{"id":47276,"date":"2015-05-30T07:00:31","date_gmt":"2015-05-30T14:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/?p=47276"},"modified":"2017-06-01T09:09:11","modified_gmt":"2017-06-01T16:09:11","slug":"asking-out-a-girl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/2015\/05\/30\/asking-out-a-girl\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting that date: Five suggestions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-48698\" src=\"http:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/Date-Me.jpg\" alt=\"Date Me\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/Date-Me.jpg 500w, https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/Date-Me-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>So, a while back I wrote <a href=\"http:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/tag\/catholic-dating\/?order=asc\" target=\"_blank\">a series of posts on the subject of dating<\/a>\u00a0which turned out to be rather popular. People clearly love to read and talk about relationships!\u00a0At the end of the series, several of my friends asked me if I would be writing\u00a0more entries, but I told them that I&#8217;d already said everything I had to share\u00a0on the subject.<\/p>\n<p>Well&#8230;it turns out that I was wrong, because here I am, a year later, writing another post on the subject of dating. A while back, I had a friend of mine message me and say <span style=\"color: #000000\"><em>&#8220;I wanna ask someone out. Any ideas for a date and how should I ask her out?&#8221;<\/em><\/span> Clearly, word had got around that I now have a beautiful girlfriend and this qualifies me to answer a\u00a0question of this magnitude!<\/p>\n<p>Seriously though, as I wrote in an <a title=\"Catholic Dating: Analysis Paralysis\" href=\"http:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/2013\/08\/26\/analysis-paralysis\/\">earlier<\/a> article, Catholic guys are generally pretty terrible at asking girls out, so I think it&#8217;s worth publishing\u00a0the\u00a0answer I gave my friend.\u00a0Not everyone will agree with what I have to say, but that&#8217;s fine, please leave a message in the comment box.<\/p>\n<p>Now, I have not always followed the suggestions\u00a0I am about to give below, but I wish I had. My advice represents the solution to some of\u00a0the different kinds of mistakes I&#8217;ve made in the past&#8230; \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px\"><strong>1. Do it in person<\/strong><br \/>\nTo ask someone out via text is really lame. Doing it on the phone is pretty weak. In my opinion, you should do it face-to-face. Is this scarier? Yes. Will it be kind of awkward if she says no? Absolutely. However, you&#8217;re a man not a mouse! So put down that cheese and go do it in person!<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px\">Now, I should note that there are some occasions when it&#8217;s actually not possible to do it in person. To pick a purely hypothetical\u00a0example, you might decide to romantically pursue a friend who lives in another state, Washington perhaps. To avoid asking her out on the phone, you might visit her and ask her out in person while you&#8217;re there. However, there&#8217;s always the danger that in the intervening time that she&#8217;ll start dating someone else. So, if you want to lock down that date before you get on a plane, I&#8217;d suggest asking her out via video chat (Facetime, Skype etc). Again, this is purely a hypothetical example&#8230; \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px\"><strong>2.\u00a0Be direct and confident<\/strong><br \/>\nNo mumbling. Don&#8217;t speak\u00a0too quickly. Ask her out simply, clearly and confidently.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px\"><strong>3.\u00a0Use the &#8220;D&#8221; word<\/strong><br \/>\nUse the word &#8220;date&#8221; when you ask her out. I know it&#8217;s tempting to try and organize a &#8220;stealth date&#8221; where she <em>doesn&#8217;t actually realize that it&#8217;s a date<\/em>. Although this might seem like the <a href=\"http:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/2013\/08\/04\/datin-fear\/\" target=\"_blank\">lower risk<\/a>\u00a0option, I wouldn&#8217;t recommend it. If it&#8217;s a date&#8230;then call it a date!\u00a0In my book, it doesn&#8217;t count as a date until you use that word. Not only that, otherwise spending time together\u00a0can too easily be misconstrued as just two friends just hanging out. Using the &#8220;d&#8221; word gets rid of ambiguity and you both know where you stand, which is ultimately far better than a confusing limbo alternative.