[w0utert]

Let's not pretend real life is that much different. You can imagine scoring a date with a very popular girl just by some funny joke at the coffee machine all you want, but inviting her to a show or taking her out for dinner will be much more successful.

[spindritf]

While impressing women with wealth certainly works, and there are some things you can straight-up buy[1] that will immediately boost your attractiveness, in general trying to win women over with favours (dinners, shows, shopping sprees) works against you. It signals that you're so desperate as to be willing to buy attention.

I'd say everything on that list except for coffee and maybe drinks is a sucker's bet.

[1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19302732

[Dylan16807]

Aww, that citation is for the much less striking part of your post. Do you have a citation for the 'works against you' effect being stronger than the 'works for you' effect? It doesn't sound like something you can conclude without actual study.

[alanctgardner2]

For the most part, you need to ask people out. You can't depend on them doing it for you, nor can you just wait for something spontaneous to happen. However, I reject the idea that you have to shower women with money to get them to go out with you. Something like going out for coffee is low-key and harder to reject, whereas a show or dinner puts on a lot of pressure. It might help if you were funny at the coffee machine last week.

What's the deal with "popular" as an adjective, anyways? It seems like a habit of putting people into categories like a cliche high school movie.

[w0utert]

>> However, I reject the idea that you have to shower women with money to get them to go out with you. Something like going out for coffee is low-key and harder to reject, whereas a show or dinner puts on a lot of pressure.

Sure, no disagreement here. I'm not defending anyone who thinks gifts or display of wealth are appropriate or necessary to get a date, just stating the fact they often increase your chance with women (maybe men as well, I don't have experience with that).

The thing that strikes me when people talk about relationships, they often pretend materialistic motives are some imaginary and mostly bad thing. In the real world, wealth (self-sufficiency) is (and has always been) a pretty strong factor for desirability.

>> What's the deal with "popular" as an adjective, anyways? It seems like a habit of putting people into categories like a cliche high school movie.

By 'popular' I mean 'attractive' for whatever reason (intelligent, funny, good-looking, etc). Or in other words: not likely to be short on attention from potential dates. I don't think of it as a high school cliche.

[waterlion]

I don't know. Everyone's different. All my relationships have started because I hit it off with the person in question.

(For the avoidance of doubt, by 'hit it off' I mean 'got on well with').