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 The Dating Doctor
The Dating Doctor, Serena Mackesy, brings her hard-won dating wisdom to bear on your problems. You can drop Serena a line about your own dating conundrums and catch up with her words of wisdom here every week. Read her latest advice here.
Asking A Man Out
February 13, 2007
Suki writes:
What's the best way to ask a man out on a date?
There's nothing wrong with a woman taking responsibility for her own happiness and asking a man out, but men are skittish little creatures, and, sad but true, double-standards still abound in the modern world. Truth is, though, that lots of men are longing to get rescued from an endless future of football scores and having to suck their tummies in every time they go out for a drink, but they're still terrified of: a) making the wrong choice, b) having the choice taken out of their hands and c) ring-happy madwomen (and we have to admit that they exist) with rolling eyes. If you want to ask one out, you have to bear these things in mind.
Really, though, the rules for successful date-asking are the same for women as for men.
- Don't go blundering in and ask someone who's clearly not interested in you. It's not that hard to tell. A man who likes you will meet your eye, smile a lot, ask questions and try to look down your top. Even if you're flat-chested.
- Don't stake too much of your self-esteem on the outcome. Sometimes people just don't fancy you. Or don't fancy a relationship. Or have just got interested in someone else. Or many other things. It's not that much of a biggie.
- Don't say "date", or "go out with me" or anything else that sounds too serious. It's meant to be fun, remember. "Ooh, I want to see that, want to go together?", "listen, I've got a plus-one to fill at a party/movie/anything other than a wedding on Thursday, I don't suppose you could help me out, could you?" or the old telephone failsafe "Hey, I'm going to be at a loose end near your office for a couple of hours tonight, want to go for a drink?" are all pretty good.
- Don't make it a big thing, or a long one. A single drink can turn into a whole evening without embarrassment; dinner is hard to escape if it's all gone silent. And even the most hardened socialite will occasionally feel daunted at the prospect of hours and hours with a semi-stranger with no get-out clause.
- Try and do it while in the flow of conversation. That way, you can plant a lot of yes-questions and put him a positive frame of mind before you hit him up with the big one, and you've got some chance of seeming like it's just occurred to you rather than being a big deal. And if you do it casually enough, you can just change the subject and move on if he doesn't bite.
- Don't text them. Or email them. It looks stalky.
If you can't find a way of falling into conversation - if you have to do it by phone, in other words - find a pretext for asking their advice. By which I don't mean ringing them up and bending their ear about your mother problems. Ask something they'll know about. Something professional. The answer to a pub-quiz question, for God's sake. You must be able to think of something. People love to be asked advice: it makes them feel good about themselves. Then you can pop the invite in after you've chatted for a bit. "Tell you what, let me buy you a drink to say thank you," leaves everyone able to get out of the situation without embarrassment.
One final piece of advice. Whatever your normal habits, the double-standard dictates that it's generally not such a good idea to sleep with a man on the first date if you've done the asking, however tempting the prospect. You know what? If he wants more, he can jolly well pull his finger out and make a bit of an effort of his own.
Read Serena's latest advice here.
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