Why do many women think they can't be the one to text first?

JG009

Don't want to be seen as trolling or whatever, this is a genuine curiosity I have. It came up in conversation last night and I really can't see why many women feel they can't/shouldn't be the one to text first.

I am a bloke by the way, be gentle : )

ArtSmart

by 'text', do you mean 'put out'?

JG009

ArtSmart wrote: »

by 'text', do you mean 'put out'?

No I mean send a message on a phone.

princess-lala

I have no problem texting at all! Never have nor will I ever!

I don't get this question?

Bloody Nipples

After a night out when you've met a prospective mate, it's usually girls wondering whether he'll text or not and it's the guy who has to step up and take his self-esteem in his hands.

Now I accept this isn't universal but it's common enough to make a sweeping generalisation about

I am a friend

Cos normally if he is interested in seeing her again he will.

IrishEyes19

As the above poster said, because from a girls perspective I'd like to know whether or not he'd like to see me again because he chose to , rather than me texting first and encouraging him. Its nice to think he was thinking about me after meeting or something.

rstax

Us girls like to know you are being thought about, as one's above have said .. Also don't like to feel like a nuissance, and forcing him to be texting back!

beks101

I think it's the idea that by texting, he's implicitly interested, rather than 'meh, OK' because you're making yourself available to him.

There's also the idea that he's the man, he should do the chasing, because otherwise his alpha-male hunter-gatherer instincts will be denied and he'll get bored. Which personally I think is bOllix but it's a common field of thought.

I think as you get older, you stop playing the games and become less afraid of making that crucial first contact.

ballsymchugh

i was out a few weeks ago and was talking to a girl for ages. came to the end of the night and at the goodbye time, i asked her if she wanted to swap numbers. she said she wouldn't take mine, but gave me hers. that bugged the crap out of me. if she wasn't interested to take my number, then why would i be bothered to get in touch with her? these silly little games are just that. for kids.

I am a friend

ballsymchugh wrote: »

i was out a few weeks ago and was talking to a girl for ages. came to the end of the night and at the goodbye time, i asked her if she wanted to swap numbers. she said she wouldn't take mine, but gave me hers. that bugged the crap out of me. if she wasn't interested to take my number, then why would i be bothered to get in touch with her? these silly little games are just that. for kids.

In my view, you are the one playing games here. YOU asked for HER number so why does she need yours if you intend to call? Now you won't call her, she won't know why and so the circle continues.

ballsymchugh

I am a friend wrote: »

In my view, you are the one playing games here. YOU asked for HER number so why does she need yours if you intend to call? Now you won't call her, she won't know why and so the circle continues.

no, i asked if she wanted to swap numbers. she could've just said no.

Josh_Calvert

I texted a girl first jusd a few days ago but apparently I did it to soon and she thought I was 'needy' and put me in the 'lovely harmless guy' box.There's an art to the text as there is with everything in the dating game.

Any woman who manned up and acted like an equal would win loads of brownie points whether it be texting or arranging a date plan or stepping up and not expecting the guy to, as said above, be the hunter....but that whole two rational adults interacting in an open mature fashion thing just doesn't fly.I don't see women as prey...but stepping out of the guy chases the woman who lets herself be caught (or not) thing means lots of herbal tea and fewer fun ****s

rstax

[QUOTE=Josh_Calvert;70228869

Any woman who manned up and acted like an equal would win loads of brownie points whether it be texting or arranging a date plan or stepping up and not expecting the guy to, as said above, be the hunter....but that whole two rational adults interacting in an open mature fashion thing just doesn't fly.I don't see women as prey...but stepping out of the guy chases the woman who lets herself be caught (or not) thing means lots of herbal tea and fewer fun ****s [/QUOTE]

I think us girls should be asking the question: Which would guys rather?..:)

Josh_Calvert

Why would women give a damn what guys prefer? There's no incentive for women to do anything other than lie back and wait for guys to eliminate each other or themselves by doing/saying something clumsy. Men are worker ants.All women think they're queens...what queen chases up serfs and labourers?

On a non Darwinian point: men LOVE rational,open,clear,positive behaviour...for women to behave in such a fashion would require them to abandon everything that gives them social power in the first place.Not gonna happen....

We do however have instant respect when women come up to us first, we do enjoy when a woman texts first (it's only happened once to me)...Generally we enjoy everything that ISN'T hunter-prey.

Basically the opposite of women then.

