seeming as unscary as possible, and put a higher bar on feeling like expressing my interest in someone is going to be worth it for them. It's relatively recently that I've been able to be comfortable with the idea that by default, the fact that I like someone is often *good news* for them, even if they're not interested in me.