I'm someone who's been very interested to learn more about dating interactions and relationships. As a result, in my early 20s, I studied PUA and a couple of friends sent me Redpill videos. While I did learn a lot of stuff, over time I learned to take myself away from the toxic elements of these communities, but there were very valuable skills I've learned from them.

  1. The ability to go up to a person I find attractive and make conversation with them
  2. To seize opportunities to connect with a person I really like and I feel likes me back and we have a great thing going.
  3. Expressing interest in a non-creepy way or not doing too much expression
  4. The ability to set up dates, and to not take any rejection personally.
  5. Different ways of meeting people, especially through unconventional scenarios.

Going through that really opened my eyes and I ended up going on dates I never thought I would've gone on if I hadn't gone through what I did. Now I have a healthier way I go about my interactions. It was also going through the redpill and PUA's "become a masculine man by doing this" that I realize I'm not really a masculine man at all and really desire a more femdom dynamic, especially in sex.

However, there is one thing I notice. I talk about my experiences to some of my left-leaning friends and I notice there were associations they were unconsciously making that really bothered me

  1. They talk about going up to someone you find attractive to say hi as street harassment
  2. They see flirting as potential sexual harassment
  3. They see men being active with showing interest as wanting to get in someone's pants
  4. Women don't like men who are only interested in their physical appearance. They want to get to know you as a person. Gonna be honest, what makes you want to go up and talk to that person is most likely gonna be their appearance and I don't see anything wrong with that, as long as you center the conversation with getting to know the person.

And one thing I do notice is with the Fetlife circle I'm involved in (very left leaning people), whenever someone asks how to meet people and date, a lot of them will say "just start out as friends and if it's meant to be, let it grow from there." And I was confused because that was something I had done all my life and nothing really happened. It's as if though their advice was to just talk to people and let happenstance make you really lucky. There's also practical advice on how to DM people, more specifically women, but a lot of their advice is just geared towards "accepting no and moving on" and very few "If you get a yes, how do you proceed."

Perhaps there are members of this sub who aren't active with their dating lives like this, but maybe I can ask here. Why is there disdain for taking active agency with love and dating? Why are a lot of people subscribing to wanting relationships to just happen out of thin air? Are they hoping for some high school romance story (where most of them are either elaborate schemes to get with someone or just things happening in happenstance?).

Here's my stance. I think it's completely okay to approach someone you find attractive and express interest in them (even if it is physical interest and even in cold approach environments). I think it's okay to express sexual interest via compliments or flirting to see if the other person is interested back. I think it's okay to ask for numbers and suggest you guys should meet up and have plans to make that happen. And you might not agree with me on this, but I also think it's okay to get advice on how to have sex with someone you find attractive (so as long as it raises sexual chemistry yet also respects boundaries and consent.). The last point is frowned upon because no one wants to be worked or 'manipulated' into sex which a lot of PUAs and redpillers unfortunately do do this, but for someone who is sexually inexperienced and doesn't want to potentially offend or make someone feel uncomfortable, having advice like this can really help. I think we should get rid of this fairytale fantasy to be friends with someone and hope something happens between us (which runs the risk of running into "friendzone" situations) and encourage active agency in love life, weather it be man pursuing a woman, a woman pursuing a man, lgbtq relationships, etc.

So why is there such a disdain for people taking agency in their love life?

Note: I'm asking for why the average left leaning person thinks this. By this I mean the way lefty culture is now (mostly being unaware or ignorant to men's issues such as demonizing of male sexuality & still expecting them to take the lead in courtship.). The left leaning male advocate is gonna be aware of why active agency is not being encouraged due to factors that work against men in current environment. I'm mostly asking for the perspective of a non-male advocate lefty person. That doesn't mean male advocates can't answer this question, but if you do, leave the male advocate stuff out as I'm mostly interest in the left culture as it currently is now.

I look forward to hearing your responses.