I Come Not to Help Pick-Up Artists, but Normal Shy Guys

Three years ago, I wrote a dating advice essay called “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” Punchline:

Always ask to hold hands on a first date.

How it works: Holding hands is the mildest, lowest-commitment form of romantic behavior. As long as you wait for an opportune time to ask, almost no one will condemn you for the request. If someone did condemn you, even their friends would minimize the incident: “He just asked to hold hands, right?”

At the same time, the act of hand-holding is almost free of ambiguity. At least in the U.S., mere friends virtually never hold hands. If you see two adults holding hands, they are ipso facto romantically connected.

The upshot: If a person accepts your offer to hold hands, this dramatically raises the odds that (a) you are currently on a date, and (b) are out of the Friend Zone already. Contrarily, if a person declines to hold your hand, however politely, this dramatically increases the odds that (a) you are not currently on a date, and (b) are permanently stuck in the Friend Zone. If they don’t even want to hold your hand, it was never meant to be.

Richard Hanania was never convinced, but his recent essay shows that I still made an impression:

Three years ago, my friend Bryan Caplan suggested that men overcome information problems with women they are interested in dating by asking them if they want to hold hands. I agree with Bryan more often than almost anyone else, but I commented that I didn’t think this was a great idea. I recently thought about this article again, in part due to talking to Steven Pinker about his book on common knowledge, and it made me want to write about what I think are better ways to go about solving the real problem Bryan points to.

Richard proceeds to offer ample insight and useful advice, including:

[F]acial expressions, body language, and even voice intonation and laughter are the primary ways in which humans communicate romantic interest. Words, in terms of meaning rather than how they are said, come later, after the nature of the relationship has been established.

and

This is why each move forward should be gradual. If all goes well, at some point you’ll kiss her. By then it will be a very small step instead of trying to jump the Grand Canyon. A man who doesn’t know what he’s doing will observe HR norms and then suddenly try to transition from platonic to romantic by a grand gesture, and this is likely to fail.

and

Touch works in a similar way. Maybe you’re walking with her through a crowded street, and you guide her with a hand on the back that lingers too long for a normal friendship… Again, you don’t have to worry about being a predator, because she has a role to play in either going along or rejecting each advance. Don’t think she’s going to be confused. She’s a woman, this stuff comes much more naturally to her than it does to you.

My response: This is all excellent advice… for guys who don’t really need advice. If you’re already a confident guy who’s hoping to become a full-fledged pick-up artist, hone your non-verbal communication. By all means.

However, if you’re a normal, shy guy, Hanania’s advice is probably too hard. And normal, shy guys are clearly the majority of guys. I’d estimate 80%. Honestly, a supermajority are close to paralyzed. Telling them to work on giving and reading “facial expressions, body language, and even voice intonation and laughter” will probably make them feel even more helpless and hopeless. In contrast, “ask to hold hands on the first date” is instantly actionable — and helpful for all the reasons I originally explained.

My main doubt about my advice: No one has ever told me they tried it. To the best of my knowledge, “I want to hold your hand” is batting 0/0. So perhaps the intended audience is too anxious to try my proposed low-stakes risk. Unfortunate, but I struggle to think of anything helpful that requires even less effort.