Silverfish

Josh_Calvert banned permanently for continual ignoring of warnings and the charter.

rstax

Course we give a dam what guys would rather - if you had any idea how much time & effort we put into trying to figure you guys out!! lol ..

allandanyways

I don't give a balls about that "if he's interested, he'll text crap". I'm really impatient so I'm not going to sit around for a couple of days for a guy to text me. If he's interested, he'll text me back. Here, he gave me his number didn't he?

This American pseudo-psychoanalysis crap bothers me. It's not bad manners or unladylike to text first or to talk to a guy in a pub or whatever. Let's not forget, a lot of guys are also shy and if every woman went about her business following these "rules", what about the guys who are too shy to chat up a woman?

I have a friend who "obeys" all these rules (won't sleep with a guy until the 5th date, won't ever text or call first, never chats guys up blah blah blah) and she has spent more time being single than coupled up in the last say 10 years. She complains that there aren't any nice guys out there, but tbh I think her waiting for the bloke to do everything just comes across as being really high maintenance.

Seriously, game playing is for eejits. If any of my mates ask me "Ooh he hasn't texted, do you think I should text him or does that look really desperate?", 9 times out of 10 I say "Here, grow a pair and text him." At the end of the day, who's to assume the guy is really cocky and is confident that the girl likes him. The whole "if they text, they're interested" thing works both ways like.

IrishEyes19

I dont think its the issue of waiting around ALWAYS and doing nothing, but in most cases if I meet a guy and he asks for my number, I would wait for him to text first, simply because I do want to see if he's geniunely interested. then of course after that, its fair play. I would text when I wanted.

I dont think waiting for a guy to text first is game playing. Its human nature to want to feel wanted so to speak. As long as its level playing field afterwards and not one sided in texting, I see no problem with it.

krudler

rstax wrote: »

Course we give a dam what guys would rather - if you had any idea how much time & effort we put into trying to figure you guys out!! lol ..

You really dont btw, guys arent complicated, if we ask for your number, we're interested, if we dont ,we're not. girls tend to complicate things far more than needs be. "the rules" are for teenagers, if you play by them you're not adult enough to be in a proper relationship. "oh he texted be before 3 days, hes too keen!" fcuk off you imbecile and grow up, adults want to be noticed and if we dont we'll move on, save the gameplaying for the next fool who likes to be teased.

ballsymchugh

allandanyways wrote: »

Seriously, game playing is for eejits. If any of my mates ask me "Ooh he hasn't texted, do you think I should text him or does that look really desperate?", 9 times out of 10 I say "Here, grow a pair and text him." At the end of the day, who's to assume the guy is really cocky and is confident that the girl likes him. The whole "if they text, they're interested" thing works both ways like.

just out of interest, grow a pair of what?!!:D

seanybiker

I am a friend wrote: »

Cos normally if he is interested in seeing her again he will.

If she is interested , will she?

RacoonQueen

ballsymchugh wrote: »

i was out a few weeks ago and was talking to a girl for ages. came to the end of the night and at the goodbye time, i asked her if she wanted to swap numbers. she said she wouldn't take mine, but gave me hers. that bugged the crap out of me. if she wasn't interested to take my number, then why would i be bothered to get in touch with her? these silly little games are just that. for kids.

I've done that before, not as game playing but just because I knew I would either take the number down wrong or that I just wouldn't contact him. He later asked was I going to take his number. :pac: I then got a text when I got home saying ''I guess I have to text you first then''. I should have read the signs then that he was gunna be a bit of a grumpy prick. I'd literally only got in the door when I got that text too :pac:

I have no problem being the first one to text. A casual ''how's the head'' or ''it's going to be a looooong day'' text the next day doesn't do any harm...

Panthro

I would be delighted if a girl text me first, be a bit of a change from the "norm".
Thats the kind of girl that sings confidence, and I am rather attracted to confident girls.
Last night I was on Facebook and a girl started a chat with me, I was delighted because we are not really "mates", we kissed a few times years ago and were in the same year in school and all that stuff, but as the years progressed, lost touch as you do.
So her starting up a chat with me had me thinking "hellooooo!"..but sadly I had to go into work so it was cut short.

Moral of my rant, don't be one bit backward in going forward.

Acoshla

I am too impatient to wait for a text, so probably to my detriment I have put off many a man with my prompt texting! But then I figure this is me, this is what I'm like, I'm quite....all about a person, if you are my boyfriend you have to expect this, I'm forward, I get attached quickly if I like you, so there's no pointing pretending otherwise, and if he's the right guy he understands that.

