When Men Say 'Women Should Approach,' it’s Usually a Sign of Something Else

Approaching sucks.

The very idea of walking up to a stranger you find attractive in order to audition for the very intimate role of her lover can be deeply nerve-wracking.

The prospect of getting rejected is paralyzing because, as MRI scans have found, social rejection activates the same parts of the brain as physical pain.

And, with the growing popularity of dating sites and apps ever since the advent of the internet, we’ve all grown more accustomed to the comfort zone of hiding behind a screen, atrophying our social muscles and allowing our fears to take root in our daily, cumulative habits. The pandemic certainly didn’t help, either.

Many women have taken to their TikToks and other social media to complain about how men just aren’t approaching anymore. In response, many men have proposed that women should be doing the approaching now.

Seems like a good idea, at least on paper.

The #MeToo movement, while it brought much-needed attention to the far-too-common sexual harassment and assault experienced by the vast majority of women worldwide, made a lot of men think that there are too many risks associated with approaching women that women wouldn’t have if women approached men instead.

There have been some really awesome cases where women approached men. There are many brave women who have healthy and fulfilling love lives and sex lives because they took it upon themselves to make the first move.

However, the idea that women should be the ones to approach is not a practical, scalable solution. Trying to enforce this as a new social norm will not make life easier for you on an individual level, and will not succeed in mitigating this whole “male loneliness epidemic.”

Why?

Women and men experience attraction differently.

When I, a man, see a physically attractive woman, I feel immediate attraction, interest, and curiosity. This happens extremely frequently. It happens practically every single time I go outside.

This immediate attraction serves as motivation for me to approach and get to know her.

Women generally do not feel this frequent and immediate attraction. The way attraction works for most of them is a lot more holistic; they will feel the most motivation to connect with someone only after getting a better idea of what the other person is like. Hot take: what most people think of as “demisexuality” is just a part of how women’s sexuality fundamentally works, at least in comparison to how we understand male sexuality.

This is a huge reason why the vast majority of heterosexual relationships are initiated and “led” by the man.

It’s why men have historically “courted” women. It’s why “lesbian sheep syndrome” is so often bemoaned by women who are trying to date women.

When a man approaches a woman, it’s because he is motivated by a stronger initial attraction based on looks that women generally won’t experience as strongly.

Just look at how that manifests on dating apps:

It’s commonly believed that men “swipe right” on about 50% of the female profiles they see while women only do so on about 5% of the male profiles they see. Those numbers are likely an exaggeration based on unscientific data, but one cannot deny that women swipe right on far fewer profiles than men do.

If we think of swiping right as an “approach,” it’s not a stretch to expect that, in a world where women are expected to approach men in real life as opposed to the other way around, there will be far fewer approaches happening overall.

I’m usually the first guy to say that we should absolutely not use observations of people’s behavior on dating apps to predict or represent how people actually are in real-world, face-to-face interactions. I understand that there are huge differences in social phenomena when comparing the two contexts.

In this specific case, though, the real-world behavior aligns with the dating app behavior. Men are generally less picky about who they want to approach, and they’re generally less picky about their sexual partners in the initial stages of interactions.

More immediate and frequent attraction = more approach motivation.

If we put the burden of approaching on women as a whole, what motivation can we expect them to have that can overcome the common frictions of approaching such as fear of rejection? Such initial motivation just isn’t there on as broad of a scale as men’s immediate and frequent physical attraction toward women’s outer beauty.

Men who try to pass off the responsibility of making the first move onto women are being unreasonable.

For reasons rooted in both nature and nurture, these differences in how women and men generally experience attraction aren’t changing anytime soon. They certainly won’t change within your lifetime. So, even if the roles somehow fully reversed in the future, you won’t be benefiting from it anyway.

In short, if we lived in a world where women approaching men suddenly became the norm instead of men approaching women, there will be far, far fewer approaches happening, and thus far, far fewer relationships being formed. It won’t help.

