9 Reasons men don’t approach women

I think men are kinda, done...

Ah, the good old days when I was 19–26 years old (2011–2017) when I would approach any woman who gave me “the look”. It was great. Anywhere I was in London, if I saw someone who was attractive, I’d make eye contact, and if it was reciprocated for a few seconds, I’d walk over. If it wasn’t, I’d mind my business. Some women would oblige and give me their number. We’d date and maybe even form a relationship. Some women would politely decline, I had to take the loss and go on my merry way. It really was that simple.

From the early age of 14, I have just always loved, admired, and adored women.

Those were the days.

Back then, making a move was like rolling dice at a friendly game—today, it’s like gambling your reputation at a high-stakes poker table with hidden cameras.

Something changed. It was around 2016, summertime.

I was with one of my best friends at a bar/pub and we approached a twosome of women and tried to make some small talk. One of them wasn’t that interested, but the other one and I were really vibing. Why is the fat chick always a hater? Genuine question.

What usually happens in this scenario are two things. Either the friend who’s getting no attention starts being a hater, throwing out snide remarks, jealous, or trying to grab the other girl’s attention. Or she realizes that someone’s interested in her friend and lets them flirt for 5 minutes or so. When one woman gets attention, and the other doesn’t, it’s like throwing steak to one dog and a salad to the other—expect some growling.

Unfortunately, it was the first point. Her friend quickly dismissed my buddy and said, to me:

Mean Girl: “She’s not interested, let us have our drinks in peace!!”

Me: “I’m sorry, I’ll let you two enjoy your night.”

The girl I wanted: “Sorry about that, she’s had a rough week”

Me: “No worries, it happens”

Mean Girl: “What did you SAY!?”

Me: “I hope you have a better week”

Mean Girl: “Fuck off!”

She motions to the bartender and points at my friend and me…

Mean Girl: “Sir these men are harassing us”

Bartender: “C’mon guys, knock it off”

Me: “We didn’t do anything!?”

Mean Girl: **Has a smug smile**

Bartender: “Gonna have to ask you guys to leave”

We got kicked out of a bar!! I was in shock and, quite frankly, humiliated. I used to think I was the perfect gentleman. I could take rejection like a pro and move along very easily without ruining any woman’s night. But I felt awful. What just happened!? This never happens to me!?

The real crime wasn’t getting kicked out—it was assuming basic human interaction was still legal in 2016. I always thought getting kicked out of a bar required a fistfight or public urination or maybe even shitting on a barstool—turns out, all you need is a bitter ugly friend with main character syndrome bursting out of her gaping chasm.

After that night, I never approached women for a while. It kind of scared the shit out of me. A lot of “alpha men” would say, “Don’t be a coward, this stuff happens”. It did. To every woman I had approached throughout my life, it was always 50/50 on a bad night, 40/60. Something felt dramatically different that night.

But there’s more to this story than me. I’m asking the question again.

Why don’t men approach women anymore?

1. The Myth about Men

The “me too” movement was a great thing. It exposed a lot of creeps and helped victims of sexual assault heal and move forward, men in power were held accountable for abusing their power to manipulate women into sex.

But there is another effect. There’s a new fear that continually perpetuates the myth that most men are dirty perverts and most likely going to sexually assault you.

Are they right?

It’s an undeniable fact that 99% of sexual assault perpetrators are men. Look it up; this is a fact.

There’s a hairy butt here, though.

Twisting that statistic to imply that 99% of men are perpetrators is both mathematically flawed and socially destructive. The overwhelming majority of men do not commit these crimes, yet broad generalizations create a climate of suspicion, resentment, and division, distorting reality into a dangerous narrative of collective guilt.

This kind of statistical misrepresentation doesn’t just alienate good men—it distracts from real fucking solutions by focusing on blame rather than prevention, accountability, and support for victims. Equating the actions of a fraction to the whole isn’t just inaccurate—it’s reckless.

A society that paints half its population with a broad brush is one that chooses outrage over understanding, fear over facts. Moral clarity requires intellectual precision. Demonization breeds resentment; solutions come from nuance.

A large majority of women enter any social engagement with a man, putting him into a category of two things: a potential murderer or someone they want to be with. Sounds extreme, right?

Cause it is!

Social media, true crime podcasts, and murder documentaries primarily watched by women don’t help.

There’s this odd sentiment going around that men hate women and don’t want to protect them. A large majority of women believe men are inherently evil and are out to get them in every aspect of life; the new media LOVES this. They’ll report as many stories of sexual assault as they can cause they know how much of a hot topic it is. A lie travels faster than a lesson, and outrage always has a bigger audience than reason. Never forget that most idiots online and their narrative is built for clicks, not clarity.

Here’s the truth. There will always be evil, murderous, and disgusting men out there, it’s not okay it never will be. Trust me, I have to always make sure I protect my girlfriend from them, too, whenever I’m out in public, just in case I happen to bump into one of them. The reality is, though, in most cases, it won’t happen. Most men are good people. I truly believe that, and you should, too.

2. Technology Fucked the Game.

Remember when I said I would look for eye contact as a single man? How could any man even see good eye contact now? The women are on their phones 24/7, and so are the men. Humans in general barely acknowledge each other, how do we expect men to approach total strangers these days when society has the emotional intelligence of a British scone.

