Ask A Woman: Acceptable stalking, modern-style
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Beth,
I stumbled onto a Facebook account of a girl I’d like to get to know better (read: ask out on a date) but I know absolutely nothing about her besides her name, she’s single (as far as I can tell), she lives in my city, and she’s gorgeous. We share a lot of mutual friends but have never met in person or even heard of each other.
My question: Should I friend request her, introduce myself and hope she takes up my offer of coffee? Or should I make it more organic and try to bump into her through our mutual friends? Or maybe have a friend introduce me?
I know this sounds a little odd. Even creepy? I saw her picture online because she’s a friend of a friend, I find her attractive, and now I’d like to ask her out. But is it really that different from walking up to a stranger in a bar? You saw someone, you find them attractive. No? Or does the internet make it all different?
– Julian
Hi Julian,
For the record, I don’t think this is creepy. You saw this woman tagged in a friend’s photo, found her attractive, then popped on over to look at her page. It’s exactly the same as seeing someone in a bar or at a party and deciding you want to talk to them. It might feel creepier because–depending on how private or not her page settings are–you can look at pictures of her and find out where she went to college and what she does for a living and other tidbits of information via Facebook, but that’s really just incidental. You’re curious about her, of course. It gets creepy when you hack into her email account and then you start showing up at every bar, restaurant and grocery store she goes to. Don’t do that, Julian, mmmkay?
You could friend request her, as you noted, explain that you’re mutual friends with Ronaldo and would she like to get some coffee. That’s an option. It’s also a risky one. If she doesn’t like such a forward approach, or she finds it odd that you’d want to meet her based only on what you see on FB or she’s legitimately wary of strangers on the Interwebs, she’s going to ignore you or turn you down and then tell Ronaldo that you’re a weirdo. I like the other two options you mentioned better. The first would be to tell Ronaldo you saw this woman in his pictures, you think she’s lovely and interesting, and can he get a group of people together at a bar/hockey game/his apartment for the Superbowl that includes you and her, so that you have the opportunity to meet face-to-face. This is my favorite approach. It’s more organic, as you mentioned, and it doesn’t put Ronaldo in the awkward spot of matchmaker–he’s merely organizing a social event for his friends. Plus, it puts this woman on more of an equal footing with you. She can meet you and decide to continue talking to you or not, and then decide to give you her phone number or not. You could also ask your friend just to set you two up, but that has its own limitations and is not radically different from her knowing that you just saw her on Facebook and decided to pursue her.
I’m gettin’ vibe in like a really…weird…way here.
To turn the conversation in a more theoretical direction, it’s an interesting question, isn’t it, what makes us decide someone from across the room (or across the web) is a worthy object of our affection? You might go many weeks, going out to the bars, seeing intriguing women around you, but what makes you actually approach someone? Are you just in the right mood and it’s as simple as that? Or do we really get a sense of someone from a distance? Can we tell much more than we give credit for about their personality, their values, their interests, from the expression on their face? I still remember the first time I saw my husband, from across a room (well, backyard, really) and it’s fascinating to me that I still remember being in that moment, seeing him and thinking, ohhhhh reallllyyyyy. What could I have possibly sensed from that distance? I still don’t know but whatever instinct I had, I was right. I’d be interested, as always, to know what the Dappered readers think, and what they’ve learned from their own dating experiences.
-Beth
The deciding factor for me, if someone across the bar is worthy of affection, is if I’d like to have sex with her. Crude, but unabashedly honest.
Beth, I approve of the Ronaldo Formula.
“I still remember the first time I saw my husband, from across a room (well, backyard, really) and it’s fascinating to me that I still remember being in that moment, seeing him and thinking, ohhhhh reallllyyyyy”
The interesting question to me is, how many times did you see someone from across the room and it *didn’t* work out? I just had this conversation with a friend who was talking about how all her friends meet guys in the most interesting situations. She was feeling bad because of having not met “the one” that way. But as a coworker of mine says, everyone tells you about their home runs, they never tell you how many times they struck out 😉 We also tend to remember our own experiences the same way.
For me, I also agree with trying to meet the girl through Ronaldo.
