Youâve been spending your time hanging out with friends, keeping up with your homework and (of course) staring at the back of your crushâs head for the entirety of your lit class, willing him to ask you out already. Seriously, whatâs the holdup?!
The best way to deal? Definitely not by waiting around for him to man up and text you. Instead, woman up and ask him out yourself! If the idea of putting yourself out there makes you want to hole up and hide in your dorm, try following these tried-and-true tips.
1. Be Confident
We get it: asking a guy out can be super scary. Like, Iâd-rather-watch-The-Conjuring-alone-than-do-this scary. The problem is, if all you do is sit around thinking about how scared you are to make a move, you might miss your chance! To give you a much-needed confidence boost, weâre going to let you in on a little secret: most guys are A-OK with you taking the lead!
âAs a guy, I really wouldn’t mind if more women started taking action into their own hands,â says Her Campus Real Live College Guy Dale. âIf you like a guy, go up and talk to him or ask him outâdon’t send out playful vibes and hope that he’ll get the message. I would be so totally impressed if a woman just came up to me and asked me out. It shows me confidence and creativity, and I would really have almost no other choice than to say yes to a date.â
Daleâs not the only one who wants you to make a move. Briana, a recent graduate of Georgia College, has found that boys donât mind at all. âIt’s perfectly alright to ask a guy outâin fact, many guys think that it’s super attractive when you make the first move!â she says.
Donât let your nerves get the best of you. He may not even know youâre interested in him until you make it clearâafter all, males arenât exactly known for their intuition.
2. Initiate Conversation
Unsurprisingly, itâs best to actually talk to a guy before you try to take him out. For one, you want to see if heâs even worth getting to know. Is he your type? Can he hold up a conversation? For another, itâs one of the best ways to gauge whether he might be into you too, saving you from what could be a serious awkward-turtle moment.
âYou should have a conversation before asking him out,â advises Kim Olver, author of Secrets of Happy Couples: Loving Yourself, Your Partner, and Your Life. âYouâll have a sense of if itâs give and take. If you ask something about him and he seems just as interested in finding out something about you, then I think itâs safe to be able to ask [him out].â
If youâre doing all the work whenever you talk and heâs not responding much, Olver says you can save yourself the trouble and find another fish in the pond.
The tactic worked well for Kaitlin, a junior at Denison University. âWe ended up sitting next to each other [in economics], and since I didn’t really know anyone else in the class and thought he seemed nice/good-looking, I said hey, and asked him a question about the class,â she says. âWe ended up talking for five minutes until our professor arrived. Looking back, if I hadn’t initiated a conversation with him, nothing may have ever happened!â
While Kaitlinâs boyfriend was the one who asked for her number and asked to take her out, Kaitlinâs the one who got the ball rolling by striking up a conversation in the first place. Think of it as an awesome and super-rewarding way to stretch your flirtation muscles!
3. Keep it Casual
Even if your heartâs beating a mile a minute when you start chatting, your best bet is to keep your cool and keep the questions light. â[Say] something low-pressure,â advises Olver. âNot, âWould you go to my sisterâs wedding with me?â Thatâs kind of high-pressure. You want to do a low-pressure, kind of casual, âWould you like to get coffee? Would you like to get lunch?ââ Youâre probably not ready for super cutesy fall dates, but you might get there soon if you lay the groundwork now!
Briana agrees. âInvite him to get coffee with you or something chill like that,â she suggests. âYou don’t have to make it an elaborate production.â You arenât asking him to marry you, so thereâs really no need to be nervous (or make him nervous in the process)!
The best way to do it? Show your funny side! You donât have to be the star of your schoolâs improv groupâchances are youâve got a little bit of Tina Fey in you anyway. Thereâs no better time to let her shine than when youâre making movies on your man crush!
âI’ve casually asked guys out before via text by using a sarcastic sincerity. Itâs a thing!â says Chloe, a recent grad of The University of Iowa. âI generally say something along the lines of, âNot that texting back and forth for days isn’t fun, but we should actually talk face to face some time. Maybe with food. Maybe this weekend.â I don’t think it’s never not worked! Or I’ll say the exact same thing, but in person.â She swears that her humor diffuses any awkwardness and that nervousness is a total mood-killer. So take her lead and make fun of the situation!
4. Suggest Something Specific
As easy as it would be to casually ask, âWant to hang out sometime?â, this cop-out wonât get you and your Campus Cutie anywhere any time soon. If youâre going to ask him out, you should ask him to actually do something specific.
âUsually it helps if thereâs something specific to invite him to,â says Olver. âI would try to think about, first of all: what do I like to do? And what do I think this person might like to do? If youâre into football, ask if heâs going to a football game and if you could meet up there. Or if you like to work out, [ask], âAre you going to the gym? Would you like to go with me [and] maybe grab a smoothie afterwards?ââ
The awesome thing about being the one to make the first move is that you get to call the shots. As much as we love being dragged to a campus hockey game in which weâre totally disinterested (yawn) we think it might be time that we do something we like for a change. Whatâs more, youâll get to show him the real you. If you really love a band thatâs performing on campus and you bring your crush with you, heâll learn a lot about you just by being there.
5. Donât Worry About the Outcome too Much
Olver says that the key to asking-him-out courage is to not view it as a make-or-break situation. âItâs important to recognize that if we ask out our crush and he says no, weâre still going to be fine,â she says. â[What] I think is so important is understanding [that] itâs not because youâre not good enough. Itâs not because thereâs something wrong with you. Itâs just because he wants something different, and thatâs okay. When you go into it with that mindset, thereâs less nervousness; thereâs less riding on it.â
The less nervous you are, the more casual youâll be, and the more likely it is that heâll be into the idea. Even if he just wants to be friends, youâll feel better knowing!
âMy advice would be: no matter how nervous you are, do it,â says Nicole, a senior at Marist College. âOtherwise, you’re just going to wonder if things would be different if you had opened up.â After all, itâs worth it in the long run, even if a guy or two turns you down along the way.
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Take the lead in your love life this semester! No matter how nervous you may be about taking the plunge, you might just find that the shy guy youâve been crushing on has been into you from the start. Youâll never know until you ask!