How Do You Open?

Monday, 9:26AM

From: Harry

Picture this- 

I’m at the esteemed Redhook Tavern with “the fellas”. My dear friend Danny “Moneybags” Immerman recently drank an Irish coffee that made his tummy hurt a bit. My cocktail comes in a fun (but not girly) glass. Seth is tucking into a robust red. Whatever. 

Our waitress is beautiful and seems to vibing with the fellas' general respectful yet bit-forward shtick in a way that feels like not a total performance. I think I catch her making eye contact with me.

We delete a few burgers and a dijon-forward kale salad and it is safe to say we feel amazing. I go to the bathroom and miss a riff with the waitress that involves asking her the most amount of burgers anyone has eaten here and she gave an answer that seemed to signify something got lost in translation.

Now, dating back to our inaugural nmjc post, I’m on a meet people IRL tip. So i get it in my head to do one of the most classic moves that never works– write my name and phone number on the receipt. It takes me maybe 10 minutes to psych myself up to do it, and when I do, I make sure I can scurry off before she comes to pick up the receipt as to not have to make eye contact with her post-ask. As it were, she never texted me, but I gotta admit, I’m totally post cringe on this. 

I have it in my mind that she looked at my note, smiled briefly, decided I wasn’t her type, wished me good luck on this long and winding journey, and continued on with her day.

Now there is totally another scenario where she’s like “jesus christ I am nice to one guy as part of my JOB and he thinks I want to F him–men are trash, and on top of that these clowns thought they were moving with a nuance and self awareness that they just really weren’t, yuck” and took a picture of the receipt and sent it to all of her friends, and theres a twitter post just outside of my algorithm that’s fully roasting me. I’m joking sorta but this thought totally did go through my head. 

And here's my question – where are we at with asking strangers out IRL? I’m not really interested in knowing the right way to do it, because nobody needs help when the vibes are unambiguous. I want to know what you think the risk quotient is these days?

In my own life, and I don’t think I’m alone in this, there was a period of time where the general vibe was like ‘hey, women get enough unsolicited attention/harassment, they don’t want any more from me.’ I’d say with most of my actions (receipt ask out aside) I’m still there…but I’m open to their being some sort of plausible respectful way to ask a stranger out. Randa, plz speak on behalf of all women. 

Tuesday, 10:14AM

From: Randa

remember west elm caleb? his offense was not related to asking girls out in public, but he still got canceled for being 6’4 on hinge and treating women less than optimally. i think the general consensus of reasonable people is that caleb was not in the wrong, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t suffer as a consequence.

what most ppl don’t know is that before west elm caleb there was cluttr card jeremy. 

several years ago, my friend jeremy was seeing this girl in san francisco. things seemed to be going OK, but it wasn’t like they were falling in love or anything. jeremy was consulting for a startup at the time and helping them do user testing, so when another friend texted a link asking me “is this about jeremy???” i knew that it was.

jeremy later poetically referred to this incident as the time he got “tweeted on skeeted on”

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i mostly shared that because i wanted to say "tweeted on skeeted on”

but i don’t think you should be nervous about getting tweeted on skeeted on for hitting on girls in public

for one, if she does roast you on twitter, she probably doesn’t have much identifying information that would lead back to you and mess up your life (though i suppose this waitress could tweet your phone number which would be absolutely insane). i do not think it is risky. but bc of the macro men-are-creeps climate, your odds of success are relatively low. should that stop you? let us turn to a poster plastered all over 5th grade classrooms circa 2005:

if you do it nicely you can actually brighten someone’s day. i actually recently came across this tiktoker named erola jons who goes up to guys and deploys insanely corny pickup lines

guys don’t get hit on as much blah blah blah but you can see on their faces how they’re simultaneously skeptical and flattered. i think hitting on ppl in public can be an opportunity to give a nice compliment without expecting anything in return or to make a stranger smile.

this one time i was walking down the street in SF in my size 10 chacos, when this full-size man bikes up on child-size bike, turns around to make eye contact with me, and says, “Damn!” 

he continues biking up the street slowly, before he turns around again and says, “You got some big-ass feet!”

before i even have a chance to react he turns again and says, “They nice though!”

he made me laugh on my walk to work and did not make me feel in danger bc he was literally biking away as he talked to me. 10/10.

so yeah idk i do think the macro climate has cooled down a bit since the me too era, but it’s not open season when it comes to hitting on ppl. the risk lies in whether u yourself are a creep with nefarious purposes. if you’re normal and nice then have at it.  

Wednesday, 9:58 AM

From: Harry

Yea. This is all deeply terrifying stuff.

My knee-jerk always hilariously is like “I can’t ask this girl out because she’s going to cancel me for perpetuating toxic masculinity”. But when I think about it for maybe one more second I’m like “I can’t ask this girl out because if she says no then my tummy will hurt.”

I have two real problems with all of this. The first is my own neurosis that I have Context Dependent Rizz. It’s almost like the reason I am attractive is that I’m exactly the kind of person who wouldn’t ask a stranger out…so I’m like pulling up to a gunfight with a knife (women and men flirting with each other is like war).

The second problem (which is related to the first) is that I get all lost in the I know that they know nexus. I’m like I know that they know that I think they’re attractive. And I know that they know that I don’t really know anything else about them other than what they look like (and maybe a few morsels of their vibe). So then I’m like I think that they think that I’m the type of guy who only cares what a potential partner looks like. So basically I’ll notice a pretty girl reading a cool book drinking a reasonably vibey drink, have all those thoughts in two seconds and then open hinge on my phone.

There’s this other funny thing where I don’t think you wanna be the guy that ALWAYS asks strangers out. I’m not even sure you wanna be the guy that SOMETIMES asks strangers out. Its like a 4-5 a lifetime type of thing. Man….maybe I’m talking myself out of ever doing this again. If you are reading this and are the waitress at Red Hook Tavern I’m sorry (but also call me)

This whole thing did get me thinking about one of my favorite types of guys in the manosphere. The Pick Up Artist.

Maybe this sealed the deal for me. The less I think about it the better.

Friday, 8:30 AM

From: Randa

I mostly agree with you besides the fear of being the guy who always asks girls out. I actually have an acquaintance like that. This dude asked so many girls out in ways that seemed not creepy, but definitely socially unaware. We generally regard this guy as a weird dude but I don’t think he’s aware of that and also he has a girlfriend now and seems happy. So who cares.

As for whether girls will be mad that you wanna talk to them because of their looks… how else are you going to filter? You’re kinda attaching a moral high ground to subverting human nature. Why does it make you a better person for pretending that looks aren’t important? Girls aren’t going to be mad. They’re doing the same thing. I try to be nice to everyone who approaches me but I’m more likely to engage with someone I think is cute or funny or charming.

I’m kind of exhausted by these perceived social risks preventing us from doing stuff we want to do. Not asking the pretty girl out lets you romanticize about what could happen, what your life could be like if you did that, how things could be different for you… It amplifies your fear of failure and reduces your grasp on reality. I’m sure if you acted on the impulse a few times you’d get a range of outcomes, some good, some bad. The more times you try the more likely you’ll find the Before Sunrise experience you’re looking for.

Maybe we should commit to a month of post-cringe. Liberate ourselves from the perceived judgment of others if only temporarily. Goofy mode. Like why don’t you try this tactic you came up with for the hot singles advice column:

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