The vanishing of dating norms for college students

[D. Gately]

After being back in the dating Game for over a decade now, I have come to the conclusion that young men in big cities and on larger college campuses have no idea how to ask a girl out or ‘date’ one anymore. The trends for millennials and Gen Z are well-known by now – they watch a lot of porn, they spend way too much time on social media, playing video games, and in HS actual dating/socializing with one girl has been replaced by constant group outings and bigger group ‘dates.’ A good-looking, intelligent HS senior may not even go on a ‘real’ date with a girl he likes until it’s prom season and he’s graduating, and that is also a group activity nowadays.

The only girls he meets outside of HS are probably co-workers if his parents allow him to work, and of course we are all told not to date co-workers even though that’s still where millions of us meet our future spouses. Then a few months later he is off to college, a freshman having to re-learn everything [he thought] he knew about young women, and culture, what’s popular, and what people expect from him. He simply has no idea at this point, and if he’s not dating, it will be quite hard for him to figure it out in his first year or two. He may literally not know how to ask a girl out that he likes, and that’s before you get to topics like avoidance anxiety. It’s so much easier to look at porn stars and jerk it.

Is it any wonder young men are so terrible at talking to girls in real life, asking them out, behaving in a fashion that would get them dates, knowing how to act on a first date? From what young women tell me, they don’t seem to have a clue. [Exceptions: E.g. on a small campus in the South, dating norms may be very well-defined and known to all very quickly, which benefits nearly everyone there.]

The lack of knowledge by young men reflexively then spills over to an increasing lack of dating knowledge by young adult women. When guys don’t know what the norms are or how to behave in the dating market, women stop expecting the ‘correct’ behavior and dating norms to exist. They’re grateful for any man who is neither clueless nor some angry red piller nor guys who are ‘opting out’ of their college’s dating scene [for any reason].

These young women don’t know how to ask for something they’ve never had. It’s much easier for them to read ‘spicy’ romantasy novels where young women have sex with several faeries* or pirates or vampires, watch traditional Hallmark romances, waste time posting thirst traps, or, again, watch lots of porn to have some sexual excitement in their life that involves men and not just their box of vibrators hidden in a shoe closet. How can they learn the dating ‘dance’ when the male partner has no idea how to dance? And that’s if he bothers to show up at all!

I’ll give a recent example – this smart, sexy, petite engineering student I was sleeping with told me a story about a guy she liked her sophomore year. They were in the same friend group. She liked him, she knew he liked her. Their friend group hung out often but he didn’t make a move during the first semester, even though she gladly would have slept with him as he was good-looking, smart and funny [and even had a plus accent iirc]. They go home for Xmas break, but when they returned to campus he made the wrong decision / took someone else’s bad advice. He gave her some over-the-top romantic gift and said how strongly he felt about her: this was his *first* move. It completely turned the girl off because now he came across as needy & desperate whereas before he was simply hot & mysterious. Now, she wasn’t interested in him anymore but that made him chase her even more desperately. Total failure.

When I think back to how Gen X handled these situations, it was much easier to solve. Guy X likes cute Girl A. Girl A likes Guy X. Guy X [me] is slow on the uptake, so our mutual friend Girl B asks me if I like Girl A. I say yes, Girl B asks why haven’t I asked Girl A out then? So then I did, Girl A says yes & is very happy to have a boyfriend.

I can tell you the list of reasons why hot college girls are dating older guys. 1) Nobody on campus is asking them out [BTW, I heard this a lot in Manhattan from gorgeous women in their 20s-30s there also]. The guys are scared in general, scared of asking out someone in their social circle and getting rejected, or of getting thrown out of the group.

2) Guys with no game ask them out. So they either a) say No, back to square 1, or b) they go on a date, and the guy hasn’t showered, or isn’t dressed properly, or tells her their ‘date’ is drinking Natty Light back at the frat house and listening to the same songs everyone already knows. No fun, no excitement for her, he’s failed, she goes home to her vibrators. c) If the guy manages to not screw it up fast, they may end up actually having sex. The issue is, young guys are absolutely terrible at sex. I have heard this from college women so very many times. They pop off in 2 minutes, they don’t know where the clitoris is, ask for anal upfront, try to video it, you name it, I’ve heard the complaint.

3) They get asked out by older men who are aware of dating norms, how to approach a woman, how to talk to her online or in real life, how to get her out on a date, how to dress to impress. They agree to go out with him, even if just to add some excitement into her life, and then he’s able to close the deal [or not.] But when she agrees to either a ONS or FWB relationship with him, she knows the sex will be better, her dates will be better, and he’ll show her fun things she didn’t know about or only dreamed about doing. It’s not about his money, or fancy cars, or yacht parties in Cote d’Azur.

