A Man's Letter Asking a Woman Out Went Viral For All the Wrong Reasons
But it explains why everyone is frustrated with dating.
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I sort of stalked my boyfriend. Ok, Ok…maybe “stalked” is a tad melodramatic. But I definitely dragged my friends to the places I knew he would be at, even though those places sucked.
After a year of being the female version of Norman Bates minus the blood splatter, I finally asked him out…twice. (He claims he didn’t hear me the first time. We will just go with that.)
During my stalker months, I had to find a way to strike up a conversation without appearing to be what my Grandma Ella referred to as “a shameless hussy.” One night, he sat beside me, and I swallowed that shame.
I remembered my hussy days when I saw a viral letter on a Facebook group. A guy, Ivan, had been noticing his crush from afar and needed a way to ask his lady love out. So Ivan chose an anachronistic yet always seductive tool — his pen.
He left a handwritten note on her car’s windshield door:
“Hi, I see you here regularly but don’t want to freak you out by approaching or waiting by your van.
You’re always so kind to passersbys and your dogs as well.
I am quite impressed by how well trained your dogs are — the amount of time and love you have invested in them is apparent.
I am sure not sure if you’ve ever noticed me, although you always smile and say hi when you let me pass. I’m always on a green mountain bike. My name is Ivan.
I hope I won’t be considered presumptuous for leaving this on your door. If you’re unattached and interested, I would love to get together for a coffee or tea after your run and my ride. My # is [blank].
Hope to hear from you. If not, I appreciate the hi and smile.
Hope your run was great.”
-Ivan
Bestill my beating loins, Mr. Darcy is not dead.
Of course, a few naysayers found her gentleman caller’s approach a tad creepy. (Oddly, not a single woman found it creepy to post a man’s private letter on a public Facebook forum of over 80k members. So there’s that.)
Still, most women let out a big collective… “Awwwwwww.” Many noted Ivan’s sincere compliment. (Note: Ivan didn’t make a single objectifying comment about her appearance.) Several ladies dropped an ovary over his grammar and paragraph breaks. (The bar is low.)
But most of the comments had a similar flavor—women lamented the demise of the meet-cute and wished more men were like Ivan.
A few of the comments from the post:
“This is great. Its just so sad that men showing basic levels of human thoughtfulness and decency is such a rare find.”
“…where the heck are the guys like this and how come I never seem to come across them?!?!”
“All I can say is…we should all be so lucky.”
“Does Ivan have any friends in the MD/DC area?”
So I have good news and bad news. Good news: Yes, Ivan does have friends. Bad news: You probably won’t find him on a dating app.
Takeaway #1: Dating apps are dead.
Dating apps were in the swipe-left pile again with lower-than-expected earnings. No one knows why users are opting out, but it could be because dating apps are about as much fun as a root canal. In addition to the financial carnage, Match Group must battle an impending lawsuit accusing the conglomerate of turning its users into Skinner’s pigeons. It’s a mess.
The fallout from this technology will have lasting consequences. Thanks to dating apps, most men no longer bother to put on pants to flirt. And no, spamming women with “hi beautiful” messages is not flirting.
Now, if you want to meet emotionally intelligent, conscientious, respectful men, you must hunt for them in their natural habitat — the wild.
You can either accept this truism and meet people IRL or keep swiping until the definition of insanity makes sense. Sure, you might get lucky. Pull the lever enough times, and you might hit three cherries instead of three dick pics. But there are far greater odds that you will turn into a Pavlovain, dopamine-crazed manhater before that happens.
To be clear, dating apps are still one way to meet people. They are not the worst or the best way. But if you make them the only way, you are experiencing a simulated version of reality that will suck out the remaining bits of your soul.
Simply put, dating apps are a transaction. Men exchange status signifiers (i.e., pics of flashy cars, lifting heavy things, exotic travel, big fish), while women exchange beauty and youth signifiers (i.e., photos with seductive posturing, heavy filters, angel wings.) If you fall into the hot woman or rich man categories, enjoy the horse-trading.
