I think that the root of many men responding negatively to women who approach men comes down to two things: sexism and pride. This form of sexism starts at birth in blue being for boys and pink being for girls. As a person of each sex (and ultimately gender) grows older, their enviroments already start to signal what are considered appropriate behaviors, and which ones aren’t. I do believe there are some inherent differences in the mentality of how each sex behaves from a biological standpoint, but I still believe that the majority of these stem from gradual gender conditioning while growing up. Note: Let us not forget that gender and sex are two different things.
As for pride: Let’s face it, most of us want to be reasonably accepted and respected by our peers and we do not want to become individual targets. The default mindset that most men have is to be seen as “real men” by others. Men are still held to being men more than women are held to being women, even today. Even though I truly believe that many men would prefer dating and finding one’s mate to be easier (at least the men with better intentions), the power of how we want to be perceived by others is very strong.
In the end the only answer to the chaos involved in dating will be the members of both sexes maturing and mentally evolving over the future years. I do believe that men and women have different ways of apprehending various situations regardless of individual personality traits. Nevertheless I still believe that the dating ritual could be more mutual and lead to more fruitful relationships if more people stopped seeing themselves as guys/girls foremost whom just happen to be John/Jane Does, and instead started seeing themselves as John/Jane Does foremost whom just happen to be guys/girls. We all have our individual preferences regardless of the sex we were born as, and this concept does not change when it comes to dating. To expect a society full of so many different archetypes and personalities to positively respond to a certain set of rigid dating rules is an untenable thought to me.
James S. said the following in response to the post “Wise Guys: Can’t Women Ask Men Out?”
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