Ronaldo must be code for “Ultimate Wingman Extraordinaire”.
May we all prosper with a Ronaldo.
Three cheers for Ronaldo.
Ronaldo!
Ronaldo!
Ronaldo!
How to date on Facebook:
Step 1 – Don’t!
Is she on Twitter? It’s an environment much more conducive to casual chat. Friending someone on Facebook doesn’t contain the weighty implication that following them on Twitter does. I actually met my fiance on twitter. We had some mutual friends, started talking and eventually had a first date. Now here we are.
>depending on how private or not her page settings are
More accurately, how private she thinks they are. A whole lot of people still don’t really realize how open their social media profiles are, so it’s unwise to assume just because channels are open to initiate contact that it won’t be a shock and/or creeper moment.
Even if you get to know each other via texting or your chat method of choice, get someone to introduce you.
Some good advice from Beth here, and I think Julian is pretty much on the same page anyway. An added advantage of the Ronaldo approach is that you get to see her outside of her carefully manicured Facebook universe. There may be compatibility issues that the internet, in all its wisdom, won’t be able to clue you in on. For example, that she laughs like a hyena on helium or she has a penchant for clubbing baby seals or she flouts the laws of physics and hovers three feet above the ground or any other number of potential deal breakers you might hitherto be unaware of.
Disagree. Two of my friends met on FB (through a mutual acquaintance), started Skyping, and got happily married a couple years ago. It wouldn’t have been possible otherwise, because he’s from the US and she’s from NZ. Let’s not be love Luddites.
Agree. Just… maybe don’t lead with the line “Hey, I ogled a bunch of your pics on Facebook and then I asked a website on the Internet how I could hook up with you, and here you are!”
Using Facebook as a springboard for a date is fine, but using Facebook FOR dating is not. That’s the grey area, IMO.
Have to agree. I think the only lightbulb that turns on when we see someone like that from afar is our own idiosyncratic version of physical attraction. We’re projecting, when the truth is we have no idea. There are plenty of times, as a guy, where not 30 seconds to a minute after having approached a girl I am immediately starting to regret the decision.
So you start off by saying “It’s exactly the same as seeing someone in a bar or at a party and deciding you want to talk to them.” But then you decide that friending the girl and asking her out is too forward (i.e. creepy) to work, and instead it would be better to create a situation where he can casually meet the girl, as if by random chance. Isn’t that also kind of creepy in its own way?
I think that depends on the person. With a couple of exceptions, I know every person I’m friends with on Facebook in meatspace, and knew them fairly well before I friended them. (The exceptions are people I’ve been in a mailing list with for over twenty years but have never met in person.) Other people, however, have hundreds of FB friends. Julian has already looked at her account. Check the number of friends. If she has a large number, then sending her a friend request probably won’t be seen as a big deal.
Message her. Only speak in Ron Burgundy quotes. If “my sweet chinchilla” doesn’t appear in your first sentence, start over.
There are many routes to Bangkok.
To be fair, my long-time girlfriend and I started long distance, having met when she was in town visiting a friend. We got to talking on Facebook, messaging about lots of other stuff, which turned into some subdued flirting, which turned into “come visit”. Now she’s moving to my city. Facebook isn’t always bad.
You didn’t meet her on facebook; you met her in person when she was in town. Using facebook to communicate with someone you’ve met and using facebook to meet a girl you’ve never met are very different things. I’d prefer text or email (or phone, but understandable not to start there) to using FB for comm, but FB would be fine for that.
Also, congrats on the relationship seeming to work out well.
I’m gonna go right ahead and say if hovering over the ground is a deal breaker, you have a boring soul 😉
There’s a very fine line between planning and stalking..lol
meatspace? too afraid to google that at work 😉
Strikes me as one of those things that’s either romantic or creepy depending upon whether the girl finds said guy attractive or not.
Exactly. If she ends up being attracted to the guy, romantic. If she doesn’t then he will be labeled a creeper. I did this once back when MySpace was kicking. It actually worked out in my favor at first, till she ended up being bat shit crazy.
It’s whatever works for the people involved. If it weren’t for facebook, I’d never have met my wife, and we’ve been together for almost five years now.