Wiley Ballard, a sports journalist, is being dragged for what critics are calling an “unprofessional disgrace,” “insanely inappropriate,” and “GROSSSSSSS.”
CBS MLB editor Katie Feldman said: "This is one of the most insanely inappropriate things I've ever seen. Like I legitimately cannot believe it's real."
Ballard was on the air interviewing two women. With some encouragement from his colleagues, Ballard asked one of them for her phone number. She gave it to him.
I can’t believe he wasn’t arrested.
Obviously, there are legitimate criticisms to be made about workplace conduct and professional boundaries.
It’s worth considering, though, whether some of the intensity of the backlash stems from something else too: the relationship between gender and status in the dating market.
A lot of the people criticizing this guy are professional women. Some of whom are journalists. And a smaller subset who are sports journalists. I can’t help but wonder if at least part of their anger at this guy is because status doesn’t translate into the same type of romantic success for women as it does for men.
In other words, these women worked really hard to get to their positions, and then find that dating hasn’t gotten much easier. Sometimes, beyond a certain level of success, dating for women gets harder.
In contrast, if you’re a man and you have a cool job, dating gets a lot easier. Their female colleagues (some, not all) see this and are infuriated at the unfairness.
There’s plenty of envy going on here too. Men mad at him for being in a position to get a woman’s number. Women mad because they don’t get asked out and therefore no women should ever be asked out.
The dating market is a modern novelty. Your grandparents met someone in their neighborhood, got married, and made it work. In poor countries, marriage rates are higher; people rely on one another for survival. Not so in rich countries, so you can remain single indefinitely.
As a man you have to accept that the price for potential romance is potential irritation. You also pay a price for doing nothing at all. Maybe get a girlfriend, maybe make a woman upset, maybe be a loner/loser. Look, it’s not easy. But the alternative—doing nothing—isn’t consequence-free either.
It’s your choice.
Nearly half of young men say they have never asked a woman on a date in person (whether school, work, hobbies, bars, etc.).
Asking someone out is extremely stressful for most guys who are not inordinately confident or high on the Dark Triad personality traits (that is, most guys).
I knew a male student at Cambridge who spent nearly every single day for an entire year with a female classmate of his. He would ask her to “study” and she would agree. Then, on literally the day before they were set to graduate, he asked her out, and she said yes. They’re now married. She told me she couldn’t believe how long he took because she gave him every possible hint, and yet still he almost didn’t go through with it.
Take a group of 100 young men. You’ll find 40 or 50 of these timid guys versus only 4 or 5 outwardly confident types who boldly ask women out. There are probably 10 shy, self-conscious guys for every 1 ultra confident one. Most guys are somewhere in the middle.
I’ve noticed a lot of guys derive satisfaction from being losers and defend their self-image by exaggerating the likelihood of women getting upset if you ask them out. Or they confirm their biases by only watching videos of women getting annoyed for being asked out (and not videos of women who are happy about being asked out). Or they spend time annoying women online or insulting them, hoping they’ll be insulted back to confirm their own self-image as losers.
You’re allowed to ask people out. Obviously, everyone’s risk profile is different and you shouldn’t risk your livelihood just to get someone’s number (like that male sports journalist did). But generally, most unpartnered people should err on the side of asking more people out.
This applies more so to men than women. Women don’t ask people out that often.
Most women—93 percent—say they prefer to be asked out on a date rather than do the asking themselves. Only 6 percent of women say they’d rather take the initiative.
Men, by contrast, show the opposite pattern: 83 percent prefer to be the ones doing the asking, while just 16 percent say they’d rather be asked out.
Interestingly, this means that nearly 3 times more men prefer to be asked out (16%) than there are women who prefer to do the asking (6%).
Most women and men prefer when men are the ones who take the initiative.
This sex difference is deeply rooted and will never change. Some years ago, a female friend of mine explained that she liked a guy and was sending him hints. I replied, “Why not just ask him out?” She looked at me like I was crazy and said, “No matter how much I liked a guy, I would never ask him out.” Imagine a guy saying, “No matter how much I liked a girl, I would never ask her out.” The correct response would be something like, “Enjoy being eternally single then.”
If you want to get more dates, it helps to become a more attractive person.
If you're fat, lose weight. And if you dress like shit, figure out your style, get clothes that fit. If you’re a guy, get a woman’s advice. If you don’t know any women, ask female staff at the store.
Get some nice shoes that fit, take care of your grooming and hygiene. So many guys have disgusting beards. They’re not well-kept and well-groomed. They don’t get haircuts regularly, they don’t comb their hair. This is very basic stuff.
Try to look as best as you can. Try to reach the uppermost limitation of whatever your genetic ceiling is. And that’ll put you in a better position for people to be open to speaking with you.
Maybe get a dog. One study found that when an attractive man approached women while walking a dog, 28% of them gave him their phone number. But when the same man made the approach without a dog, only 9% did.
Maybe learn how to play an instrument. In another experiment, a young male approached women in a public setting, asking for their phone numbers while carrying either a guitar case or nothing. The findings revealed that women were significantly more likely to provide their phone numbers when the man was carrying a guitar case (31%) compared to no guitar case (14%).
