I was asked recently why I hadn't asked a lady out. It was late, so I resisted temptation to get into this explanation, but it's worth noting here.

Firstly, despite apparently appearing otherwise, I am interested in women. However, I do have specific ideals and opinions, and would find it hard to spend time with someone who did not share most of them. For some people, such a belief is a religious belief: they want a relationship with a person of the same religion.

I am not religious, but nonetheless I have trouble respecting people who disagree with some of my idea(l)s. I have friends who do disagree with me, but we're friends for other reasons, and share most of our attitudes.
When it comes to asking a woman out, the action itself seems to me to be a formal acquiescence to the patriarchal system of men as commanding and providing in a relationship. The very formality of asking a woman out on a date, to dinner, says that women should be passive dolls for men to care for. I am not interested in a passive waste of my time.
I want a woman who has had the insight and desire to question why men should be in charge and who rejects the relics of an oppressive system. We have rejected asking a father for his daughter, and I see no sensible reason to keep up a reflection of that practice by requiring men to formally ask a woman out on a date.
I can see one bad reason, which is that it spares women the effort of engaging in the ebb and flow of relationships. If a woman supports and/or requires this system of forming relationships, she can simply sit and wait to be picked. Either it's being consciously lazy or subconsciously dependent and passive. When I want someone who needs me to command the relationship I'll get a dog, which will be much more rewarding, and feel much more natural. If I'm to have a relationship with a woman, I expect someone with a mind of her own, not only to think about problems presented, but to think of problems of her own.
Women have rejected the oppression of being property belonging to a man, but find it easy to be objects to be swept up by a man. I need anyone I spend a lot of time talking to to value consistency in her thought, and to be independent and inquisitive enough to exercise her mind without prompting. I would expect anyone worth knowing to reject the formal system of dating as an imposition on her independence. I want to know women who value independence over ease.
Speaking of which, the lady in question was an American, and I find it particularly ironic that formal dating should be most popular (amongst western countries) in the US, which was founded on the basis that liberty was worth a little hardship.
I have met women who expect to be asked out, and I find it arrogant. The expectation of putting in no effort, and the assumption of an unequal status, annoys me. I want someone who is independent, and I expect her to accept some independence in me. Firstly, that means not expecting that I will control the dating, either by arranging it, starting it, or paying for it. I don't want a dependent, but a person. My nurturing instincts are absent (except for my close family and my pets). I have no intention of taking on a burden.

I'd happily ask women out in a different way, if only there were't the terrible risk of being misunderstood. I don't want to imply that I'm a traditional male oppressor and that she should relax because it's time to be swept away. I want to convey interest, and that she should take the opportunity to join me in sweeping each other away. I'm not looking to catch a woman, nor am I dead set on marriage over and above partnership. I want someone who will be a companion; who I can actually appreciate and know, and marriage is not in my mind at all. Of course marriage is a ball and chain: people enter into these formal relationships which have an aim, rather than entering into relationships for themselves.
I don't want a 'Relationship'. I want to know a woman. I want to explore her mind, benefit from her insights and share my own. I wouldn't call it much of a relationship if we didn't explore each other's bodies as well. I want her to lead me to new places, and I expect to share thoughts that are new to her. I don't want an object.
I look at women's bodies. I appreciate them, and feel lust over them. But I don't objectify women. It's quite possible to admire one quality in a thing without reducing that thing to just that quality. Hence in stories we see rivals appreciating each other's prowess whilst remaining rivals. I would say that it's the mark of a mature mind that can understand more than quality at a time.
But I reckon I can explain a lot of objectification as arising from women themselves, when they expect men to participate in a matching system that specifically imposes a passive status on women, ensuring that they are only objects to be asked out and supported. At what point am I to get to know her and appreciate her mind?
Oh wait, I forgot: I'm not. She is just a piece of meat, after all.

Women have complained about 'coffee' dates. In a student environment that's particularly silly, because no-one has much cash to burn on paying for dates, and because the women are less reliably interested after such a date (being young, fancy-free and immature about wasting a guy's time, or perhaps, charitably, less certain about what they find attractive). But a coffee date is an attempt by a man to compromise: to participate in a dating scene in which many men and most women expect a man to ask a woman out, and can be offended at the suggestion that there's an alternative, but at the same time to avoid participating in an outmoded relic of a system that won't get him what he wants.

Let me summarise in a decision tree:
1. Asking a woman out can have these consequences
a) you no longer seem interesting because you've offered yourself to her with no caveats, and she turns you down like the undignified beggar for attention that you are
b) she likes the idea and says yes... which leads to:
i- she's a passive object, you take care of her like Mummy told you to, and neither of you have any interest in each other, and you have an unhappy marriage in which you both believe that a man should be in charge, but you have nothing else to unite you. As she grows more unhappy, you both blame the man, because as the commander and provider, everything is his responsibility, including to sweep the girl away, and as you perceive yourself to be more of a failure, she gains more control, nagging away like a housewife, and exacerbating the unease you both have because things aren't how they should be.
ii- she's thought about these problems, but likes them because she's too lazy to be independent, and so she just settles with you for a while because it's easy. You're being used.

2. Not asking a woman out can have these consequences
c) nothing happens
d) you get to know her as a friend, exchange ideas and opinions, and you enjoy each other's company as friends
e) you hook up somehow as equals, and enter into a sensible, equal relationship with no preconceptions or cultural impositions, and your relationship grows the way you direct it, rather than along rigid and restricting lines imposed by other people.

These various possibilities can blend into each other, but I see nothing positive in option 1, and nothing negative in option 2.

The stifling imposition of cultural rules is something that I consciously reject. I question ideas and regulations, assess them and form my own opinions. Where I haven't it's an oversight, not because of faith or blind acceptance. I don't want to do this within the assumption that I'll have a patriarchal dating relationship like everyone else; I want someone who appreciates that attitude (and shares it) for itself. Nothing is sacred, except in so far as anything might be a sacred cow. You can't truly approve of independence and inquisitiveness whilst holding back on the system of forming relationships. If you hold back on something, you might as well be a blinkered creationist, and still ask a father for the rights to own his daughter.



Although I've just said that asking a woman out shows a man formally commanding the situation, it gives a woman the power and security. The man has already committed, and she simply has to choose. She has been given all the power, and expended no effort! If someone wants to have me in a position like that, I want it to be earned, such as through witty repartee, not because I'm a wimp enough simply to hand myself over. Please accept me!
Given that things tend to continue how they started, that seems to be the perfect way to ensure thatr any woman who might be good company instead becomes domineering in all the wrong ways. No wonder you have so many stereotypes about 'good', Christian men being nagged by their wives: they've set that pattern up right at the start. You believe that a man should take control, so the first step in a relationship is to hand your half of the power away...

I've met a woman who has tried asking men out, and has, against all evidence, decided to be a delicate flower needing to be pucked. This is because she is too fed up with rejection. How many times has she asked men out? Under 10, for sure. I expect that half of the single men you stop in the street round here have been rejected 20 times already. If you can't deal with the give and take of the world, perhaps you are a delicate flower, waiting to be crushed underfoot.