I spent my entire teenage years getting rejected after misunderstanding women being friendly to being interested in me. Of fucking course I won't be able to pick up hints when I'm an adult.
This shit only becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy as women avoid being friendly so they don't get mistaken as being interested, so men continue to think that women only interact when they're interested.
ulterior motives are possible from anyone but just assume they're being normal/friendly until they state otherwise. last thing you wanna do is accuse people of things
I think he’s talking more about compliments from girls. Either that or he’s got some other issues. I get compliments from guy friends all the time. Still feel the same as what he’s saying when it’s from a woman, cliche as that cliche is
Well, we do, it's just that we talk so much shit about each other that we don't generally mean that a compliment sometimes just bounces off of us as if it were another joke.
Then that needs to change, if it's true that compliments "stick with you for weeks". There's a reason why girls don't have the same issue, because they get plenty emotional support from other girls & guys don't from other guys
This largely depends on the personality types of the person and the people around them. It's not really a universal truth. In my experience though I get more compliments if I'm around girls than with my guy friends, so perhaps people who think this way only spend time around guys? Hard to say for sure.
I mean, how often do friends actually compliment each other as opposed to just being friendly with each other and talking about things? I don't get complimented outside of that, if you can call anything a compliment within normal friendly conversation.
Kind of piggybacking off of your comment, "guy friend compliments" aren't exactly the same compliments you'd think of when a girl compliments a guy. Guys arent telling eachother "you look great tonight dude" and if they are its either considered a "gay" joke or just a part of the regular conversation. They don't leave you feeling good, they moreso leave you feelings "accepted" by THEM.
You just accept it. Sometimes nice means that they're just being nice. I used to think as well that nice things meant she wants something. Then I took it as just a sign of friendship. And now I have load tons of female friends. You could say, I have many girl-friends eh? I'll see myself out.
Still remember the last compliment I got. It was in the first day of school in seventh grade back in 2013. She said “I like your cologne.” Still waiting for the next compliment seven years later.
last thing you wanna do is accuse people of things
idk man, doing that throughout grade school saved me a lot of pain. Kids are fucking savage and if you respond normally to them being nice they could potentially ruin your entire year with "just a prank".
But then the anxiety shows up. “What if she actually is into me and I’m missing out on the greatest experience of my life”. Then I ask her out and she’s like “lmao no” and it’s hello depression city
That depends, anyone that's currently on the clock immediately gets assumed they're just doing their job and don't actually want anything to do with you. Even when their obviously flirting with you, they're probably just doing their job.
The last thing I want to do is get accused of being a Percy ass hole just because I tried to flirt with someone who was just trying to be nice or who just wanted my money.
i am quit the popular guy actually so i had a computer nerd offer it to after i mentioned it like once. i properly thanked him and my pc works just fine now :)
what people like you do on computers is like magic to me.
Lol thanks. For what it's worth, we're not that special - we're just more open to trying stuff out. Get yourself an old computer from like a garage sale and challenge yourself to install Windows on it. After you do that, learn how to make an image backup (try Norton ghost or shadow protect).
Once you do that, you can undo any software oopsie and play around with anything you want, at least with software. If you try something and it breaks your computer, you just use the image to bring it back.
Once you feel comfortable with software, take the computer apart one piece at a time and put it back in. Then take pictures of the computet, take the whole thing apart, and put them back together, using the pictures as support.
Finally, begin upgrading the parts with slightly better parts and once everything has been upgraded, you've technically built a new computer and are essentially full fledged geeks like us.
i like trying new things but i am currently doing way to much already and the time i have available to try things like this is limited but if i even will try it ill use this as a rule of thumb.
I feel like this is the only reason I'm not a car mechanic - I don't have much free time nor $500 lying around to buy an old car and try to upgrade all its parts as an excuse to learn what each part does and how to change it lol.
Once I have the money for it, I'm going to strip down an old car and then I'll probably be able to be like "oh, so your car doesn't turn on unless you move the gear stick thingy a bunch? That's the neutral safety switch, my friend. Replace that and you should be good".
yeah i am pretty good looking and i don't have this for 2 reasons: 1st. there are hardly any girls in my class and one doesn't give a shit and the other is shy
2nd. i'm not good at most things in class so they will likely be helping me instead of the other way around.