3b) They go out with an older guy specifically to experience a kinky and/or dominant man because they are truly submissive – most women in the bedroom – or desire to have rough, kinky, bdsm sex and they are willing to trust the guy in this scenario will keep her safe, get consent, honor her safe words. Experience counts, after all. They’ve watched rough porn for years now, possibly read about it, dreamed about it, it turns them on, and now they want it and have found someone they can ask for it or verbally consent to it.

Just checked my stats and discovered almost exactly half of my new pickups the past 12+ years were college students. That doesn’t include grad students. I doubt it’s only me they want to sleep with, it’s any decent-looking older man who knows how to talk to women and how to bed them properly. I don’t even have great text game, I stick to basic logistics 95% of the time because I’m better chatting in person.

But I know how dating norms work which includes telling them when and where to be and how to dress for me, and how to calm their anxiety & fulfill their expectations. If they can carry on even a little conversation, I can do the rest of the 'work' to make the night enjoyable for her both in and out of the bedroom. That used to be the norm, back in the day, ask any of the OGs around here. "90% of success is just showing up."






* I read one romantasy to see what the fuss was about, this normal hot 19yr girl was kidnapped by Peter Pan, taken to another realm where she had lots of violent, kinky, group sex with him and his Lost Boys. Hilarious. But that's what gets them off. The most popular author of the genre, Sarah Maas, has sold over 75 million books & translated into 40 languages. Women's top 2 fantasies are sex with a stranger and group sex; that hasn't changed in my lifetime.

 

[KnownUniverse]

I don't think your theory holds up or else the field reports and journal section here would be dominated by players over 35. Most mellinnials and gen X are just as bad at pulling as Gen z. I mostly rely on cold approach - day game and night game - that's what i see first hand. The only thing I noticed is older men are more confident but it doesnt compensate for the lack of physical attraction. I often see middle aged men grab girls hands and start spinning them around but that interaction doesnt last longer than a few minutes before she walks off. I dont see a lot of young guys with that kind of confidence but when they do approach a girl (in their age range) the girls more likely to hook. Just like I don't see many young guys hooking milfs but i'm able to hook milfs quite reguarly.

The clearest divide i see in pick up is the guys who take action (approach, escalate, lead) vs the guys who rely on the girl to do half the work (waiting for IOIs etc).

 

[ChrisXKiss]

Just checked my stats and discovered almost exactly half of my new pickups the past 12+ years were college students. That doesn’t include grad students.

Question here, how do you generally meet them, is it through some warm environment, or cold approach in a bar or street?

Saying this because, I don’t disagree with your points, that said I do get the feeling that for me at least the most difficult part of the interaction with them is the beginning.

I mainly do cold approach as I go about my day and I have felt that even when young girls seem interested, it feels quite awkward, and not as easy to flirt as with older girls. Some sort of nervousness, not knowing what they are supposed to do, and tendency to escape the tension.

And it throws me off because if I try and do basic things and connect I feel it is not getting exciting enough and I show too much interest in such a young girl upfront, but if I try and be more playful it can feel too intense and like I’m clearly out looking for sex with a hot young body.

So I’m not sure what direction to even take it, and how to position myself during the approach. I am 29 by the way, but for 18-22 year olds it still feels way out of their world.

 

[D. Gately]

Online then night game with day game bringing up the rear. I work in big cities [mostly] so girls in the 19-24 age range tend to be much more approachable than in small towns, I suspect. None of them came thru social circle/work or anything similar.

The hot body girls know I'm talking to them for the purpose of getting naked, I'm twice their age, they know I'm not interested in talking to them about the latest social media trends. Even though I almost always go indirect, young women already know what's up when you're both out having cocktails on a Wed night and you approach her, or vice versa.

She's out to meet men who are different than the ones on campus/her social circle. [Possibly due to the vanishing of dating norms already mentioned.]

And I think most people would be surprised how few 'real' friends a pretty college girl has. She has a ton of surface-level friends but very few she is willing to talk about emotional topics beyond the surface. She already knows every guy friend wants to fuck her.

Some obvious thoughts: If you connect with her and she's attracted, you'll do fine Yes, fun & exciting is better but getting a hot girl's number from cold daytime pickup is a win, particularly if an instadate was never possible because she's with friends or has class in 5 minutes, etc.

Too 'intense?' For whom? Are you possibly projecting your feelings on to hers? Has she told you the convo is too intense?
Or is the convo not properly calibrated for the setting -- in other words, I will try to pick up a HB9 at the grocery store at 2pm, but I'm not going to run my BDSM gambits on her at that time...unless she's carrying a copy of that Peter Pan 'dark romance.'

 

[DArtagnan]

Here are my 2 cents.

I think the "parent generation" is greatly to blame for this too, not only the youngsters.