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px\">But what about if you&#8217;ve just met someone you piques your interest, but whom you&#8217;d like to get to know better before asking out on a date? Well, in this case, I&#8217;d suggest hosting an event with a small\u00a0group\u00a0of friends (4-5). This\u00a0will allow the two of you to spend some more time together, to get a measure of each other&#8217;s characters and get to know one another as <a href=\"http:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/2013\/08\/08\/dating-friends-first\/\">friends<\/a>\u00a0before deciding whether\u00a0you would like to take the relationship further.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px\"><strong>4.\u00a0Have a time in mind<\/strong><br \/>\nWhen you ask her out, suggest a day and an approximate time. Have a good idea of what your schedule looks like so you know what alternative days and times to suggest.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px\"><strong>5.\u00a0Have an activity in mind<\/strong><br \/>\nDon&#8217;t be caught off-guard if she asks you what you were planning for the date. It&#8217;s a good idea to have a few ideas in mind. Here are a few good questions to ask yourself when planning the date:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 90px\"><strong>(a) Will she enjoy it?<\/strong><br \/>\nBuild the date around something you think she&#8217;ll enjoy. If she enjoys herself she&#8217;ll be more relaxed and more likely to agree to another date!<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 90px\"><strong>(b) Will it present you in a favourable light?<\/strong><br \/>\nYou want her to like you! Therefore organize a date which will allow you to demonstrate to her some of your best characteristics. If, for example, you&#8217;re a sore loser, it&#8217;s probably a good idea not to arrange a highly competitive date!<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 90px\">While showing interest in your lady&#8217;s hobbies\u00a0is a good thing, I would personally suggest being a little wary of suggesting\u00a0a date which is focussed around one of her interests where you&#8217;re likely to flounder. For example, if the girl in question is an experienced\u00a0salsa dancer\u00a0and you&#8217;ve never done it before, I would caution against going to a salsa club on your first date. While your willingness to organize a date around her interests is commendable, you run the risk of souring the evening\u00a0by frustrating her with your two left feet. The date might go well, but\u00a0personally I\u00a0wouldn&#8217;t risk it. Instead, I would recommend postponing this kind of outing until a later\u00a0date, and in the meantime get\u00a0some salsa lessons without her. When you do finally go with her to that salsa club, you will not only be a less frustrating partner, she&#8217;ll see how much you care for her by the\u00a0effort you made to ensure that\u00a0she had a good night out.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 90px\"><strong>(c) Will it nurture the friendship?<\/strong><br \/>\nThe goal\u00a0of the date is to get to know one another better. This is why I think going to a movie on a first date is a bit &#8220;meh&#8221;, since you&#8217;ll be spending the first couple of hours of the date in complete silence! If you&#8217;re thinking about going this route, check that\u00a0she actually <em>likes<\/em> watching movies and make sure you have time\u00a0together afterwards to talk. Oh, and as a word to the wise, I&#8217;d also suggest picking\u00a0a good movie, making sure that you\u00a0read\u00a0the synopsis beforehand! Oh, I have disaster stories&#8230; \ud83d\ude41<\/p>\n<p>So there you go, those are my suggestions.\u00a0I&#8217;m sure other guys have different advice, but if you were to ask me, this is what I would say.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So, a while back I wrote a series of posts on the subject of dating\u00a0which turned out to be rather popular. People clearly love to read and talk about relationships!\u00a0At the end of the series, several of my friends asked me if I would be writing\u00a0more entries, but I told them that I&#8217;d already said everything I had to share\u00a0on<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57721,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[276,2324,2389,330,2969,224],"class_list":["post-47276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faith","tag-catholic","tag-catholic-dating","tag-courtship","tag-dating","tag-featured","tag-romance"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/Date-LP.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47276"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47276\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57813,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47276\/revisions\/57813"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}