“The Myth of the Female Sex Drive”

Also, consider the following argument by this fellow author and Medium writer in his recent piece, The Myth of the Female Sex Drive:

“I believe that one of the greatest disservices we have done to women and their partners is to translate the female sex drive with the same criteria and language as we do men.” —

Reid Pierpoint – Life of Compounding Interest

In his article, Reid lays out the definitions of drive, interest, and desire. He says that the male “sex drive” is marked by an inherent part of the definition of drive: goal-oriented behavior.

Makes sense to me (at least in terms of how he’s defining sex drive). Because men have the goal of becoming close and intimate with a woman, they will approach and initiate seduction or courtship, or as Reid says, “demonstrate their ability to supply that connection, security, etc.”

“For women, sex is rarely a drive. Biologically, what is the rush to nine months of pregnancy and a decade or two of caretaking? It is hopefully desired; some interest is always nice, but as far as obtaining sex goes, it is rarely an all-encompassing goal. Just look at the language that is often used for women in what they are looking for in a relationship. Women are seeking connection, partnership, security, excitement, and/or someone who makes them feel good.” —

Reid Pierpoint – Life of Compounding Interest

He argues that women’s sexuality is more about interest and desire, which have more to do with positive emotional states as opposed to goal-oriented behavior.

I’m not suggesting that proactive pursuit of a goal is an exclusively male trait and that women are incapable of sexual initiation. However, as far as general trends have been observed in human sexuality, it has been suggested by some scientists that women’s sexuality is more responsive while men’s is more spontaneous.

“And although women do have spontaneous sexual desire, female sexuality seems to be more geared towards triggered sexual response, which is one of the reasons that earlier research has concluded that men have greater sex drives, when in fact, they just have higher levels of spontaneous sexual desire.” —

Elle Beau ❇︎

, Men Don’t Actually Have Greater Sex Drive Than Women

If one person experiences a spontaneous desire to share an experience with another person who has a responsive desire for that kind of experience, which person should do the approaching and inviting if you want to maximize the possibility of mutually sharing that experience?

I’m not saying that women SHOULDN’T approach men.

Anyone, regardless of gender, will do well to approach anyone they feel attracted to as long as they make the person being approached feel safe and respected.

I also believe that women are perfectly capable of overcoming their fear of rejection and other such frictions in approaching, just as men are capable of doing the same. It’s just that men will generally have greater initial motivation in making those first moves than women, and in greater frequency.

What I’m really saying is: we should not pass the burden of making the first move onto women in an attempt to absolve ourselves of that burden.

Sure, encourage women to approach. But if you’re encouraging women to do so just because you want to avoid doing all that scary stuff yourself, no amount of soapboxing is going to get mommy milkers to proactively grace you with companionship and take away your loneliness.

Any viewpoint you have that’s rooted in fear and avoidance deserves a second look.

Actually, women “approach” men all the time.

I’m about to toss aside everything I’ve said so far to show you something from a completely different perspective.

You think women should approach men more? Well, what if I told you that they actually do all the damn time?

The thing is that a woman’s version of “approaching” doesn’t look like the traditional definition of approaching. She’s rarely going to walk up to you, look you straight in the eye, and say, “I saw you from over there and thought you were cute. My name is Sally and I would love to get to know you better.”

Society has brainwashed women into the sexual purity myth that they shouldn’t make themselves look easy. Being labeled a “slut” can have immense social repercussions.

Put yourself in those shoes for a moment. If you had an intense fear of being labeled an easy slut but still wanted to meet a man who’s in the same room as you, what would you do?

That’s right. You’d rely heavily on plausible deniability.

You will “approach” him in a way that, if anyone were to ask if you approached him, you could easily claim that you didn’t. Perhaps you’ll move closer to him with more open body language while feigning interest in something else nearby, waiting for him to notice you and initiate a conversation. Perhaps you’ll “accidentally” bump into him a few times. Perhaps you’ll continuously try making brief eye contact with him while darting your eyes around in between those times.

You could call these behaviors “approach invitations,” but make no mistake. This is a woman’s version of approaching. Generally speaking, of course.

So, another way to address this whole “women should approach more” complaint some men have is that women already do. You just need to brush up on your nonverbal communication skills to see it, which makes up more than 90% of communication anyway.