Now, I am not denying that these exchanges don’t happen IRL. However, other traits will influence your choices when you meet someone in person. He might not have a six-pack and a Tesla, but he can quote Marcus Aurelius without sounding pretentious. She might not have an Instagram body, but she has a wicked sense of humor.
Inner qualities will always matter less on a dating app than in real life because you can’t know someone’s personality after a 30-second read of their dating profile. Unfortunately, users have been trained to expect instant gratification without any effort.
So, what’s the solution to this shallow conundrum?
Takeaway #2: Ivan’s solution
I am sure I will get some pushback on this one and send my Grandma Ella spinning in her grave, but after reading the comments regarding Ivan’s letter, one theme struck me as odd. Not a single woman said, “Wow, that Ivan was brave. I should try that and go ask out my [insert crush].
Brace yourself. A finger-wagging lecture is coming…
The takeaway shouldn’t be more men should be like Ivan.
The takeaway should be more women should be like Ivan.
Unfortunately, I often see this entitled behavior. These Rapunzels sit in their golden towers, waiting and wishing for an Ivan to scale their treacherous walls.
Ladies, most men today are not scaling any walls. And the ones who will are most likely the players and miscreants planning to rob you blind. Thanks to the shame brigade, good guys have been taught that only creeps approach women.
And yet here we are. Women want a man with emotional maturity, courage, and stellar communication skills while not screwing up their courage and exercising those skills themselves. Ask any heterosexual man who used Bumble back in its “women must text first” days, and they will tell you the majority spammed them with a “Hi, how are you?” message. I am not saying anything is wrong with the simple and direct approach, but many of these same women (you know who you are) constantly complained that men were not throwing poetry and sincere compliments at their feet.
For the love of burnt bras that we never burnt…could you all please stop treating your love life like some saccharine 1950s sitcom and ask a man out? (Asking for all my shy male friends.)
Because once you get some skin in the game, you will realize two things.
1. Asking a stranger out is not easy. You might even have a tiny bit more compassion for the awkward guy who tries and fails. (Note: I said awkward. Not disrespectful)
2. You will find your Ivan. He is out there. Sadly, he might have given up on asking women out because he was beaten down by rejection.
Now, it’s your turn.
“The happiest people are those who have forged their own paths in life.” — Dorothy Dix
Here’s the most bizarre part of this dating phenomenon. Women want to ask a man out, but many are not doing it. In a recent study from Sexuality & Culture, 88% of male and female respondents agreed that it is okay for a woman to ask a man out on a date. However, those same progressive women were not taking their own advice. When asked about their most recent dates, 89.1% of women admitted that it was initiated by a man.
Let’s cut to the metaphorical chase. Ladies, men are practically on their knees, begging you to make the first move. According to the mercenaries that made this mess (Match Group), a whopping 95% of guys want you to initiate the first kiss, and 93% want you to initiate sex. (Well, duh.)
So, let’s forget about nakedness and start small. According to the same survey of 5,509 single men and women, 95% would be downright ecstatic if you asked for their number, and 94% want you to call after a first date. (As long as the date was good. If he spent the entire date texting his ex with tears streaming down his face, maybe pass.)
95%! That’s practically the same number of men who like bacon.
But here’s the kicker: you’re not doing it. Only 29% of women dive in for that first kiss, a measly 23% take the lead in the bedroom, and a pitiful 13% ask for a guy’s number.
What are you waiting for? A handwritten invitation taped to your windshield?
Carlyn Beccia is an award-winning author and illustrator of 13 books. Subscribe to Conversations with Carlyn for free content every Wednesday, or become a paid subscriber to get the juicy stuff on Sundays.
Dating *apps* (phone apps) might be dead, dating *sites* are not, in the sense of there being a million Jewish Singles Who Like Knitting kinds of sites. There is one for single parents, for example.
The problem is rather the difference between sitting down to a computer and writing and reading profiles vs. swiping on a phone app. The later is infinitely more lazy and attracts a lazy and superficial demographic.
Would bringing back Sadie Hawkins Day help?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadie_Hawkins_Day
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadie_Hawkins_dance
I remember it from Middle School in the early 1990s, but I get the feeling it's died out since, maybe I'm wrong