Why DO males take the responsibility for initiating?

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[ Edited title. Revised question here: https://www.wrongplanet.net/postp6013184.html#6013184 ]

There is something I've never understood about heterosexual dating. It's something that everyone seems to accept as "just the way things are", but I don't understand why - and I'd like to. It's kind of hard to formulate as a precise question, especially one that doesn't come across as a rant or completely childish, but here's my best shot at it:

Why do males generally put in all the effort in initiating relationships?

I constantly read about the man having to "attract" the woman, to actually initiate contact and ask her out, to keep her interested in the early stages and so on. It's perceived as completely normal for the man to, basically, sell himself to the woman and for the woman to choose from competing sellers.[1] There are already many threads about this, so I don't want to go into too much detail - hopefully you get what I'm talking about.

What I'd like to know is why this is the case or, more specifically, why men go along with this. For once, it's male behaviour that puzzles me! I understand why women go along with it - less effort is easier than more effort and they can, apparently, get away with it.[2] If I could - I would, too!

I get the strong impression that males are just more desperate for relationships than females. (And I am talking about relationships here, not just sex.) Are they actually? If so, why? If not, why do they act as if they are?

This somewhat makes sense on online dating sites, because there the males outnumber females 2:1 (at least). But it makes no sense as a general attitude, since the number of single men and single women must be approximately equal. So while there appears to be a strong supply-demand imbalance I can't see how there could actually be one.[3] So why don't things look more balanced, with each gender putting in roughly the same amount of effort and treating each other more equally? Are women just that much happier to stay single than men? What am I missing here?

Please note: this is a serious question, not a rant. I'm looking for insight, not rhetoric.

[1] Yes, I understand that there are exceptions. I'm talking about overall trends here and I think few would argue that this is not the case in general.
[2] Yes, I know that women also have dating problems. This is not another "who has it easier?" thread.
[3] It's theoretically possible that more women than men are in relationships with the same sex, but all the data I can find shows that homosexuality is more prevalent among males.

Last edited by FMX on 15 Apr 2014, 4:22 pm, edited 2 times in total.

because (usually) they're the ones with the high sex drive. It's either put in effort or go home with blue balls.

Yes. It boils down to this. Men with lower sex drive don't initiate much I believe.

And the funny thing is, Women prefer the Men who dont go chasing after them, those "bad boys" who consider themselves to be Gods gift.

saints preserve us.




this again.

Puts on best Jewish accent:

TRADITION !

It's been like that for a thousand years or so and you're going against the norms of society if you try to change it. However, in thirty-something years of dating I've been approached four or five times by members of the fairer sex and I've always treated it as a tremendous complement.

So ladies, if you see someone across a crowded room that sets your heart a flutter then please feel free to go up and say hello because you never know what you might be missing. Carpe diem

Then may I ask "how did this tradition get started?" And don't tell me "I don't know - but it's a tradition!"

Anyway, I don't think that entirely explains it. Yes, that's how it's been for a long time, but men are aware of it and most don't seem to like it. Women have drastically redefined what's expected of them, despite thousands of years of tradition. Men could, too. But for some reason they haven't.

The point that men want sex more could explain it, but only if we assume that sex is the primary reason for initiating a relationship - for both men and women. Is it?

Have you ever watched a gorilla harem in a zoo? It's quite enlightening if a little too vulgar a form of entertainment.

I'm going to go with no. I'm not the one that spends an hour on myself just to leave the house.

Nice summary.

As for the bad boy comment it's not that. Women prefer men who don't need them, and secretly, these girls love being needed, so they make an effort to make them need them for their ego.

To make the guy need them who doesn't need any woman.. a pretty big ego boost if they make it happen.

Agency, and property. For various reasons, women have often been denied agency - both that they had any, and that they should be allowed to have any. They have been seen as property to be won, or just bought. Cultural patterns/rituals often become unmoored from their origins or 'necessity', which results in confusion as to why these things still go on.

ETA: That is, I'm assuming this is actually a thing.

I wish my male would put in a bit more effort.

They don't, but there's a male propensity generally to notice one's putting in effort at all and then turn into a massive drama queen about how one's putting in ALL the effort. It's almost never true. See recent studies of housework and parenting.

I think it's possible that women put in just as much effort, only it manifests differently. They do the "come and get me" thing; men do the "go out and get them" thing.

However, with social impairment, ASD men are poorly equipped to recognize the "come and get me" signals. Likewise, ASD women are poorly equipped to give the appropriate signals.

I put in all of the effort because the girls won't. I don't know why, so ask them.

I think women initiate (by sending subtle signals) if they find the man marriage material or extraordinarily attractive physically. And it just does not happen as often as men finding women attractive enough for them to want to have sex.
So sex is the primary reason for men to initiate a relationship and for women it's usually not.
That's why men initiate more than women.

Question for the OP. Do you wait for women to initiate? If not, why don't you?