As an aside, I recently saw a post on twitter asking “whats the female equivalent of poorly playing the guitar at a party.” Wilfred Reilly said “cleaning while high to show you're marriage material.” Lol. I’ve seen both. At least cleaning results in cleanliness. Playing a guitar poorly just makes listeners miserable. So if you’re going to learn an instrument, do it well.
If your romantic standards are sky-high, then you’d better be impressive enough to justify them. Jordan Peterson has said “What makes you think that even if you found the person that was right for you, they wouldn’t take one look at you and run away screaming?”
Even if they don’t run away, even if they do like you enough to be with you, you still have to be attractive enough to hold their interest. The evolutionary psychologist David Buss has said, “Mates, once gained, must be retained.” An average guy might manage to get a few dates with a supermodel. But the supermodel’s array of potential alternative options can introduce potential instability into the relationship. This can lead to jealousy, increased mate guarding, warding off potential romantic rivals, increased stress, heated arguments, and so on.
The more you loosen up your criteria, the more options you’ll find. The more people you meet and ask out, the more dates you’ll go on.
Interestingly, people are more likely to say yes when someone asks them out than they are to do the asking themselves. Saying yes feels generous—like you're giving the other person a chance. But making the first move? That’s terrifying for most people.
Even when two people are into each other, they often never end up dating. This is usually because neither had the courage to say something. They’re both waiting, both afraid of rejection, and then nothing happens. This happens more than you think.
More than once I’ve seen guys shake at the prospect of asking a girl out, even when he knows that she likes him.
Many years ago I met a girl at Starbucks and got her phone number. Later I called her and asked her out. She said “Yeah, but just as friends right?” I said okay sounds good. This conversation took place during a phone call, to give you an idea of how long ago this was (2010 I think). We had lunch, then went to a nearby shopping mall where she helped me pick out a new jacket (I was stationed in Washington state at the time, at a base not far from Seattle; lots of rainfall). We had a good time but I don’t even think we hugged goodbye. Next time we hung out we got dinner and she came over afterwards. We dated for a few months. In hindsight, her motives (probably largely unconscious) for that first date, and her comment about just hanging as friends, were screening mechanisms to make sure she was attracted to me and that I was not a lunatic. Let’s see if this guy can get through lunch and shopping as a normal human being first before we see where else it might go. Perfectly reasonable for a young woman who is unsure how much she likes a guy she barely knows. Later, she told me that when I asked her out on a second date (which I nearly didn’t because I thought the “just friends” date went well, but not spectacular), she was so excited that she couldn’t sleep the night before the date. At that time, I was unaware that 68% of romantic relationships start from friendship. Relationships where partners start as friends are more likely to be the rule than the exception. On average, friends-first partners were friends for almost 2 years before becoming romantic partners.
A lot of young men seem to think that attractive straight women are constantly fending off romantic advances. They're not. There’s an availability bias here where you’ll hear about women who tell stories of being asked out, but no one tells stories of not being asked out.
You’ll see videos online of women who complain/humblebrag about creeps hitting on them or whatever. People are far less likely to post a video saying they wish they’d get asked out more often. The former makes you look desirable, the latter sounds kind of pathetic—even though single women are more likely to fall into this latter category.
77% of women aged 18 to 30 say they wish they were asked out more. It’s worth noting here that mainstream media is run primarily by middle-aged women, who run articles discouraging men from approaching women because that’s not what they desire, without understanding that younger women want it to happen more.
Remember to be polite and friendly. Use common sense.
If someone says no when you ask them out, take it at face value and leave it alone. Don’t argue. Don’t try to “charm” or pressure them into changing their mind. Don’t badmouth them after the fact or respond to the rejection by being mean. In most situations, once the answer is no, the topic shouldn’t come up again. Respect it, move on, and turn your attention elsewhere.
If you want to go on dates, you gotta ask people out.
Even if you get turned down, the act of asking is something you should be proud of. You’re growing.
Still, don’t hit on people who are obviously not open to it. If a person is speedwalking on the sidewalk with headphones on or airpods in, leave them alone. But if you see someone who is clearly not in a rush and seems to be open to it, feel free to start a conversation. Some advice on improving your conversational skills here.
My 21 year old son, who has dated several women at college, said last week he had finally asked someone out. I was flabbergasted that this was the first! What a culture shift.
My problem was with women who wanted to turn me down, but couldn’t bring themselves to do so clearly.
There is another N word for some women that ends with O and has nothing in between. They can’t bring themselves to use it, even when followed by _thank you_.
I didn’t like to treat any ambiguity as a _no_, even though it was safer. False positives are bad, but I _really_ dislike false negatives. When I did get a polite, clear, refusal, I made sure to say “Ah, well, it was worth asking.”
Ladies, if all this information about how terrifying it is to approach you makes you feel bad about turning him down, don’t make it worse with an ambiguous refusal. Be polite and clear. He might not thank you for it, but then again, he might.