I found this rather interesting article over at wetpaint, where there are some interesting arguments made about why men don’t ask women out:

According to the authors of He’s Just Not That Into You, the only reason a man doesn’t approach a woman is because he doesn’t want to. “If he likes you, trust me, he will ask you out,” they write.

This might be very revealing to a lot of men (especially men who haven’t taken the secret quiz). Now you can realize just how clueless women can be about all the things a men learning how to ask a girl out has to go through. Just imagine that, every single time that you didn’t ask a woman out, she probably assumed you didn’t like her.

Now… For every situation in your life where you’ve had all those thoughts that said “oh, she’s just being friendly”, “does she like me really, or doesn’t she?”, “should I ask her out or not, but what if she says no?”… the chances are is that this woman was thinking “oh, he doesn’t like me, I’m probably not attractive enough… is my nose too big?”… Or even worse, if she actually went and read what these “dating experts” say, she would probably even blame it on herself, and start acting all weird around you.

Ever wonder why sometimes women will flirt with you, and then all of a sudden become cold, or weird around you? A lot of times it’s because they wanted you to ask them out (or make a move), and you didn’t, so they’re acting cold around you to compensate for the perceived rejection. YES, women actually FEEL rejected when you don’t ask them out or “make the move”. Ironic huh?

Back to the original article, further down it gets better, and the opposing paradigm of “men don’t approach women because of a fear of rejection” is offered.

Mason Grigsby, co-author of Love at Second Sight says. “That’s just human nature. But historically, men have always had to approach women. And if you talk to men about how often they get rejected, they’ll tell you—it gets wearing after a while.”

So wearing that they’ve simply given up asking? “Maybe men are afraid of rejection,” he says. “They’ve lost confidence. Their egos aren’t that good. My number-one dating tip for women is to be proactive about meeting people. If you’re in an elevator with a guy with a nice-looking tie, comment on it. It lets the man know you’re open to a conversation. Most men think women are not open to conversation, they’ve been shut down so much. You’ve got to let people know that you’re open and friendly.”

Some great points are made there, amongst which are that women need to realize just how jaded men can become with rejections, and hence why women need to do more to make it clear they want to be asked out. I see this all the time. Just the other night I was in a club where a female friend of mine complained why the guy whom she was talking to in the past hour, didn’t ask her out or try something more…

I pointed out to her the fact that in the entire hour she had her arms crossed, was looking past the guy, and acted generally non-interested with a blank facial expression. Can you imagine being in the guy’s shoes and wondering how to talk to girls who look so indifferent and cold? Is it any wonder that one can not imagine how to ask out a girl like that?