The pursuit of man

I’ve been wanting to tackle this topic on the blog for a while. I think most of us fall naturally into either the pursuer or pursuee categories. Most of the time, I sit back and let the guys come to me although on occasion I’ll play the aggressor. I have long thought this is a really shitty strategy, but it’s hard to break myself of the habit because I’m naturally a bit shy with the opposite sex. Unless they’re unattractive or I’m unavailable in which case I’m very flirtatious. 

Online dating changes that completely. It’s still very easy for me to be the pursuee because I get contacted enough. But it’s much easier for me to be the pursuer. Online rejection is almost not like rejection at all. I have no problem shooting a guy an email and having him not respond. I’m disappointed, but rarely do I feel rejected. And I’m right that this is a better strategy. The only guys I’ve been out with more than once were all ones I emailed first.

This doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. Why do the guys I attract passively never measure up to the guys I attract actively? I can think of several possible reasons:

1. People only hit on the people they think they can’t normally get.

2. I’m inhibited around attractive men so they don’t ask me out.

3. I’m a better judge of who I’ll match with than the guys who pick me.

4. I’ve made the choice so I’m more likely to give them the benefit of the doubt and a real shot at dating.

5. Marxism is at it again—I just assume the guys who hit on me are inferior.

6. Hitting on guys makes them more attractive. This study explains this phenomenon.

7. I don’t understand statistics. This is probably best explained with a pie chart:

So if the pie chart represents all men and the guys who hit on me are a subset of this population, then there are going to be disproportionally more unattractive men hitting on me. Whereas I’m only hitting on the attractive ones.

There is one last possibility. Maybe, I’m just over thinking it. I don’t know what’s worse, thinking I’m doing everything right and the fates aren’t smiling on me or thinking I’m doing everything wrong.