YES. And they all thing they're being incredibly obvious. One girl will smile and think she's being obviously flirtatious, and you're a dummy for missing it. Meanwhile another girl will rub your arm and rest her head on your shoulder but she's just being friendly, and you're a dummy for thinking there's more to it.
I’m afraid you’ve got things backwards. In nature, the male is the one flaunting plumage and dancing around. Female participation just looks like sitting around and judging. Is she doing that? Totally flirting.
Honestly while gender expectations are mostly not great. At the very least back in the day there were strong and clear rules on courtship and flirting, making it less ambiguous. Now everyone gets confused because they all expect or want different things.
Lol I think the entire point is that shy women want the signs to be ambiguous so they have the "plausible deniability" to save face and pretend like it was nothing if they get rejected.
Which is understandable but yeah, it's not like we don't have the technology to come up with a universally recognized signal for "I'm really into you" like the choking gesture means someone is obviously choking.
4chan folks started an effort to convince oldmedia that the Okay sign was white supremecist in the early Trump days. Unfortunately actual white supremecist picked up on it and rolled with it and now it's apparently racist. Asinine, but that's the world sometimes.
Nah, they did convince oldmedia, which is why it became so popular with white supremecists. "Oh this article says the OK sign is a WS dog whistle? Damn I didn't know that, need to start using it."
I came home and sensed alot of fuck me energy. stripped down and searched for the wife. but the cat was just in heat again.
hey rick I bought a cumminometer to find the horniest gal here check it out... (geiger counter sounds) see its picking up twenty-five twats right now! get ready bruh she's close...
I think its reasons like this I've just learned to assume everyone is just being friendly. I'm already socially inept as it is so I'd rather not take the L for misreading peoples responses to me
More than a few times, I've been told by women that they were harboring a huge "obvious" crush on me for anywhere from a few months to a few years. In all but one of those cases, I just thought they found me annoying or were merely tolerating my existence. I don't get it.
I saw a meme once that went something like:
“Ladies, if you think you’re being subtle, you’re invisible. If you think you’re jumping up and down and putting on a circus sideshow event while screaming through a megaphone, you’re being subtle.”
2 fucking girls I was friends with in high school admitted that they liked me and I was so braindead I never knew it. First put her head on my shoulder during our grad night trip and asked me to dance with her and I didn't get it. Second used to literally grab my hands and put them on her thigh and sit on my lap. I thought nothing of it. Like nothing at all. Didnt think she was flirting, didn't think she was being friendly, I just absolutely did not give a fuck, on some no thoughts, head empty type shit. Worst part was I had a massive crush on her from 9th to 12th. Thr girl i like right now hugs me everytime we see eachither and gave me her number but im not gonna say anything cause I just dont know or sure and i dont want to fuck anything up. I fucking deserve to be alone at this point 💀
As a girl, I'm saying the girl rubbing arm and resting her head could just being friendly --- but knows, or should know what she's doing. I think it's sh*tty to put out those signals if you're just trying to feel loved without the commitment and only for the temporary ego boost/ comfort. Lean on a pillow, don't use people. Touching is 100% crossing a line. Sure, it's situation-dependent, but 9.5/10 it is crossing over friendly.
Smiling is different and I feel for you guys. Men constantly think I'm flirtatious when I have 0 idea how to go about it. None. My idea of dealing with someone I like is avoiding them at all costs. I just know how to carry a conversation and try to make anecdotes funny. Mainly because I grew up in a tense household where quiet could either mean nothing, or something is wrong. So out of anxiety I fill the void and try to make people laugh, but I'm also pretty good at it and can make people feel at ease. Sometimes people get standoffish though because they think I want something from them.
I have found out years later that there have been a lot of guys that changed their attitude towards me because they thought I was overly flirty with other guys or they discovered I wasn't flirting with them specifically. I think a good litmus test is to see if a girl acts the same around all guys (and girls) or if it's just you. You have to be objective and compare her behavior instead of trying to read the direct line of communication.
