Do men make the first move?

[ciphergoth]

Reading this fascinating comment thread on Greta Christina's blog:

What counts as “the first move”?

Fair question. I would say “the first overt, unambiguous, verbal move.” I.e., asking someone out, or otherwise making a move that can’t be interpreted as anything other than a move, and that requires an overt response. (The point being that if you toss your hair at someone and they ignore you, you can save face and pretend you weren’t making a first move — but if you say, “Would you like to go out with me?”, that’s not possible, and you have to accept the possibility and indeed the likelihood of overt rejection.)

The stories told there seem somewhat American, even when they're from the pansexual, BDSM Bay Area. How does it work in our community, when a man and a woman hook up?

Comments

[elfy]

I'm not sure what you mean with "our community", but I have to agree that I find the described stories all very "American", especially with the dating part.

All in all I had three serious relationships and at two of those I can only say I was the one to initiate the first contact - BUT it was never with a sexual intention. The first contact was followed by a loose friendship and at some point resulted into some sort of sexual activity, which usually was not verbally discussed before.
The third relationship was also a close friendship first, but we were introduced to each other, so I can't say I made the first move, nor did he.

All in all I have to admit I love the idea of being courted (if you can call it that), but at the same time I remember being very cautios when I was approached by a man and usually I did not respond well to being asked out by someone (male) I barely knew. This all is probably a result of abuse at early age, I'm not sure.

With women I'm way more direct and tend to make the first move to show (sexual) interest. Interestingly, I once was also "asked out" by a woman I barely knew and was nearly as freaked out as when men seemed to "want more".

Basically I'm only able to have/interested in romantic/sexual relationships with people I consider friends first.