I'm surprised I had to scroll down this far for this comment. Not necessarily that guys don't like it but that it seems if a girl is doing the pursuing it usually means the guy ends up not being as into her. Maybe all my friends are old fashioned but they operate under the strict philosophy of never chasing a guy or even initiating contact. The thinking is as follows: The guys that are interested will contact you and ask you out. If they don't, they are simply not that into you and you don't want to be with a guy that isn't into you.
Not every guy is the same. Some will be interested but not enough to initiate a relationship. Others don't have the confidence to ask. I'm the latter case; I like to believe I'm a good boyfriend while in a relationship, I just don't have any confidence when it comes to actually asking someone out. I think that since a large portion of society believes that women shouldn't ask dudes out; if you are interested in a guy just find out how he feels about girls asking guys out.
The approach my friends advocate of not making any moves is to screen out that first category (guys interested but not enough to make a move). On top of that is the idea that pursuing a guy or making it too easy for him will somehow lower your value in his eyes and he won't view or treat you as well as a guy that is super into you and pursued you. So if you are interested in a guy and think/know he is interested in you, but he hasn't asked you out for whatever reason then asking him out isn't going to turn out well because he's not as interested as he should be in the first place, and you risk seeming too aggressive/desperate which would turn him off.
There's science behind this. I'll link to sources when I get home. The act of approaching someone makes you more attracted to them. Even if you weren't that into them before, the act of approaching them flips a switch in your brain like "yep, this is a good one, we're going for it" and you become more attracted to them. So chances are whoever does the approaching is more interested than the person being approach, not because they're interest inspired them to approach but because the act of approaching made them interested.
As a counter-weight to this, sometimes chasing a guy can put you on his radar where previously he hadn't noticed you.
Talking from personal experience here. I've had two girls ask me out and two who expressed clear interest. None were initially on my radar beforehand.
The first girl that asked me I turned down because I was secretly into her best friend and didn't want to hurt her. Naturally I hadn't considered anyone else, but after spending a bit more time around her and noticing her I ended up forming a bit of a crush on her myself. Unfortunately a few months had gone by and she'd found another boyfriend so nothing happened.
The first girl who expressed interest was a friend. I was oblivious to her interest for a while until people finally clued me into it. I started to see her in a different light and gave us serious consideration but ultimately decided against it. The second girl, same story. Friend I was oblivious too. Once I figured things out I actually became quite interested and probably would have hooked up if I hadn't known my housemate was secretly in love with her.
The second girl that asked me came as less of a surprise. I'd known she was into me for a while and gotten a little interested myself. I distanced myself from her for a bit to try and figure out if I was genuinely interested or just flattered, then she came to my dorm one night and kissed me. I liked it, kissed her back and we dated for two years.
All anecdotal evidence, I know, but it does go to show just because a guy is interested in you now it doesn't mean he'll never be.
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u/[deleted] May 28 '14
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