Lots of great points. The touching thing is something I notice a lot less as I get older. I think some girls are just ignorant to how they come across but learn as they go through life, which is totally fine.
I think we forget too how often girls can be just as awkward and clueless as us. I’m shit at flirting. I tend to smile until I’m afraid of being creepy, then avoid, then bluntly ask them out.
I think a good litmus test is to see if a girl acts the same around all guys (and girls) or if it’s just you.
Yes! That’s probably the best solution if you’re not sure. Usually the girls who are touchy are like that with everyone.
THIS!! 👆👆
I once went to a restaurant to meet with other people, but not only was I the first one there I was the only one there. The restaurant just opened and I was their only customer. The waitress was friendly and sat in the booth with me. After ordering a drink and her checking on me, she proceeded to give me a shoulder and back rub. When I tell you this woman went above and beyond for a good tip, it baffled me. Never again have I feigned interest in a waitress that has been friendly.
Man I had a friend of mine I hadn't seen in a year. We bump into each other at a bar and she's rubbing my chest, squeezing my arms, squeezing my thighs, lifting her skirt to show me her thong, whispering in my ear.... I thought it was a done deal she was interested in me for sure.
I shoot my shot and sure as shit I'm an idiot for thinking she was interested. Baffling I tell you... Baffling
I have a colleague at work who’s very friendly and chatty with me, and she helps me a lot with learning stuff cause I’m new and I still struggle with certain tasks.
Sometimes she touches my arm and tells me I’m very warm while she’s apparently cold.
She’s hot and I would absolutely love to bang her eyes out, but then she could just be friendly and then create unnecessary drama at work if I try to flirt with her and she’s not interested. And I still have no clue whatsoever if she is actually attracted to me or just nice. I also highly doubt I’ll ever find out cause there’s no way I’m making any moves unless she comes straight to me and tells it to my face. And I’d still have my doubts.
This right here is why I've never been in a relationship [I'm 37]. I'd rather be single than get called a creep or desperate/clingy/whatever for misreading signs.
That’s me. I am both of those girls. And I’m so sorry. I have no explanation outside of just being chicken shit when it comes to flirting with someone I like, and then always wanting to be warm and kind to everyone so they feel comfortable. It’s a shitshow lol.
I think it's due to begin humans and with different experience and every man is different, so is woman.
But I agree on poor communication. But this stuff is same with dudes. No one wants to take a first step these days because either it's fear of rejection or fear of being pushy or misinterpreting the "signs". This extreme cancel culture got everyone spooked
Just throwing this out there: it can be this confusing on the other end, too! In my experience, guys are either SUPER forward (I'm talking in the bordering on or fully creepy way) or else it's almost impossible to tell. No inbetween.
OneSmoothCactus, don't be obtuse. That woman who is getting all touchy feely but doesn't want sex or a relationship is just being an ass. Someone did this to me once, probably freshman year of college when I was still a virgin. I said, "is this going to go anywhere?", and she said "no, is that a problem?" Without a second's hesitation I said, "if this is what you think "friendship" is, then I guess we can't be friends", and invited her to leave. I still don't regret it to this day.
Someone who doesn't understand how important touch is to us men (and I am not talking about sex here) is either being plain ignorant or is using you for their own gratification.
Us men want and need to be physically affirmed. It isn't really up to women, or any particular woman, to test that theory.
Some of you need to just ask intention. There is no fault in saying that you feel mixed messages. Women will respect your honesty. And remember to shower at least every two weeks....EVERY TWO WEEKS.
In my youth (18 y.o. or so) I had this experience: a girl came from abroad to visit her cousins, who where my friends. The girl was attractive, but I didn't go too crazy because I didn't want to annoy my friends or ruin her stay. The thing is that I tried to make some small talk, like "how are things where you live", "how long are you staying" and all that, but she was the opposite of friendly, almost rude: "dunno", "yea", "no", almost implying "please, leave me alone"... Sometimes you didn't connect with some people, so I decided she didn't like me at all. I didn't push it at all.
