# Are you less sensitive to sexual signals from people =/= your preferred gender?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-less-sensitive-to-sexual-signals-from-people-your-preferred-gender/392862
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [February 19, 2007, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-less-sensitive-to-sexual-signals-from-people-your-preferred-gender/392862 "2007-02-19T20:39:47Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Jayn\_Newell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jayn_Newell)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2007, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-less-sensitive-to-sexual-signals-from-people-your-preferred-gender/392862/21 "2007-02-20T13:06:09Z")
I’ve never had a girl hit on me that I’m aware of, but I’m still pretty dense when it comes to guys hitting on me–it has to be pretty obvious before I catch on usually. This tends to have the unfortunate effect of me leading guys on by accident, because I just think they’re being friendly.
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### Author:  [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2007, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-less-sensitive-to-sexual-signals-from-people-your-preferred-gender/392862/22 "2007-02-20T13:52:57Z")
[QUOTE=Sierra Indigo]
Put me in with the “Clue By Four” crowd.
[/QUOTE]
“Clue By Four”? I’m prety sure a 2-story colonial made from “Clue By Fours” could land on my head and I’d never know who was hitting on me.
Case in Point: College: The GF of a friend was very cute, but as she was dating a friend, I completely backed off (little did I know she was about to dump him). One night, she asks me to come by after class and talk about something. I get to her dorm room around 6:30 and she’s sitting on her bed in a dress barefoot. She asks me to sit down and explains that other guys in our group find her attractive & go out of their way to show her so. Don’t I find her attractive? (She was.) Why was I so stand-offish?
I started a long speech about how she was a friend & dating a good friend and that it would be wrong for me to look at her that way or to hit on her. Just then my books, which had been between us, fell to the floor in front of the bed. I got down on one knee to collect them and when I looked up, she had spread her knees, showing off a very pretty sight indeed. I stammerred and gulped and she stood up and walked me out of her room by the arm, telling me “I wouldn’t want to think of her that way.” :smack: :smack: :smack:
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### Author:  [@The\_Chao\_Goes\_Mu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Chao_Goes_Mu)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2007, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-less-sensitive-to-sexual-signals-from-people-your-preferred-gender/392862/23 "2007-02-20T15:26:12Z")
I’m pretty thick when it comes to someone expressing an interest. I’m gay and I miss it by both men and women. A friend of mine once told me that a girl could be standing in front of my naked jumping up and down with a sign that says “I want you” and that I’d ask “Do you think she likes me?”
He’s right though. I’m and idiot. I’ve had people irate with me for “leading them on” when I didn’t even know they liked me. I was just being friendly. **Sigh**
Seriously. Whenever someone even is blunt enough to just say “I think you’re hot, let’s fuck” I think, “Oh hahaha, you’re kidding right?”
Dumb dumb dumb dumb. :smack:
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### Author:  [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2007, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-less-sensitive-to-sexual-signals-from-people-your-preferred-gender/392862/24 "2007-02-20T16:00:39Z")
[QUOTE=The Chao Goes Mu]
I’m pretty thick when it comes to someone expressing an interest…
Seriously. Whenever someone even is blunt enough to just say “I think you’re hot, let’s fuck” I think, “Oh hahaha, you’re kidding right?”
Dumb dumb dumb dumb. :smack:
[/QUOTE]
It could be worse.
You could think they’re mocking you. The only time a woman (metaphorically) threw herself at me (by saying, “I want your children”), I thought she was making fun of me. After all, a few weeks earlier, she’d been entheusiastically sharing the night with one of my best friends of the time.
It was 1984, I was a geek in electronics school, we used to go across the road to a Burker King where there were three very attractive wome, and I figured I had no chance. As usual.
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### Author:  [@The\_Chao\_Goes\_Mu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Chao_Goes_Mu)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2007, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-less-sensitive-to-sexual-signals-from-people-your-preferred-gender/392862/25 "2007-02-20T16:07:18Z")
[QUOTE=Sunspace]
It could be worse.
