icevrething

There is this girl who I really think is down to earth, real, and downright pretty. Yesterday after yoga I was planning on asking her to go see Slumdog Millionaire, but I think I may have messed up. Here's the short conversation in a nutshell: "So do you have anything going on this evening?"
"No, but I'm really tired. I had a late shift last night."
"That sucks. I'm going to see Slumdog Millionaire; One dollar tickets!"
"Thats a good price."
From there I just didnt ask her to go with me. I think her initial response of being tired made me not want to commit and respect her feelings. For any women reading this, would you have looked down on me for not asking you to go with me to the movie? There is no built up relationship, other than friendly, short and sweet conversation with a bit of flirting. I want to get to know this girl, and I know that movie theaters arent really the most appropriate venues for that. Any advice?

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Banshee

I wouldn't have looked down on you at all.. she probably really was tired.. now if she wouldn't have said she was tired and you told her about the movie etc.. and just walked off telling her to have a good night i (being in her shoes) would have been like umm ok and you told me that why?!

I would try again, even if she said she was tired next time offer to take her to dinner or just some coffee. Can't hurt!

botabota

I always thought that a good way to go about that would be something like "There is this blabla movie i really want to go but i have no one to go with, hey would you like you to go with me. like a friendly thing (give her a smile) i knoy you are tired but if you change your mind .... "

Banshee have a point too .

ratbastid

Terrible. One step away from the Friend Zone. Don't do "stealth" dates--they're a one-way ticket to heartburn.

"You're tired? Okay, I understand. Even so, I'd love for you to join me, if you're up for it. If not, then maybe we could get together another time!"

genuinegirly

You are over-analyzing things. If she wanted to go with you, she would have said something along the lines of: "Bummer that you're so tired. You have to tell me next time so I can plan on it!"

If you are concerned about keeping things in "friend" mode for too long - really , it's very rarely an issue. If the girl is into you and wants to get to know you better in a non-threatening way, she will appreciate spending time building up trust as a friend.


A woman can make the first move. Always remember that. If she's into you, and she wants you to know, she will find a way to blatantly communicate those feelings. A smart woman learns quickly not to leave subtle hints with men.

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"violence is no more or less real than non-violence." roachboy

Strange Famous

That pretty much sounds to me like she was trying to say no nicely.

In your place, I'd probably try one more time, and if you get knocked back again take it as that.

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Plan9

Oh, man... Friend Zone (TM) talk already.

Anyschways... yeah... studies conducted by bearded men in lab coats (such as BarakaGuru) have shown that women get just as tired as men.

Ditch your sex drive for a minute. Imagine that you're tired and one of your buddies asks you to go out to a movie or bar or whatever.

It's like that.

You get that cell phone call:

"Bandersnatch, what's up? Huh? Sorry, bro... I'm zapped. I'm gonna go rack out on my sweet piece of Tempur for a few mikes. Crompworm out."

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Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

Strange Famous

Yeah, but is she geninely was just tired and didnt fancy the movie she would have proposed another time to see the movie if she was interested in a date.

Im not trying to piss on this guys shoes, but you have to be realistic.

__________________
"Do not tell lies, and do not do what you hate,
for all things are plain in the sight of Heaven. For nothing
hidden will not become manifest, and nothing covered will remain
without being uncovered."

The Gospel of Thomas

Plan9

Whatever, dude. Some women are so passive you have to use friggin' Phillips HeartStart paddles to get them to commit to coffee.

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Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

World's King

Yeah... You fucked up.


So you set out to ask this girl out. And because she said she was tired you gave up. You lost.

The conversation should have gone like this:


"So, do you have anything going on this evening?"
"No. But I'm really tired. I had a late shift last night."
"That's too bad. I was gonna see if you wanted to join me for a movie."
"Really? What movie?"
"Well, I heard Slumdog Millionaire is playing for really cheap. I figured we could catch the movie then get a drink and dessert afterwords. Or maybe dinner first."
"That actually sounds nice. I could use a relaxing night out."
"I don't wanna keep you from your rest tonight. Why don't we make a plan for another day."
"Okay. Let me give you my number."

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heavy is the head that wears the crown

Grancey

I am a female, and I would suggest following the advice of ratbastid and World's King...... Next time...you'll have another opportunity.

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icevrething

Sorry for this post I was getting defensive... Please continue with your thoughts.