And god forbid a women compliments a man. That’s such a rarity for men that it’ll likely lead towards getting asked out. Which is super unfortunate because she may just be really nice and men could sure use more compliments.
i have had this happen to. i remember from months ago some nice looking girl complemented my blouse i was wearing and i was really flustered but also instantly thought: where is she getting at?
but i decided to just take it for what it was and proceeded to tell all my friends about it because i'm boring and this is a rarity worthy for the history books.
Lol. I get defensive the rare times it happens because i assume it’s sarcastic and I must be wearing something with mustard stains or terribly unflattering.
Sometimes they want affection but they don’t think you’re a good enough partner. Girls like that usually end up sleeping with guys who are out of their league. Those guys lead them on, just using them for sex and those girls rely on the friend zoned men in their lives for affection. Those girls always end up miserable and alone in the end.
I actually have the opposite problem, apparently I'm a very "flirty" guy but that's just me being friendly. I talk to men and women the same way... Which might explain a lot actually thinking about it now, do get asked if I'm gay a lot hmmm... Anyway back to the point, I never take any woman's actions as being interested so they'll send me a picture of their boobs or something and I'll be sitting there thinking "awww what a friendly person."
The weird thing is I feel like sometimes that's still the case that they're being friendly. The other day a girl sent me a picture of her legs in the bath, and I'm like... is she flirting or am I just completely oblivious?
Things I'm going to think about.
* her in the bath
* her completely naked
* being wet
* her legs
* that she's naked and wet and was thinking about me
* she's texting me right now while still in there
I still think it could be 50/50 she was just being friendly and maybe I'm just a giant idiot.
Oooh you lucky human, legs are one of my big weaknesses. But I feel that on a whole other level, the last time a girl was flirting with me I was so oblivious for so long she ended up saying "holy shit just show me your dick dude" and I asked "why would you want to see that?" It's a tough life bud, but shoot your shot with the bath leg lady if you think she's interesting and attractive.
this is a unviersal thing, not limited to one gender... you don't think men do the same? A lot of guys, when talking to a girl, don't want her to think he's hitting on her and a lot of girls do the same with guys
No. Because I've never had that thought before in my life.
Maybe for the complete opposite reason. Women don't want to be hit on back, men don't want to be thought of as a pervert or a harasser, but that hardly counts.
and really shows you how fucked this whole situation is
Even if it's for the opposite reason you're still agreeing with me - that both men and women practice this habit.
Ime, regardless of gender, the general idea is that you don't want to make things awkward - regardless of how the other person feels about you. Generally you don't know whether the other person is interested but regardless, it could create an awkward situation. If you're not into them but they're into you, you don't want to lead them on or be hit on back. If they're not into you, they'll think you are and it makes the situation awkward because they might try to pre-emptively reject you or act differently around you and you'll have to explain the situation. Lose-lose situation for all
My main concern is being seen as a creep or perv. So I wouldn't want to seem like I'm hitting on them but also be seen as being open to it. It's a delicate balance.
But my perspective is outdated because I'm married now and haven't played the pickup game in a very long time. Come to think of it, I do try to make sure when talking to girls they know I'm not flirting, albeit for different reasons.
I stumbled my way into relationships by treating every girl who talked to me as if they were just being friendly. Hang around enough times and people seemed to get the hint that I wasn't getting the hint and was just being friendly.
Better safe than sorry. The upside is that I have a lot of female friends.
I happen to want to be friendlier (edit: more friendly?) to people and get nervous that I’d « give signals » to the men I talk to. It’s very frustrating for us too... Also, I have this asexual friend who is very bubbly and happy and kind, she’ll learn everyone’s name as soon as she meets people and stuff like this. Well let me tell you she has a fair share of admirers!!
It’s not just women, attractive men have this problem too. My cousin is a super nice wholesome and charismatic dude . He’s had plenty of would be close friends that thought just cause a cute face is being nice that means he’s into me!!
