A little bit ago we wrote an article on yours truly, Elite Daily, called “If You Really Liked Her, You'd Be The First One To Make A Move.” The title here pretty much sums up the point of the article, but incase you need more of a clue in: Guys, just ask us out already. While we stand by our article and wholeheartedly still believe in every typed word within it, our stance on said article was recently challenged.

The challenger? A guy. OF COURSE.

He didn't just casually disagree with our belief that the “guy need to be the asker-outer.” He REALLY disagreed. In fact, he became sort of heated about it in the already hot 90-degree weather on his rooftop pool deck.

Although this is a great guy friend of ours, and he is allowed to challenge our viewpoints on our published works with no offense taken, we were confused and taken aback. Just simply telling guys they need to be the pursuers is not that obscure, right? Wrong.

Dying to know more, we started to grill this guy.

Let's set the stage for our guy friend. He is tall, successful, attractive, great personality and by far one of the best dinner dates in town. But, he is single. Even as his best gal pals, we have NO clue how in the world this guy is single. He really has it all.

He is the type of guy who is perfectly capable of walking into any bar and walking up to a girl and asking her out, yet he doesn't. He doesn't use dating apps because he thinks they are desperate and draw the wrong kind of attention. (We agree.) Further, he told us he is not likely to text first even if he really likes a girl, is not at all weirded out by a girl if she gives him “the double blow up” AND is flattered by and prefers girls going after him.

If you are thinking WHAT IN THE WORLD?! And WHY?! And wondering if our friend is a martian, we were too. We obvi needed more info so we dug deeper. Prepare, dear readers.

Revert back to the qualities we attributed to our guy in question. He has it all, remember? The reason he is so reluctant to chase and be the pursuer is quite simple. Upon further elaboration it made sense to us, and it can all be reverted back to one big dating cliché. He is a classic “good on paper guy.”

He purposefully resists the chase, asking girls out and be the pursuer because little does he know, some day some chick might be lonely, bored AF, whose besties are all married and pregnant and think, “well, he keeps asking me out, he is good on paper, so even though I don't have real feelings for him I should just keep dating him.”

BOOM. mind blown.

He views girls coming after him as a sign of genuine affection, versus feeling like he's “making” a girl like him.

This is so true. As relationship bloggers, we know that relationship “rules” and articles such as the ones we write are never black and white and set in stone; there are grey areas everywhere.

Case in point right here. Dating and putting yourself out there is just as scary for guys as it is for us girls. If we were him, we would be terrified to chase after someone who might not be there for the right reasons just to “settle” and check off the boxes in their all important list of things to accomplish before 40.

A girl chasing him tells him everything he needs to appease his fears. A girl coming on to him makes him feel like they actually want him for him, that he's not forcing someone to like him. They want to be with him because of who he is IRL; they want to see him and go on dates with him because they WANT to spend time to getting to know him. He is comforted by the idea that a girl wouldn't seek him out if she were doing so solely in hopes of fulfilling a void.

This is a tough situation where both he, and our article have conflicting points, but they can be drawn together. Girls want the guy to be the pursuer, they want to be asked out on dates and they are frustrated when guys don't follow the “rules” and ask them out. However, if a really really great guy who is not pass-up-able comes along, girls should most definitely consider changing the golden rules of dating and put themselves out there for the guy.

This is his point: If a girl really is interested in him, and not caught up in all he has and who he is on paper, she will put in some of the grunt work to get his attention in a real way. The others who are in it for the wrong reasons will give up eventually and move along with their lives.

Dating is a tough world to navigate, and this really throws a monkey wrench in our firm beliefs of waiting around for a guy to ask us out. However stuck on this process we are, we both fully admit if an amazing guy came around, there is zero chance we would sit idly by and wait for him. It's definitely not our favorite fantasy about finding love, but it sure is one that can happen.