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Cheater

ok, I know you said no more advice, but... don't give up! May I suggest that you don't start with "do you have any plans for tonight?" (that doesn't give the girl a chance to know what you have in mind). Better that you tell her what your plans are and then see if she would like to join you. If nothing else, it may start a conversation that will let you know where you stand with her.

Plan9

You can't terminate the thread! We control the horizontal, we control the vertical! We control hip thrusts!

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Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

Xerxys

Seeing as icevrething said no more advice, that sounds like my cue.....

Could someone expand a bit more on "stealth dates"????????

**horrible sinking gut feeling of mad realization**

ratbastid

Well....

There's this school of thought that goes, If I'm just AROUND her, and she sees how NICE I am, and if I WANT it hard enough, somehow a chaste little friendship will turn into TRUE LOVE FOREVER and we'll ride off into the sunset.

Guys living in that particular delusion set up "just friend" activities with the women they're interested in. That's what I mean by "stealth date". It's a date as far as you're concerned, but you lied about that when setting it up.

That can go one of two ways. Best case, you end up pining madly for your "friend", posting ever more emo advice-seeking threads on TFP. Worst case, she whiffs the stench of desperation and desire off you and leaves you on the curb. Somewhere in the middle, you end up holding her hair while she pukes after coming back drunk from a party where she screwed the football team, and having her fall asleep in your lap telling you what a great friend you are.

Don't do that. Grow a pair. Ask her out. Be direct. Worst thing that happens is, she says no, which doesn't mean ANYTHING about you.

dippin

not only stealth dating does not work, but in the long run it hurts a hell of a lot more.

I remember as a teenager being so completely in love with a girl that I was incredibly afraid of rejection. So I went the friends route, hoping for the best. And let me tell you, being in the friends zone while she complains about every jerk she ever slept or hooked up with hurt significantly more than if I had come out and just gone for it the first time around. Nothing hurts like being in love with a friend who consistently goes for the jerks and assholes, complaining about them to you. "If only he was more like you" hurts more than "no, thanks."

Baraka_Guru

Hanging out isn't dating.

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Daniel_

Agreed.

The only way to ask a girl out is to ask her out.

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genuinegirly

Hanging out is fine.
One does not need to date to have a healthy love life.
The first event we could even remotely call a date was long after we were engaged.

I suppose the real question is what you're looking for. If you're looking for a long-term or life partner, you're going to want to spend more time getting to know them in a comfortable environment. If you're looking for a fling, then impressing them may be the way to get some action - I have no idea, I've never had that mentality.

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"Sometimes I have to remember that things are brought to me for a reason, either for my own lessons or for the benefit of others." Cynthetiq

"violence is no more or less real than non-violence." roachboy

Plan9

Perhaps your experience is in the way-minority?

Most people like the mechanical process of finding a mate. It's familiar... safe. It has rules. It's full of shit and people buy it because they figure everybody else buys it, too.

...

I figure dating is like playing Galaga. You like up the potential candidates and shoot at them with a gauntlet of test questions until one of 'em slips by and creams you.

In a good way.

...

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Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

JumpinJesus

All you need to know is right here:

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mixedmedia

I think guys just need to realize that most of the time when you ask us out and we say no 'we're just not that into you.'

Friendship would be great. Who has enough friends? But the fact is, women know that guys aren't interested in being their friend so it's best just to save you both the trouble and say we're really tired or washing our hair or something.

As is evidenced here, guys don't look for women as friends. Is it any wonder why we're gunshy when you approach us?

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PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce

uncle phil

do i hear the ol' "double standard?"

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dippin

I have several female friends and I think most guys here also do. I think what we are all referring to here is that the "friend approach," when guys become friends with a girl because you actually are romantically attracted to her but fear the rejection of actually asking her out, doesnt work. You become neither a true friend nor anything else.

Xerxys

dippin, I have lots, I mean LOTS of girl-friends due to the godamned ladder theory. Stealth dates !!!.... !@$%^%$% it has a name ... the pathetic sinking feeling that she is .....

is because you weren't up front and forward!!! So what exactly are shy guys supposed to do in this life?

Explain yourself!!! You mean the only reason people do stuff that they do is because they think that the other person likes it that way? Cause it's safe!!! Don't human beings have brains..... can't they think for themselves? The reason I started getting laid so late was because I hated the convention..... you mean, that in order to be normal, you have to be safe?!?!?!?!?!?! Play games!

I just realized I answered my own question, end rant!!!

mixedmedia

Well ok, I can understand that, I guess.

