So When Are We Taking Me Out

Geplaatst op 10-12-2025

The Case For Reciprocal Initiative In Dating

The summer between my sophomore and junior year of college, I lived in Detroit, a city filled to the brim with pretty women who also happen to have a good attitude about pretty much anything. They're tough, don't get me wrong, but through the hard shell, they're game for pretty much anything, and they're not timid. They see what they want, they get it.

A perfect example of this is a girl a colleague at my internship set me up with. The girl, (whose name I still remember but won't mention for the sake of privacy) had a child, was two years older than me, and did hair. (It should be noted here, if you live in Detroit for any time longer than a month, and you date in Detroit, you will date a woman who does hair. That's just how it goes.) We went out on probably five dates, nothing terribly exciting, but there is one thing I remember about her, one thing that sticks out to me even after all these years, and I only think this is the case because since her I haven't met many women who do this at all. Here it is:

For our third date, she took me out.

She called me up, at my internship and said to me, "Hey, what are you doing?"

"Interning," I joked.

"So you're working?"

"Nope. Interning. Working takes too much responsibility."

"I hear that," she said. "Look, I don't want to keep you, but I was wondering, if you're not doing anything on Sunday, there's this barbecue I got invited to, do you want to go with me?"

Of course I said yes, but after we hung up, I was still taken aback by how forward she was.

At the time, I primarily dealt with college-aged women who were way less aggressive and still believed in gender roles, even though they were breaking them every freaking day they picked up a book and not a mop (I am kidding about that) (Really.) (I am). So to hear a woman ask me out, to play the role of aggressor, was entirely new to me. And who knew it would be such a fleeting thing?

The Rarity Of Women Taking Initiative

I can honestly count the number of times a woman has taken it upon herself to ask me out on a date in the early stages of our dating cycle. One hand only, and I am a man who women actually like; whatever rank is underneath playboy, and right above lame, that's me. So let's not attribute the lack of dates I get asked out to me alone. Maybe I get a little bit of the blame, but I'm going to hand some of this over to the women as well. You don't have to follow gender roles to show genuine interest in someone.

There are a lot of rules missing from the women's playbook, and one of them I noticed is the rule on asking a man to go out on a date with her.

What I'm curious to know is how many dates must I plan and sponsor before a woman calls me up and says, "Hey, there's this barbecue I got invited to, do you want to go with me?"? How much pride must a woman muster up before she takes such initiative?

Distinguishing Between Paying And Planning

To be clear, I'm not really talking about the act of paying for a date, or sponsoring the night's activities. I'm talking about a full-on planned date from start to finish. For those who can't differentiate between the two, just ask a man. There's a Grand Canyon-sized difference between paying for a date and planning a date.

Paying for a date is what I do whether I like the girl or not. There's no thought, it's merely a formality. The only reason why I'm paying for this date is because a long time ago, in a land far, far away, some man wrote on some stone, "Thou shall always pay for the first date, and when we say 'thou' we mean 'man'." Thoughtful gestures matter in showing genuine interest beyond simple financial arrangements.

Planning a date, on the other hand, is something I do for the girls I like. I take the time to research some spots, gauge her interests, and shape some night or day of activities around those interests. And I would really appreciate it by the third or fourth date, a woman reciprocated such favor onto me.

This sounds perfectly reasonable to me. If I plan the first two dates from start to finish, isn't it time for the woman to step up and plan something for our third or fourth date? It can be something as casual as a barbecue, or it can be a little bit more involved like cooking me dinner and renting that one movie on Netflix. You know the one I'm talking about, right? The one I've been saying I want to see since our first date. Having a game plan when dating shows initiative and respect for the other person's experience.

I figure if a woman is willing to go out with me for the third or fourth time, she likes me, and not in that "you remind me of my brother" sort of way. She likes me enough to plan the next date. If we get to the fifth date, and I'm still making the plans, then clearly I'm dealing with someone who isn't too aggressive (I don't like that), or someone who doesn't read my blog (I really don't like that.)