Despite what you may think by the picture to the right, I”m not going to advise you to kiss other dudes in order to attract women.
(Ironically enough, if you’re a girl and you kiss your girlfriends at the bar, you’ll attract guys. Funny how that all works, isn’t it?)
There’s a great Best of Craigslist posting entitled How to Meet Women — Advice from a Gay Man. In it, the author points out that the reason most straight men are horrible at approaching women is the reason why so many gay guys have tons of female friends.
Gay men don’t have the hang-ups about approaching women that straight men do. “We gay boys were simply relating to girls as equals — sharing stories, plotting fan clubs, and making scrapbooks.” Gay men approach a woman as an interesting person; straight men approach women as a possible mate and with all the hang-ups and insecurities related to her possible reaction to them. “The point is that your early relationships with girls rested on expectations that you had no right to form in the first place.”
Amen, gay boi. Amen.
I had an acquaintance in college who was never without a girlfriend. Ethan was one of those “Flavor of the Month” type guys – every time you saw him, a new girl was on his arm. He wasn’t drop-dead gorgeous and to be frank, he had the common sense of a block of concrete. Why did he always have a girl? His guy friends finally figured it out one day. A “normal” single guy only pursues a girl or two every month. Ethan, however, asked out just about every girl he met. It’s a numbers game.
As far as online dating, I know many guys who will look at a girl’s profile and say, “Oh, she’s too pretty, she wouldn’t like me.” They’ll dismiss a girl who seems perfect for them because they are letting their insecurities dictate their actions. “She probably has tons of guys better looking than me emailing her.”
How do you know? She might not receive much email at all. She might have a thing for a guy with a fur sweater for a chest. She might think bald is sexy. (Mmmm.. Jean-Luc Picard.) You can’t assume her likes or dislikes based on her profile picture. (Now if she gets specific in the words in her profile, that’s another story!)
From the Craigslist post: My point is this — fear breeds inhibition in relationships, even the simplest conversation among people meeting for the first time. Overcome your fear and you will free your inhibitions. You might try thinking like we do — when we approach gorgeous women, we don’t expect sex, a kiss, or even conversation. We simply see a vibrant person who might be fun to talk to. Try anticipating nothing, expecting nothing, and then being surprised if something does happen. Trust me — it will work. It’s worked for all of my straight friends so far, in fact.
The best approach to online dating is to cast your net wide. Send a personalized first contact email to all women who pique your interest. Worst case scenario – you hear nothing back or get a polite “No Thanks” email. What have you lost? Nothing. What have you gained? Out of the 20 women that you email, there may be one or two who are interested in you and will write you back.
Is your approach to dating not working for you? You’re not alone. I troubleshoot a lot of common dating problems in my ebook: You Geek, They Grok: A Geek’s Guide to Leveling Up Your Online Dating Game. Click here to check it out.
This post was originally published on February 28, 2008 and has been modified and updated.
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Coming at it from the other side, I’d say that it’s also easier for a girl to make friends with a gay guy because we drop a lot of our hangups too since we know he’s not a potential mate or love interest or probably even someone our current significant other will find threatening.
I’ve also had some great friendships with straight guys who weren’t afraid just to be friends because we had some common interests. I’m finding it even easier now that I’m married, especially if the guy is married. That’s how affairs sometimes start for some people, but we’ve got some good couples friendships now where I’m better friends with the guy & my husband is better friends with the girl.
.-= Ruth´s last blog ..Cthulhu != Octopus =-.
Coming from a guy who is successful with women, I think you’re on the right track. The guys who are looking at girls as potential girlfriends (or casual sex partners.. can I swear?) tend to do terribly. Why? Because those guys have basically thrown down the cards. They don’t care about who the girl is, they’ve decided that they’d date her based on her first impression and her looks. Some girls have even internalized this and think that it’s right for a guy to immediately throw himself at her, but then is repulsed when he does.
Gay men aren’t talking to women in order to take something from them. They’re looking to exchange. Stories, emotions, good times. I’m looking to exchange too, and sometimes I find out that the girl I’m talking to is great, and then I’ll test the waters.
However, I think “casting a wide net” should be qualified by, “but don’t go in expecting her to be perfect. Find out if she’s right for you.” Guys need more confidence these days. They deserve to be picky, and women deserve picky guys.
.-= Fawkes´s last blog ..Dating: “The Original” =-.
Now, coming from a guy who has been quite UNsuccessful with women, I’ve never thought that someone has been too pretty to send an email to on a site. I hate to say it, but the prettier the girl (at least in her posted pics), the more likely I’m to email her. I’m a very observant and visually oriented person, so looks are important to me.
But like I said, that hasn’t gotten my inbox to fill up either. I’m guess because I have average looks, it’s possible that I’m shooting too high.
I have had a lot of female friends, which it sounds like I’m acting like a gay guy already, and the friends don’t find me as a potential mate…
I hear where your coming from with this logic, and I know it will work as I’ve done it myself.