Here's a little story from the 'other side' of the 'neither a true friend nor anything else' phenomenon:
There was a guy I was good friends with in high school. I never knew he liked me 'that way.' In fact, I always suspected - because of his appearance and the things he was interested in - that he was gay. We had great times together - we were a trio with one other female friend - and we were involved together in all kinds of reckless and hilarious post-adolescent fiascoes. A couple of years into the friendship, I started seeing another man and this is when I was told (by our mutual friend) that he liked me 'that way' and the friendship ended. I never saw him anymore after that because he resented me for becoming romantically involved with this other man. I think that's an unfortunate story and we both lost because he acted foolishly. To this day I think about him and wonder how things might have been different if he hadn't reacted the way he did. My relationship with the other man was a disaster and I lost my friend of several years.

The moral of this story being, you can have good friendships with people you are romantically attracted to, but maintaining a true friendship (just like any relationship) means letting go and not putting your own needs first.

__________________
Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus
PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce

genuinegirly

I never suggested that my experience was the norm. Just trying to point out that if there's chemistry, it'll show up just as easily fixing a car or working on a biology project as it will when out on some fancy expensive date.

__________________
"Sometimes I have to remember that things are brought to me for a reason, either for my own lessons or for the benefit of others." Cynthetiq

"violence is no more or less real than non-violence." roachboy

Xerxys

LIKE THIS??

mixedmedia

gee, nice.

__________________
Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus
PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce

Hyacinthe

I hate the surprise / stealth date

Guy "So you want to catch a movie on sunday"
Me "Sure"
Guy "Cool, it's a date"

And he means a date date always leaves me thinking

"what? wait I don't want this to be a date I thought you just meant hanging out"

FFS guys if you're going to ask a girl out on a date ask her out on a date don't do this.

+++++

So often these guys that try the stealth approach say how 'nice' they are and how they've done this and this and that for girl A and yet she still doesn't see them as a romantic option. If they were truly nice guys they would be doing it to be nice not in the hopes that some day the girl is going to turn around and realise she's subconciously been in love with them for the past 5 years and never noticed.

If they were a really nice guy they would have accepted from the beginning that there's a chance the girl wouldn't want to date them. All they've suceeded in showing her is that they were only interested in befriending her because they were hoping to get into her pants. That's not nice, it's slimy. You can't attach strings to kindness, even if it wasn't real.

Guys like this need to drop all this entitlement BS. No one owes them anything, especially not a date just because they offered fake friendship. She never asked them to talk to her nicely, she never asked them to listen to her, if she had they would already have been dating.

I have personal issues with this approach because recently a so called 'friend' of mine and his housemate (My SO's best friend) decided to take him aside and tell him that Brian (My 'friend') had been interested in me in a romantic sense. Now this guy never said a word to me about it, never asked me out, never once even implied he was interested. But he, while drunk, thought that he had the right to take my SO aside and tell him that he was a dirty rotten scoundrel for dating me (let's ignore the fact that I jumped him) because he had met me first and he had dibs or some such BS.

I only caught the tale end of the conversation since Brian and John didn't have the guts to bring it up infront of me.

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mixedmedia

Good points all.

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Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus
PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce

tiberry

I just can't stop laughing at this!!

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icevrething

I've gotten a lot out of this thread. Thanks for your key inputs. Over analyzing and not being straightforward is not cool it all. I just watched Donnie Darko the other day, and when Donnie asks Gretchen out in that straightforward way, it just seemed natural.

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Anormalguy

Yes, we men can be a bit slow when it comes to subtle hints.

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Plan9

Bad Advice: Hah, you should check out Taxi Driver for more hot dating tips.

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Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

ItWasMe

Ew, bad, bad, bad. "I have no one to go with" is kind of like the old "I don't want to go alone." Both sound like you are not asking for a date, just generic company. But it's better than if you'd said "I can't find anyone to go with me." That one stinks of 'i've exhausted all other options and you're my last resort.' Don't use that one.

Not necessarily. It didn't sound to me like he was asking her on a date, or even on a friendship outing. It sounded more like an exchange of information.

My coworkers and I do that every Friday night as we're heading out the door. "what ya doing this weekend?" "Camping. You?" "Movies." "Cool. Later."

Wait...one day? But you haven't finished asking this one out, yet. Are you giving up?

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icevrething

I dont wanna give up. You're right, it was just information exchange. There's still time. I might grow some balls and let her know I'd like to take her out on a date sometime. Why the hell not, I only see her once a week anyway and I could easily adjust my schedule if it turns out to be an awkward "no thanks."

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