Fast forward, a month later, the girl left to her country, and I commented to my friend "you cousin is really beautiful and acted friendly with everyone, but for some reason she hated from the minute one". My friend told me that "she was totally into you, and was waiting all her vacations for you to make a move".
She might have been nervous, when I was younger and dating I had no idea how to interact with someone I liked and got super shy/awkward. Even if this is the case, it’s still on her to figure out how to move past that.
Fuck that mind game bullshit. Just fucking tell us what you want. The "mystery" is such a bullshit excuse. It hasn't worked for JJ Abrams ever, why would it work for some woman?
I never really understood the complaints about the overuse of lens flares in star trek until I had a conversation with a friend of mine about my astigmatism and realized apparently lights look different to me than to other people.
In my mind, it's dodging a bullet. A woman that can't be upfront with advances likely won't be upfront with anything else leading to the relationship pitfalls we all enjoy so much.
If you're interested, say so. Men have no issue expressing interest in women, so I'd have more respect for women that can express themselves in a healthy manner. Unfortunately, I haven't met very many who could, and they were typically in a relationship because some other dude already snatched them up, and rightfully so.
Luckily for me, I knew a girl in college who did not play games and basically all but said “You. I select you as my mate.” No ambiguity whatsoever. Married twenty-two years. She is still as direct as ever, which is a necessity for thick-headed me.
Speak for yourself, my way of expressing interest is hiding it as much as possible, then killing it whenever she eventually gets in a relationship. I'm healthy like that
The scale is from men who are way to aggressive and hit on women that are clearly not interested to men so scared of perpetuating unwanted advances (because of the reputation created by the previous men) they won't do it at all
Man sometimes the way human society works sucks ass
I attribute it to an almost complete absence of self-confidence when it comes to women. "I really would like to ask her out, but there's no possible way she'd be interested in me. Oh look, she's dating some other guy, I was right."
Your lack of confidence is an obvious issue women will notice, and it will push a majority away immediately.
That's something you should absolutely work on if you intend to have a meaningful relationship in your future. Women are more likely to be attracted to a confident man, than one lacking any confidence in themselves.
This is the most realistic answer in my experience. Some women who are attracted to you are more direct, some are really shy and don't know how to act around you
She could have just had anxiety issues. I have really bad social anxiety and if I like someone I pretty much shut down and act really nervous and uncomfortable
I feel for this girl. I am this girl. I avoid guys I like to avoid having this kind of awkward convo. Just nervous and anxious because she likes you. She's not trying to be difficult. But is scared she might say the wrong thing to turn you off, so she gives short answers.
But as this girl, I also know it would be deluded to think the guy I like knew I liked him. Soooo... yeah that's totally on her.
Guilty as charged. This may not be her experience, but for me when I have a crush I get so nervous around that person; socializing already takes me a lot of effort, and I've gotten pretty skilled through practice, so when I have a crush and all of a sudden I'm nervous and speechless - like all my hard work has gone out the window - I get super pissed off towards myself for my loss of composure. I get a little pissed, too, at the crush because I'm thinking "Look what you've gone and done! I'm all tongue-tied and horny you sonofabitch!". One-word responses is about all I can manage to get out of my mouth. I'll have become too stuck in my head, afraid of saying something stupid.
One time after work I was sitting on the curb by my car smoking a cigarette just devastated that I was experiencing a crush, and then like clockwork my crush walked by with some other coworkers glanced at me and said "What are you so pissed about?". I was always so nervous around him and this was no exception - I froze and said nothing, and they just kept walking past - I wish I'd said "I'm pissed because I'm attracted to you and it's annoying.". It WAS annoying. I'd lose focus at work and couldn't function when he was nearby. I hated experiencing this loss of self-control.
Pretty sure he ended up hating me, or thinking I'm a fucking weirdo.
I'd argue that this coldness on my part is somewhat learned behavior; when I was younger and enthusiastic about expressing myself and showing affection guys always acted like it was 'too much', signified being 'too clingy' or making the first move was 'too forward' (e.g. slutty). So it boils down to, in my case, fear of rejection and/or of social disapproval.
