Generally speaking I think it is even better to say "do you want to?" rather than "can I?" For example: "Wanna hold hands?", or "Would you like to hold hands?", rather than "Can I hold your hand?" Instead of asking her for permission, you're inviting her to express her desire.
Not an intentionally mean spirited snark but "being single now actually feels calm"; obviously that hand holding strategy not working out for you for the purposes it's meant for.
BTW outside that I just wanted to say you brought up an interesting point and one I honestly never heard anyone mention though it's probably common, I went through it myself: "I had devoted everything to being loyal to my ex wife, and even though the divorce was finalized, part of me still felt like I was breaking a promise". It's something you hear in, or around, discussions with male widowers but you never really hear it in discussions of male divorcees. I think it's tied to the unspoken cultural narrative in America divorce is ALWAYS the man's fault hence any suffering by them is deserved hence can't be spoken about. Thank you for expressing that out loud.
How to close the deal or escalated the relationship, i.e. move to what YOU want, sex or a Nth date. He was hedge dating (i.e. creeping on his nominal or perspective friends) so like many who do that, they have difficulties with closure or moving the dating forward to a romantic or sexual relationship because it requires risking a negative foreclosure, i.e. opportunity cost. See when you hedge date, if you never force closure or progression, you can embark on a successful (enough) siege strategy where rather than get rejected (or accepted), you can just resign yourself to the friendzone and hope, as oft happens, you wear them down or hell freezes over, maybe after their third divorce in their middle ages when they got a couple mouths to feed and single income hurts or maybe you will just be there when they are drunk and just broke up yesterday with the guy they were actually attracted to. They are always looked for a fourth divorce and by God, that can be you thankfully, you did it, you stuck around long enough!!! I'm being slightly tongue-in-cheek there but some people genuinely truly do find happiness in that even if they know in their souls the other person just settled, the can reconcile themselves with the tortuous winning the race still.
It's not a shyness or neurodivergent thing (God I hate that pop phrase) like they play off, that claim is just part of the hedge mentality thing again like autism or anxiety/depressed/ADD of yesteryear, it's "cool". It's just pure ineptness or fear because they (the audience for Bryan's advice) tend to have normative dating behaviors unlike actual shy or neurodivergent people who don't really worry about how to move from A to B because generally they can't even get to A, much less every got married even once. You see studies out there, and enough of them it seems to at least hold up broadly even if want to argue on the exact percentages, with things like "30% of men haven't even been on a single date in the last five years" and that's not a hand holding problem. Likewise that sort of statistic encourages hedge dating, NOT getting closure as Bryan suggests, as if you are on your first date in a five years, and statistically it will only get worse as you get older, you are better off friend zoning and praying than nothing. Worst case you have a low cost bymedrinky girl (i.e. your personal gentlemen's club hostess). Why wreck that with escalation?
What handholding shows in the strategy of this context is boldness, but anything can do that. The real advice is, like most sound successful advices that survived the ages, is "Just do something" that explicitly shows your intent and interest. Whether that's asking to hold their hand (and you needed Bryan to give you that confidence) or the time honored "nice boots, lets fuck" (which works more often than hand holding believe it or not in my experience, as well as others I've spoken with that have used variants of that), you just need to do something to get closure either way. I forget the old rule of thumb and don't want to look it up, but generally I think it's said women know if they are interested enough in the other person within three dates so yeah if you are on date four (or some arbitrary number buts lets say date four) and are somehow still confused, by all means, go with the the hand holding question because a case where I will suggest it does work, is with lonely scared shy woman with self esteem problems, the sort that will friendzone you on accident hoping you will eventually make a move because they can't or won't either. If that's your dating type.
PS: I forgot who said it, it might even have been Bryan long ago or hell, even my mother, but really the answer to dating is "date people that want to date". Those are hard to find, especially in today's age as too many women use dating venues as a form of entertainment or employment, but that is the problem we really need to solve for. We have become a society (back to Bryan or whoever said it, antisocial destructive cultural traits; I think that was Bryan) that discourages dating and relationships. The problem fundamentally is a matching problem and the time honored, and successful, ways to resolving that have went out the window.