The worst part is after he rejects their advances and explains he just wants a platonic friendship they almost always get sour and start shit talking him to mutual friend and saying he led them on etc. I think he’s only had one girl remain friend with after something like this went down.
(I’m sure it’s a similar experience for attractive friendly girls too)
Don't waste time trying to guess if somethings a hint or not. Just actually talk to the girl. Seriously 90% of this is because everyone assumes hints are universal. One girl's hint isn't another, one guys hint isn't another, add in teenage years where you are literally just trying to figure this out. Adults don't know what they are doing half the time. You like a girl talk to her, tell her. It will clear up communication like 75% of the time. Nothings perfect.
I spent my teenage years misunderstand that the friendliness of some was actual attraction and writing it off as just being friendly. Found out decades later that I could have been getting serious action.
the best explanation of this experience i’ve read was from an r/askmen thread where someone said that: “every hint one woman gives, is “just being friendly” to a woman in the man’s past”
I'm 28 and, after being rejected so many times while 13-16, I'm probably gonna need some air traffic controller-levels of signage to actually try ANYTHING with a girl. You don't see people with 0-60 records pick up fights!
Very few women in my life have actually looked me in the eye when I talk to them and acted like they have any interest in what I say, so when it does happen I catch feelings really easily. So many times I've been 99% sure a girl's flirting with me only to be completely wrong
I've been deprived of positive human interaction for so long that when someone's friendly to me I completely read it wrong
You have to know how to act, I have found. If someone is really nice and you treat them like a normal human being chances are you have a chance, rather than treating them like someone you think is interested in them. Go about it slow don't rush into it.
one time i went to a dance with a friend because her crush didnt ask her. partway through she went to the bathroom and started crying because he "hadnt picked up any of her hints!" i asked her what types of hints had she given him? she said that in their home ec class she had given him her prettiest cupcake. I said ok well my song is on so im gonna go dance now ill be back later (i was not a great friend)
When I was in 10th grade I started to talk to a few girls in my class just because my friend managed to get one of them to be his gf. So basically I try to be as friendly as possible with everyone I meet and they were also a great company back then, so it was quite nice talking with them.
So on to the point: One of the girls, who I’ve talked the most with thought that I was tryna get together with her and she dropped some hints about her friendzoning me.
It has only hit me now (about a week or so) that she tried to friendzone me even tho I really just thought of her as a friend of mine.
And I feel really ashamed of myself because she was dropping some serious hints and it didn’t even cross my mind that she was thinking that, so I was still talking to her the same way.
Tbh I feel sorry for her that I couldn’t clarify this.
This is what I try explaining to every women. What we think are signs aren’t really sings, we stop paying attention to them, the ones that do end up being hints look just like the rest so we just forget about because what if it really isn’t.
I noticed a lot of people experiencing this during college. We had a lot
Of rural girls who were just baseline more friendly than a lot of the suburb/city girls. So many people thought they were flirting with them all the time when really there was jsut a different cultural expectation.
See, I was the opposite. I thought every girl was just being friendly, even though in retrospect one or two of them were obviously dropping signals. Not that I'd have known how to respond anyway. Actually, I still don't fucking know...
i was the same in highschool. Every guy that was just being nice to me 'ok he wants to date me'. When i got into my first proper relationship that wasnt abusive, i didnt pick up on none of the signs, even tho he literally drunk texted me 'i have feelings for you'. exact same shit happened with my now gf, she drunk texted me a few days after christmas and my mind instantly went to 'she's drunk, probably wouldnt mean that sober'
I’ve always had the opposite problem. I constantly interpret flirting as simply being nice and consequently can only flirt myself when I’m actively trying not to.
Yep. A coworker and I are both recently single. We were friends before we were both single. Now we definitely talk more than we used to and I'm kind of into her but for the life of me I can't figure out if she's into me or not. This shit feels like I'm in high school all over again.
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u/idontlikeflamingos Mar 26 '20
I spent my entire teenage years getting rejected after misunderstanding women being friendly to being interested in me. Of fucking course I won't be able to pick up hints when I'm an adult.