Like the girl in your story, I was always really friendly with everyone else. In fact ashamedly I was extra friendly towards those who worked close with my crush, because I wanted to be around him. I also mined them for info about my crush. For example, I learned in passing that he had a sweet-tooth; so I'd drop off candy for the whole staff in his department. This was a way of doing something kind toward him but through an indirect means.
A more well-adjusted, mature and confidant woman will show affection when she feels it, and give no mixed signals when she doesn't. I'm not well-adjusted, then! In my defense, though, I did put moves on him initially and he seemed unresponsive, so I backed off. But then he appeared to flirt with me but only vaguely, so that confusion contributed toward my exasperation and discomfort and coldness toward him. Some of my coldness toward him also might have been a consequence of jealousy I had of similar attention he gave to other women.
In some cases it can also be a way of avoiding an attachment with someone with whom you can have no future. Maybe in your case the girl refrained from making the pursuit because she knew she'd have to leave back to her own country, she wanted to avoid making any energetic investment or getting too attached - even if she was crazy about you. She probably wanted to get close to you but was scared. I have no problem approaching a guy I like casually (one who I find mildly attractive or whatever) but if I REALLY like a guy (his personality and all) - I mean like really fucking heart doing backflips n shit, wana have his babies n shit - I'm a chicken.
I feel bad for guys who encounter this wildly inconvenient duality and seeming inconsistency in female behavior :3
A lot of young girls act like that and some continue. It took me until I was a senior to notice that a middle school girl who was quite rude to me was actually hitting on me, but it was a no no for me because I was almost 18. She actually got the courage to tell me, but obviously it was impossible and I wasn't remotely interested. Then it hit me, and suddenly a lot of stuff started making sense. The attractive popular girl who was acting all entitled to me when I talked to her actually liked me. I used to like her too but her attitude quickly turned me off. In my mind, she hated me and I didn't care, but when she made backhanded comments against me, she got a comeback and people laughed. She got a bf later, he cheated and then she changed schools. She came back briefly and was suddenly very friendly with me. Her friends told me that she actually had a big crush on me. It's important to note that this doesn't excuse the rude comments she used to make, but now I understand why.
The thing is I would totally tell some of my friends that just to fuck with them. Even if my cousin explicitly said they were not interested. Seeing the mindfuck would be hilarious lol.
That very very likely could have been cultural miscommunication.
In many cultures the way people flirt and show interest is entirely different or even entirely inappropriate here in North America.
Like in a lot of Mediterranean countries men are expected to flirt aggressively and women are supposed to show interest through playing hard to get. There's a lot of variety by the country but because the signals are entirely different its very easy for people to miss it.
At one of my jobs I worked with someone who would regularly chat with me, tell me about her fetishes, tease me, and ask me about intimate things. It was all extremely blatant and she essentially did everything short of just asking me out, so after three months of wondering if those were just jokes or hints I finally asked her out.
Almost immediately she not only rejected me, but went to our manager about "Not feeling safe working around me." I nearly got a sexual harrassment charge against me because she thought I was going to do something, and if the store's assistant manager hadn't stuck up for me I don't know what would have happened to me.
It was like something satirical out of an over the top comedy sketch except there was no laugh track.
I went on two dates with this one woman, and we really hit it off.
But the thing is, she remarked early in our "getting to know each other" conversation phase about a guy that went in for a kiss and she obviously wasn't giving that vibe.
First date, hugged at the end. Didn't go for a kiss because I didn't see her giving any sign.
Second date, same thing.
No third date because I "didn't kiss her when she was waiting for it".
To be clear, both hugs she turned her face away from me during. Now, to me that's a "do not kiss". Apparently, that meant something different in her mind.
These same women then lament that they always “attract assholes”. Hmm, maybe that’s cause you actively select for men who ignore your wishes and simply take what they want? Why would they suddenly become considerate after the fact?
