Am I being too pushy on dates? I could use some advice.
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We do think you did something wrong, by asking twice to go home with you. And 3 drinks for a woman is a lot.
I legitimately came here confused and looking for advice… I got it at first and accepted it and felt good about it.
I have an issue with Anonymousse’s tone and implication that “I should know better”. If the forum treats people who are confused and looking for advice as morally or ethically deficient… then yes I am going to be sensitive about it. That’s not what i think should happen.
Frankly, I don’t think some of you are accepting that first date hookups can happen.
The two arguments I see here are
1. “Hey you did nothing wrong, but hookups can be confusing on af irst date so best to avoid it OR ask for it once only and be careful and don’t be surprised if it doesn’t go well” and
2. “Hey you’re morally bad and you should know better and you got this girl too drunk to consent”. I just don’t think the latter is true so I’m rejecting it. I accept the first one
Since my advice and tone was agreeable to you, I’m going to reiterate what others are saying that yes, we can see how this woman you characterize as a cool, smart, funny woman whom you’d like to see again, perceived you as being pushy. We, as women, have experience being women on first dates with men who are pushy. Your behavior makes us think of those experiences. Some of those experiences may have been especially bad and so we come from that perspective. I, personally, have hooked up on a first date before and I ended up marrying the guy and we’ve been together 17 years, so I have that perspective and that may be why I come across a little more gentle here. But the situation was totally different, and if it were a date where I was meeting the guy in person for the first time and didn’t have any mutual friends or connections, I’d be very leery about going home with him. I’m also not in my 20s anymore and would date differently now than I did then, when I was last single.
Anyway, bottom line: you seem a little pushy, both in the way your describe your date and in how you’re behaving here. It may not be an issue for some women, but for it is for most of us and you would have better dating success if you humbled yourself a bit and erred on the side of taking things more slowly when it comes to getting physically intimate.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with getting drinks for a first date. Most of my first dates were drinks. I brought up alcohol because she told you straight up she wished she hadn’t gone home with you/that you hadn’t asked a second time, and I wondered if alcohol played a role.
I don’t think what you did was inherently *wrong*. You asked if you came across as pushy, to which most people said yes, that would feel pushy to plenty of women and give the impression that what you’re looking for/care about is hooking up. Nobody’s saying that relationships can’t or don’t start after two people go home together on a first date. But it does seem like your approach isn’t lending itself to the kind of relationship you’d like.
But, really, you have this woman who spent a not-insignificant amount of time with you telling you she feels you were inappropriate and boundary-crossing, but you don’t seem interested in hearing or accepting that. I trust her. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
ETA: I also think the context of meeting online matters. It was like going in blind. My boundaries were a little different with men I met in different ways (e.g., through friends). Not long after I jumped onto the online dating world in my city, some guy here made headlines because he was arrested after using online dating platforms to take women out on dates, invite them home, and rape them.
The more I read Anonymousse’s post… the more I think it’s not advice and that she’s just yelling at me. I really don’t think I deserved that. I also think she’s pattern matching me to worse behavior that she’s seen/read/experienced and I just don’t think it’s that.
Some quotes from her:
“Please don’t act as if we’re all podunk idiots who don’t understand how women think, dating or relationships work.”
– I don’t, when did I imply this?“LOL, why are men so sensitive?”
– This is mocking me and is gendered.So yes… I am pushing back slightly. My literal first response was accepting the feecback and moving on. Literally… why do you think my tone changed?
To Copa: And I agree with you. I accepted that it COULD come across that way. I am literally not disagreeing. That is why I’ve concluded that asking once is best from here on out; it avoids confusion.
My disagreement is mostly against that I’m intentionally pressuring her or that I “should know better”. Dating, hookups, sex, consent, is tbh confusing. And if you think it’s black and white and I’m some kind of predator, then that’s fine too. But I legit came here looking for advice and understand and I’m confused… and I think I did a good job accepting advice before Anonymousse came in with an attack (read my prior post and hers/his)
I do actually think she ended things seperately from the hookup. She mentioned that chemistry was more the issue. I think the hookup was consensual, she was enthusiatic, and that she still would prefer that she didn’t go home with me. She was probably like 60% enthusiastic about the idea and that makes sense. I’ve been there before too.
That make sense about online dating and I think that sheds light on why moving slower, even though I feel like it’s in some ways silly and regressive, is best. It avoid confusion and presents me better.
You are in your mid thirties, not in your twenties. You should know better at your age and I’m not sorry that that offends you. I’d expect this behavior from someone younger, like mid twenties- although, even my young friends in the city I live in would never ask a woman they just met home if they especially if they were drunk. That’s not how things are done anymore. Maybe if they’d been dating for awhile and were comfortable with each other, being tipsy would be okay and consensual, but the young men I know do not take a woman they just met home. They know better. How do you claim to not know better?
I don’t care that my tone wasn’t to your liking. I’m calling you out on your predatory behavior. Whether that’s your “intent” or not, getting women drunk and asking every woman home on first dates that you say you have multiple times a week is not the behavior of a man looking for an actual relationship, not at your age.
Your behavior came across as pushy and made her uncomfortable. How about you sit with that feedback and maybe think about what, exactly, about your actions and behavior made her feel coerced and uncomfortable enough to not want to see you again, while you saw it as a very successful date. Go to town and make like a woman and over analyze it! Did you touch her without asking during the date or push boundaries in other ways? She left feeling uncomfortable and bad and doesn’t want to see you again. I’m not going to dress it up and say it’s not a big deal. It’s a big deal and you’re lucky she told you that.
You had the opposite experience, you had a great time. Why did you find that date so successful? Was it because you had fun and convinced her to have sex with you? It didn’t end with a second date, instead she is feeling major regret. You come off as creepy to me and that’s legitimate feedback. Most of us are women, and many of us have been coerced or pressured or even worse during situations much like you describe, just you know, from the other side of it. You may have had all the best intentions, but that’s not how it reads to everyone in the world, with all our varied experiences, so take that into consideration.
I’m not going to give you the benefit of the doubt here because why should I? Believe me I could be a lot harder on you. It’s not really hard to highlight the implications here without saying them at all. Honestly, I think I’ve been pretty easy on you. I’m trying to warn you because your behavior is borderline and you know it.