• Walk down the street, people are on their phones

• Elevator, on their phones

• Park, on their phones

• The bar, on their phones

• Social gathering, on their phones

It’s so hard to even see an opening to pull up your big boy pants and go and approach women. In fact, there are a lot of men who hear the bellowing cries of women proclaiming their independence, confidence, and empowerment. Women can do exactly what we do, in a lot of cases they say they can do it better. So a lot of men don’t even look for eye contact. If the former is true, why are women not approaching men? Granted women can do most things better than us, why is the duty of starting the initial conversation still on men’s shoulders?

*Crickets*

No one can or will ever give me a real answer. Cause they can’t. Some men feel like women want it both ways. For that reason, they refuse to get involved.

3. Crap at conversation

People can run their mouths far easier with a few characters on Twitter as opposed to actual real-life conversations. Men and women can barely communicate and people genuinely don’t know how to talk to each other anymore. We’re surrounded by far more superficial types of relationships. Men are directly being told how much money they need to make and all the fancy dates women require and how tall they should be. These are conversations most of us don’t want to be a part of, we’re trying to live just like you.

4. Creep Shaming

Some women feel like just because a man gives them a compliment, that he’s a creeper, or holding the door means you expect something in return. Some men feel like unless they’re an extremely confident and a swaggering bombastic extrovert, there’s a strong chance you might be “creep shamed”.

The lines between what’s creepy and attractive are incredibly blurred and subjective. Even if you’re deemed to be conventionally normal looking, and not creepy. It has everything to do with attraction because as we all know attraction isn’t a choice. If she’s not attracted to you, and not a nice person, then the chances of you being humiliated and creep-shamed dramatically increase. Some women are extremely harsh when turning down men; they get some weird sadistic pleasure from it.

5. False Opportunity

I hate dating pages on IG or dating experts that talk about the best way to meet somebody in real life.

• Running errands

• Out with friends and dinner

• Enjoying something and walking their dog,

• Chilling out at the park or a beach with a book

They have this notion of serendipitously meeting that perfect person. Yet these are the same people that will say, “I’m afraid to go out by myself”.

If you don’t want to do that because you’re too afraid to be social, how can that organic meeting happen?

Approaching women is so subjective that what one woman views as perfectly acceptable another would say it’s not.

6. High Risk — Maybe a positive outcome?

Ladies, if you’re reading this, appreciate the fact that that’s the risk that guys take when they’re trying to get to know you. It’s not easy approaching a complete stranger. Don’t believe me? Try approaching a new guy every day for a week and let me know how it felt each time.

Men are aware of getting false accusations, of being called a creeper, verbal harassment, or being filmed for trying to get to know someone. These are thoughts running through some of our heads before we’ve even mustered up the courage to go over there.

Nowadays a man’s head may think like this, “If I go and approach this woman she could…”

• Reject me in front of everyone and I go here every day

• Protest and claim verbal assault if I say one sentence she doesn’t like

• Have a boyfriend in the shop I can’t see

• Have a boyfriend IRL

• Have boys on speed dial she’s dealing with

• Have a few “sneaky links”

• Has a whole ass following on IG and I only have 200 followers

• Could be LBGTQ and has zero interest in men

• Could have the police called on me

• She probably doesn’t date guys like me

Now of course some of these are a little extreme but they’re possibilities now more than ever. Any man can get to the levels, those levels of moderate paranoia, particularly if that guy already has mental problems, to begin with, and he realizes how tough it is.

Sound ridiculous right!? This is where we’re at. Fertility rates are dropping. Marriage rates are dropping.

Guys are having the least sex in this generation. Why are those rates dropping?

It’s the result of this endemic fear that we live in. Men are constantly being told to “stay in their lane” Unless they’re:

• 6 foot

• 6 figures

• 6 pack

• Very attractive

And all the rest. So why would a man approach any woman he doesn’t know!?

It’s a dangerous place for guys to navigate right now. Men must understand the environment that they’re in and find a way to thrive in that because it isn’t changing anytime soon.

7. Playing hard to get

There are still some women that like to play antiquated mind games. A line that’s come into popularity again is the phrase, “No means No ‘’ It’s been neurologically stamped into a lot of men’s brains in the last 20 years, and rightly so. So when a woman rejects a guy’s advances, YOU MUST move on.

Let me tell you a story that to this day still freaks me out.

I tried to go in for a kiss on a first date and she said, “not yet”. I obliged walked her to her car and that was that. 2 hours later I get a text:

Her: What happened?

Me: You rejected me and I kept it moving, lol.

Her: “No but I wanted you to push for it a bit more. I like it when men force me.

SCARED THE SHIT OUT OF ME. It was like all naivety was quickly taken from me. Do some women think like this? Most men don’t like playing games especially when it comes to consent.

8. The digital pimp

There are some men that wouldn’t know how to approach an attractive woman on the street if they came up to them and stared at them dead in the face.

But online, he’s the Harry Potter of online dating.

They’ve spent years becoming very savvy with marketing their online dating profile, social media, and any way they can communicate with women online. They’ve watched YouTube videos, tik tok tips, and know how to hit on women on the internet better than most men, they’ve even downloaded “canned openers” to send to women online. So why oh why would they waste their time on a woman where it’s most definitely a shot in the dark and go through a public rejection?

It’s not remotely worth it to them.

Conclusion:

Men still approach women, but these days it rarely if ever seems to be the people the ladies actually want. The old days of women giving men the look or luring men into approaching them with their feminine wiles are dead. A lot of men, especially young men understand that men and women are equals, therefore they believe women should approach us, just like we may or not approach them.

It’s not going back to “the way it was”. Things never do…

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Thanks for reading,

T.H.