I was born in 1987, 38 years old. As a rough impression, I note that people 5 years around me, so between 1982 and 1992, and including me, were all bad at dating when we were in high school and college.

Personally, my parental grandma, a Christian conservative, a very traditional woman, was the only person in my family trying to teach me how to date. She would always insist that I should go to social dance events. The problem is that I didn't know how to dance at the time, and in my social circle, nobody was dancing nor going to any kind of social dance event. This suggestion from her seemed completely alien for me at the time, and I completely disregarded it as grandma bullshit.

She would also try to give me some small tips, teach me how to flirt, and things like that. When we went to the cinema, or took a taxi, or got something to eat, she would secretly give me some bills and tell me "you are the man here, you should go there and pay". The problem is that she was a pain in the ass, always uptight, had no tact whatsoever, very authoritative, a true tyrant. It was very hard to listen to her...

Nowadays, I realize that the message she wanted to convey was not strictly about the dance events, but that I should try to fit in my schedule some activity with the goal of meeting girls. This was normal for my grandma. It was part of the "life hygiene" for her. And I guess that this is also what you are talking about, @D. Gately, and what you guys all talk about in the seduction community.

 

[ChrisXKiss]

She's out to meet men who are different than the ones on campus/her social circle. [Possibly due to the vanishing of dating norms already mentioned.]

Yeah this makes sense, that girls that go out to these more fancy places are surely not looking for another guy their age. I guess it's more hit or miss when you approach a young girl in the street or in a bus station near a campus regarding what she is into.

My city is about 1+ million, if you include the suburbs as well, so not a small town, but also not very big. I've heard that there is a tendency for the locals here to be having the same friend circles since their youth, and it is not very difficult to meet people you know around randomly if you go to central areas.

Not wanting to make any excuses though, I should probably start going to more targeted places, because last years I have been in this transition of starting to not look like I belong to a student party by default, but still not being exactly sure which kind of place fits me the best at this stage of life.

And I think most people would be surprised how few 'real' friends a pretty college girl has. She has a ton of surface-level friends but very few she is willing to talk about emotional topics beyond the surface

Yeah I slept with a 21 year old in the summer and we went pretty deep, I enjoyed that vibe a lot, it's how I would like my lays with these girls too. But she was also a rare case of a girl that after approaching her, she was extremely willing to make time to meet me to the point of texting: "just tell me where to come and I'll come". I guess a product of what you described in the original post. Then I indeed did this:

If you connect with her and she's attracted, you'll do fine

and everything went very smoothly. It's just not something I seem to have been able to repeat with any consistency, and she was quite a mature thinker for her age, so not sure if it is even very repeatable with most young girls in general.

Too 'intense?' For whom? Are you possibly projecting your feelings on to hers? Has she told you the convo is too intense?
Or is the convo not properly calibrated for the setting -- in other words, I will try to pick up a HB9 at the grocery store at 2pm, but I'm not going to run my BDSM gambits on her at that time...unless she's carrying a copy of that Peter Pan 'dark romance.'

Yeah it could be that I feel I don't want to make it too intense or uncalibrated because I meet her in an environment where it is not the norm to approach.

I sometimes feel that just a direct approach to a young girl in an environment like a train station can feel very intense for her even before saying much. With older girls I've felt they appreciate a compliment and engage back more, while the younger ones may feel way more put on the spot and not sure how to handle it.

They do have something pure that I love though, and compared to an older girl that is boyfriend hunting they can really be a breath of fresh air.

 

[KnownUniverse]

Even though I almost always go indirect, young women already know what's up when you're both out having cocktails on a Wed night and you approach her, or vice versa.

Then how do you transition from going indirect to talking about kink/bdsm? I'd like to see how exactly that dialogue plays out so i can see if it works. Usually if the girl hasnt hooked she won't respond well to sexual topics especially things like kink - she will laugh (in a bad way) and pull back or cringe. Reaching the hook point is the hardest aspect of pulling during night game.

It also sounds like you live in a town full of solo women who aren't local. That makes it a ton easier. Lonely girls from another town are much more receptive than local girls who are often with their friends. Especially when it comes to age gaps.

 

[KnownUniverse]

I sometimes feel that just a direct approach to a young girl in an environment like a train station can feel very intense for her even before saying much. With older girls I've felt they appreciate a compliment and engage back more, while the younger ones may feel way more put on the spot and not sure how to handle it.

a lot of girls respond negatively upon initial approach then warm up as the interaction goes on. That's the tricky part with approaching stationary girls - you're not sure if she wants you there or not. That's why find it easy to open girls who are passing by so if they stop i know im not harassing them. But that method also comes with it's own set of issues (her first rejection is final even if it was a false rejection).