But
When you are Romantically interested in a Woman, and you choose to become a friend with her, in her mind you’ve placed yourself in a position where you are a non-choice for a potential mate. And rarely if ever (maybe 1 chance in 10) could you ever cross that boundary in the future.
I spent the better part of my 90′s madly in love with a Woman who I wanted to be my “mate”. She didn’t see me that way but was happy to have my friendship, which I jumped at. But I also got to watch from the sidelines a stream of Boyfriends come in and out of her life, break her hear, receive 1 am drunken sobbing phone calls to cry on my shoulder. It tore me up inside and was absolutely emotionally draining.
Sure I chose that role, sure I continued to stay in that role until I got enough self respect in the late 90′s to tell her my true feelings and break off the friendship. But it was a box/category/role she placed me in and wanted me in. I think there is a real danger that once you are seen as a friend in the eyes of a woman, you a very very unlikely to ever step over the fence to the greener grass of Matehood.
I’ve watched all my friends also go through this at least once each over their lives. Some more than once and it’s hard to watch. Sure if you just “like” them and your not goo-goo gaa-gaa over her go for it. You’ve got nothing to loose, and everything to gain, who couldn’t use more friends. But I caution you, if you find yourself smitten with them from the get go, or you begin to fall for them while your friends, get out while the getting is good. Your setting yourself up for a 90% chance of heartbreak.
Now the opposite is
Pursing every woman you meet or least not being friends with the ones your really attracted too. That doesn’t mean your a slathering wolf looking to bed every gal that crosses your path in the first 5 min of seeing them. That gets you no where too. But I’ve found, in my own experience, that if you present yourself as a potential mate, then your open to being perceived as a potential mate. If you present yourself as a friend, you’ll almost for sure ever after remain a friend.
“But like I said, that hasn’t gotten my inbox to fill up either. I’m guess because I have average looks, it’s possible that I’m shooting too high.”
I find this one of this reasons that I dislike online dating so much – people HAVE to use their looks as a basis of their chances. When you date in the real world, I think looks matter less then personality.
For me, an attractive guy, isn’t “essentially” attractive. He’s kind, generous, open-hearted.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, the greater the personality, the greater the looks.
I know a few guys that are believed to be sexy and super hot by my friends, but I find them mediocre looking for the simple reason they have personalities like rocks.
.-= Jovana´s last blog ..Welcome to Masters of the Geek =-.
I’ve gotta chime in with Gwarh – like my father and brother I have always been more comfortable around women and had far more close female friends than male friends. Unlike them, though I was terrible — TERRIBLE — at getting dates and forming romantic relationships. Girls I knew well had me in their ‘friend’ box and girls I met spontaneously through a ‘numbers game’ approach didn’t want anything to do with me. (My record rejection streak for ‘a date’ was 23 consecutive and in retrospect I have sort of a bizarre pride in that tenacity.) It seemed like there was this window of time where you had to flip from being ‘friend’ per the article above to ‘romantic interest’; to this day I still don’t know where it is or how to get through it. If (heaven forbid!) anything ever happened to my marriage, I know I’d be on this site going “E! Help!” despite having been married for over 5 years.
In case you’re wondering, I met my wife at a church karaoke party one night while I was wearing a National Chemistry Week T-shirt and singing Weird Al music. I jumped off a stage to one knee in front of her not having any idea who she was, singing “Let Me Be The One” by Blessid Union of Souls (a very stalkery song really). She gave me her number the next day – the only woman ever to do so. I am convinced that on that night God was so impressed by both my continuing lack of skill and utter shameless bravado that He decided to ignore my crappy roll and let it ride anyway. Sometimes you just have to close your eyes and drop the DC for the sake of story…
Their is a lot to be learned from this article. I remember my days in college and just out when I was really looking hard for girls. I would have to remind myself not to just try to approach the women I was attracted to but to try and be genuinely friendly and open to talk to all women. When I would do this I would have much more fun and met a lot of great people that I ended up being great friends. At the same time when other women saw that I wasn’t totally on the prowl and may be a fun person to hang around with and possibly a good friend I ended up meeting a lot more women that I was interested in dating. So at the end of the day if you can just try to be friends with all women it will probably help you find a great mate.
.-= Steve Renno´s last blog ..5 Unique Gifts She’ll Love =-.
I’ve worked as a dating coach and yes I do recommend this to some people if I think they have a playful personality to begin with.
But you did hit the spot on a few things that what really make men irresistible isn’t the fact that they act gay, it’s the fact that they respect women for who they are.
They aren’t afraid of being their natural selves, and because many gays grow up with discrimination they learn to deal with rejection quickly and know it’s time to move on if someone won’t accept them for who they are.
And the moment a guy tries to be too alpha or starts to think that he’s better than her, or he’s too beta, then this can lead to a terrible dating/relationship. The number one predictor of divorce is contempt for another person.