Generally speaking I think it is even better to say "do you want to?" rather than "can I?" For example: "Wanna hold hands?", or "Would you like to hold hands?", rather than "Can I hold your hand?" Instead of asking her for permission, you're inviting her to express her desire.
"I feel the hand holding advice feels like"
Feelings, indeed. That WAS a good song. Morris Albert.
Not an intentionally mean spirited snark but "being single now actually feels calm"; obviously that hand holding strategy not working out for you for the purposes it's meant for.
BTW outside that I just wanted to say you brought up an interesting point and one I honestly never heard anyone mention though it's probably common, I went through it myself: "I had devoted everything to being loyal to my ex wife, and even though the divorce was finalized, part of me still felt like I was breaking a promise". It's something you hear in, or around, discussions with male widowers but you never really hear it in discussions of male divorcees. I think it's tied to the unspoken cultural narrative in America divorce is ALWAYS the man's fault hence any suffering by them is deserved hence can't be spoken about. Thank you for expressing that out loud.
What do you suppose the writer means by "gradual escalation" in his elevemth paragraph? Escalation of what ?
How to close the deal or escalated the relationship, i.e. move to what YOU want, sex or a Nth date. He was hedge dating (i.e. creeping on his nominal or perspective friends) so like many who do that, they have difficulties with closure or moving the dating forward to a romantic or sexual relationship because it requires risking a negative foreclosure, i.e. opportunity cost. See when you hedge date, if you never force closure or progression, you can embark on a successful (enough) siege strategy where rather than get rejected (or accepted), you can just resign yourself to the friendzone and hope, as oft happens, you wear them down or hell freezes over, maybe after their third divorce in their middle ages when they got a couple mouths to feed and single income hurts or maybe you will just be there when they are drunk and just broke up yesterday with the guy they were actually attracted to. They are always looked for a fourth divorce and by God, that can be you thankfully, you did it, you stuck around long enough!!! I'm being slightly tongue-in-cheek there but some people genuinely truly do find happiness in that even if they know in their souls the other person just settled, the can reconcile themselves with the tortuous winning the race still.
It's not a shyness or neurodivergent thing (God I hate that pop phrase) like they play off, that claim is just part of the hedge mentality thing again like autism or anxiety/depressed/ADD of yesteryear, it's "cool". It's just pure ineptness or fear because they (the audience for Bryan's advice) tend to have normative dating behaviors unlike actual shy or neurodivergent people who don't really worry about how to move from A to B because generally they can't even get to A, much less every got married even once. You see studies out there, and enough of them it seems to at least hold up broadly even if want to argue on the exact percentages, with things like "30% of men haven't even been on a single date in the last five years" and that's not a hand holding problem. Likewise that sort of statistic encourages hedge dating, NOT getting closure as Bryan suggests, as if you are on your first date in a five years, and statistically it will only get worse as you get older, you are better off friend zoning and praying than nothing. Worst case you have a low cost bymedrinky girl (i.e. your personal gentlemen's club hostess). Why wreck that with escalation?
What handholding shows in the strategy of this context is boldness, but anything can do that. The real advice is, like most sound successful advices that survived the ages, is "Just do something" that explicitly shows your intent and interest. Whether that's asking to hold their hand (and you needed Bryan to give you that confidence) or the time honored "nice boots, lets fuck" (which works more often than hand holding believe it or not in my experience, as well as others I've spoken with that have used variants of that), you just need to do something to get closure either way. I forget the old rule of thumb and don't want to look it up, but generally I think it's said women know if they are interested enough in the other person within three dates so yeah if you are on date four (or some arbitrary number buts lets say date four) and are somehow still confused, by all means, go with the the hand holding question because a case where I will suggest it does work, is with lonely scared shy woman with self esteem problems, the sort that will friendzone you on accident hoping you will eventually make a move because they can't or won't either. If that's your dating type.
PS: I forgot who said it, it might even have been Bryan long ago or hell, even my mother, but really the answer to dating is "date people that want to date". Those are hard to find, especially in today's age as too many women use dating venues as a form of entertainment or employment, but that is the problem we really need to solve for. We have become a society (back to Bryan or whoever said it, antisocial destructive cultural traits; I think that was Bryan) that discourages dating and relationships. The problem fundamentally is a matching problem and the time honored, and successful, ways to resolving that have went out the window.