The reasons why men don’t ask women for their numbers anymore: “They don’t want men approaching them”

Even before the rise of dating apps and social media, the dating scene was already changing. It became highly frowned upon to ask out someone in the workplace and looking to meet a potential future dating partner at a bar began falling out of fashion decades ago.

Articles started touting alternative places to meet women like the supermarket, or music and book shops. However, the expansion of our online world and the concerns about seeming creepy or just outright being rejected in public has driven a trend where many men are afraid of even thinking about asking for a woman’s number, even when they think there might be some chemistry.

This is just one of the factors that has helped drive a trend among single Americans of “investing less time, effort, and money in dating,” according to a Dating News. In 2024, U.S. singles averaged fewer than two in-person dates with other singles the outlet found in a survey it conducted last year.

“They don’t want men approaching them”

Logic would have it that if you want to go on a date, you first need to ask a person out. Typically, societal norms have had it that men are supposed to do the asking.

However, that is occurring less and less, in person at least. Nearly half of men aged 18 to 25 that responded to a DatePsychology in 2023 said that they’ve never asked a woman out in person.

And the situation most likely hasn’t improved since, with Good Magazine citing the comment of one Redditior who posted: “From around 2023 onwards I feel like the attitude towards men showing any kind of interest in women has soured. Absolutely everything can be considered creepy. It’s like a weird social contagion caused by TikTok.”

The publication found several others expressing similar feelings about why they aren’t asking women for telephone numbers. Many expressed concerns about ending up on TikTok and being viewed as “creeps” or “stalkers” online and that translating into real world problems for them.

This attitude perplexed one commentator who wrote, “I’m not sure how one of the most normal rituals on the planet has suddenly become creep behavior.” Another lamented that the media has been chastising men “to the point they don’t want to do anything that may come off as sexually harassing.”

“Women have made it clear that they don’t want men approaching them,” said yet another Redditior. Some think that in general men are “definitely” over correcting, but noted that “it’s tough to find that balance and you don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable...”

Some men have found their own workaround so that they don’t throw up any “red flags” for women to avoid making them feel unsafe. “I offer mine that way if they’re interested they can reach out to me without giving out their own info to a random guy first”

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