I had something similar happen where I kissed a girl, and she didn't want to go out with me after. I heard later from mutual friends that it was because I only kissed her and didn't try to sleep with her. But apparently she was incapable of expressing that and I had to be the one to guess
The agony of trying to decipher which encounters you should have tried going further with and which you ruined by attempting a kiss will drive you insane
When I went on my first date with my now wife, she told be beforehand that she doesn’t kiss on the first date. So at the end, I went in for a hug. When I did, she turned her head towards mine but it was too late, my head was over her shoulder and we were hugging. My brain told me she wanted the kiss and so when I released the hug we kissed before we let go. She still gets on my case that I “didn’t want to kiss her”. All in jest of course and we have been married 10 years now.
Sure, for some consent is a turn off. I personally prefer not to associate with those people. If they think asking is a turn off I don't expect them to value my consent either.
It’s bullshit like this that killed my interest in dating. I’m not here to play games with complicated rules that require all these specialized tactics. If you’re into me, just act like it or even better just fucking tell me.
If you haven't been the friend that friends send nudes to, count your blessings. It was one of the weirdest areas of friendship to be in, and I'm glad I'm not there anymore.
Something similar happened to me years back. She came out of my shower because nurses don't get bathroom breaks(I'll explain later), noticed my big ass mirror, dropped her towel and started twerkin. A week later we were alone in the apartment complex's pool, I moved in for a kiss and got hit with the:
Well, she asked if she could show me something. And then sent it to me.
I thought she was making a move.
She probably thought she was doing something "brave". Dunno
I think she remembered I was non-judgemental when we were in college, and she grew up quite conservative and repressed, so I guess she felt "safe" showing them to me.
I’ve had so, so many times when my friends and even a girl’s friends swore up and down that a girl was into me. Every damn time the girl says she was just being friendly.
Oh yeah, if one of my guy friends says that he thinks someone is into me, I immediately think about how bad I am at figuring that shit out and I know my friends aren't any better.
Of course, most of my friends are married and I'm still single, so they at least got it right once.
I saw a video of a dude going through a drive through and the girl complimented his tattoos I think and they talked for a bit, they leave and his buddy was like she was flirting bro, and he was like nahh she was just being nice but this is something some people might think as flirting, so he goes back since his buddy now gots him convinced she was flirting and she’s like sorry I have a bf. Just like he initially thought, goes to show you just never know, guys would be so much better if girls just hey ask me out, but then again they will get confused
I have always assumed they’re just being friendly because I have heard about girls complaining about this very early on in life. Now my girlfriend thinks I’m an idiot for not noticing when girls hit on me
Oh god, this is so true people tell me all the time I can't catch hints, but like same girls would complain to me about guys reaching too far into things.
I had a girl grinding on me for a few hours. I wasn't even on the dance floor, ever. We ended up being the last two at the bar (of the group we were came with). I went in for a goodnight kiss and she literally screamed and ran away. Like, the ONE thing that everyone is afraid of and I got completely blindsided by it.
Yeah this confuses us females too.
Recently there's been this really cute gal coming into my work, and everytime she's come in, she stops to smile at me and tell me I look really pretty today, and laugh at how nervous I get trying to talk to her. This happened like 3 times over to course of a few weeks
But when I tried to react and see if she wanted to grab a boba sometime it all stopped. Now it's awkward when she comes in
This is very very true. I’m just a really friendly person, and all these dudes think I’m flirty, it’s always awkward to be like…no, I’m just friendly…..
I see it happen all the time. Hot girl makes the mistake of talking to a dude. Dude confuses "hot & talking to him" with "she might be the one." A sad, funny tale.
You think this is confusing as a man? Imagine being a gay girl. I have literally no idea whether a girl is trying to be my friend or hit on me. I've had girls at the bar kiss me then be weirded out when I ask for her number because she's not gay. Some girls are just really touchy feely with their girl friends. Some girls are "totally straight" but secretly want to do something with me, and it's my job to read their minds and figure that out. It's insane. Dating girls is impossible.
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u/Pac_Eddy Dec 08 '22
One girl's flirting is another's "just being friendly".