My boyfriend knows this only too well! When we met he had a reputation as a total womanizer, and the day we met mutual friends told me this, but he approached me in such a shy sweet manner that I knew he liked me, and was just nervous. So we flirted all night, nothing happened, met again the next night at another party, spent the entire night together flirting, sitting on a friend's swings at 5am with cups of tea, he made no move, so I thought I'd read it wrong and he didn't like me so I did nothing. The next morning he was doing the same shy reserved flirting and I was sick of it at that stage, so when he left the house I took no number and gave him none.

But at home that evening I just thought feck it, added him as a friend on facebook, sent him a message, he replied, then I asked his msn address to chat to him, then I gave him my number and told him to gimme a shout if he ever wanted to hang out, within minutes he invited me over for dinner the next night. So I basically did all the chasing, I just figured I liked him, might as well see if it was just nerves on his part, which he agrees it was. He couldn't work up the nerve to kiss me, ask my number etc and figured he had messed it up, so when he heard from me he knew I liked him too. So if I hadn't made contact first we might never have gotten together, which doesn't even bear thinking about! He maintains it was all part of his master plan, must've been a really good plan because I moved in 10 months later!

allandanyways

ballsymchugh wrote: »

just out of interest, grow a pair of what?!!:D

Good question, haha. I dunno, I think sometimes with some of my friends, there's this "my prince will come along and do everything first and I will be wooed" ideal that they actually live by (see friend mentioned in previous post) and to me, it just smacks of being a totally passive girl about these things. It's hard to explain but I think women sometimes need to man up and realise life isn't a Disney movie. Make the first move, text first, ask him out. It's not a big deal!

I'm by no means cocky, I don't always presume the fella likes me or whatever, but you'll never know if you don't try and for the paranoid among us (me included), if you wait on the bloke to text, you're going to be thinking "He musn't like me", when there's always the possibility that he doesn't have credit, your number was typed into his phone wrong, he can't remember your name, he lost his phone, his battery went, he might be seeing someone, his dog might have died.... multitude of possibilities and girls let their confidence get hit a little bit (more often than not, let's not beat about the bush here) because they think "He didn't text, so he must not like me".

Nothing wrong with a bit of chivalry, don't get me wrong but the big deal some girls make about waiting until he sends that first text really annoys me.

Censorsh!t

To be honest I think it's great if a girl texts a guy first, but for me personally, I'm waaay too scared. I'd feel like crap for the day if they didn't reply, I guess I just don't have the confidence in myself to do it.

Larianne

Censorsh!t wrote: »

To be honest I think it's great if a girl texts a guy first, but for me personally, I'm waaay too scared. I'd feel like crap for the day if they didn't reply, I guess I just don't have the confidence in myself to do it.

Can't you see the vicious circle though?? You could have missed out on many chances.

I don't give a flying fuk anymore and if I like a guy who I got on with the night before or whatever I'll text him to see how he's doing. "How's the head?", etc. If he likes me he'll text back, have the banter. If it was just some drunken fun and I don't get a reply. Fair enough.

People waste waaaay too much time worrying about this stuff. In fairness, if a guy waits a few days before texting me it makes me think he's either not that bothered or he's got no balls. And I won't waste any more time thinking about them.

Censorsh!t

Yeah, I'm always kicking myself for being too scared.

Thank god I haven't had too many opportunities to regret though. And recently I'm getting better and having a more "feck it, what's there to lose" attitude

Larianne

Censorsh!t wrote: »

Yeah, I'm always kicking myself for being too scared.

Thank god I haven't had too many opportunities to regret though. And recently I'm getting better and having a more "feck it, what's there to lose" attitude

I think as you get older you're less likely to give a damn (well I have anyways).

Honestly, life is too short and you never know what could happen.

Feeona

IrishEyes19 wrote: »

I dont think its the issue of waiting around ALWAYS and doing nothing, but in most cases if I meet a guy and he asks for my number, I would wait for him to text first, simply because I do want to see if he's geniunely interested. then of course after that, its fair play. I would text when I wanted.

I dont think waiting for a guy to text first is game playing. Its human nature to want to feel wanted so to speak. As long as its level playing field afterwards and not one sided in texting, I see no problem with it.

+1. If he's interested he'll text/phone. If he's not, 'He's Just Not That Into You' (TM). I don't think there's a male equivalent of that book which might further explain why men are expected to make the first contact, and why some women don't like making the first move.