When I was in college, I took a sociology class....the professor split the class into guys / girls and gave us a research project.

• We were to approach a member of the opposite sex by a random criteria he gave each of us (the criteria were things like...first girl you see wearing green, first girl you see with blond hair, etc)
• You had to follow the above criteria and couldn't insert your personal likes / dislikes into it.
• You had to ask 1 of 3 possible questions to her: The questions were ranked from being less aggressive to more: (a) Hi...I've been noticing you and wanted to ask you if you wanted to go get coffee sometime, (b) Hi...would you like to go out for a movie sometime? (c) Would you like to go out for dinner and drinks tonight?

The girls had to ask the same routine of the guys.

The acceptance results were basically:

• Guys asking Girls (a) 30% (b) 20% (c) 5%
• Girls asking Guys (a) 80% (b) 80% (c) 80%

So I guess the moral of the story is not surprising, but confirms what we already know. Don't come across as too aggressive / desperate....and well its ultimately just a numbers game.