You could think they’re mocking you. The only time a woman (metaphorically) threw herself at me (by saying, “I want your children”), I thought she was making fun of me. After all, a few weeks earlier, she’d been entheusiastically sharing the night with one of my best friends of the time.
It was 1984, I was a geek in electronics school, we used to go across the road to a Burker King where there were three very attractive wome, and I figured I had no chance. As usual.
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, thanks to low self-esteem, I usually would think I was being mocked.
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### Author:  [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2007, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-less-sensitive-to-sexual-signals-from-people-your-preferred-gender/392862/26 "2007-02-20T18:16:01Z")
Though I consider myself heterosexual, I’ve actually been fairly active in the LGBT community for most of my adult life here, and I can’t remember ever being aware of being hit on by a man. I do remember catching some vibes from a guy I was in Boy Scouts with and then finding out seven years later that he was getting kicked out of his house for being gay.
If a guy did hit on me, my Kinsey reading and my curiosity are such that I would probably consider giving him a chance. What the hell, I may find something out about myself, right? I’ve never dated men before or wanted to, but I can appreciate male beauty and there have been times when, if a particular guy had asked me out, I might have said yes. I’m not going to try to initiate anything, though; the acid test for me is whether I can visualize myself having sex with a man, and I just can’t. So I wouldn’t want to treat someone as an experiment when they may want to get more out of it. Not at this juncture, anyway.
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### Author:  [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2007, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-less-sensitive-to-sexual-signals-from-people-your-preferred-gender/392862/27 "2007-02-20T22:16:06Z")
If anyone ever found me attractive enough to make a pass, I totally missed it.
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### Author:  [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2007, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-less-sensitive-to-sexual-signals-from-people-your-preferred-gender/392862/28 "2007-02-20T22:32:44Z")
There has been precisely one time in my entire life when I’ve been aware that someone was flirting with me. I was at a party and bumped into a woman coming back from the bar. I apologized, and she purred, “Honey, you can bump into me any time.”
Too bad she was as old as my mom.
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### Author:  [@Antinor01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antinor01)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2007, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-less-sensitive-to-sexual-signals-from-people-your-preferred-gender/392862/29 "2007-02-20T22:45:00Z")
I’ve had woman that thought I was hitting on them, which I found totally bizarre. As a perfect 6 on the Kinsey scale that would never happen.
I guess that more falls under not realizing I was sending what could be interpreted as sexual signals to people not of my preferred gender though.
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### Author:  [@AngryIrishLass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AngryIrishLass)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2007, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-less-sensitive-to-sexual-signals-from-people-your-preferred-gender/392862/30 "2007-02-21T00:21:58Z")
I generally don’t see it. And then when it is pointed out, I still fail to see it. I don’t think I give off the come hither vibe to girls, but evidently I do. sigh
Most recently while hanging out at local bar with a couple of friends, a friend and I were appointed guards of the beers, a girl walks over to the table. She starts talking to me. A little bit goes by, and she’s asking me if I want to go do shots of Jager in the corner booth. I felt my friend’s boot in the middle of my back (methaphorically speaking of course) pushing me that why. He thought it was a hoot, telling me to sit where he could watch all the action. He caught on pretty quick…it took the ‘come on baby let’s do jager shots in the back booth _wink wink_’ for me to get it.
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### Author:  [@pizzabrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pizzabrat)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2007, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-less-sensitive-to-sexual-signals-from-people-your-preferred-gender/392862/31 "2007-02-21T01:03:39Z")
I notice all the time, and it makes me feel bad to ignore them. Looking away from and pretending to ignore a guy is easy. Doing the same to a girl seems cruel.
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### Author:  [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2007, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-less-sensitive-to-sexual-signals-from-people-your-preferred-gender/392862/32 "2007-02-21T01:12:55Z")
I am also clueless–no matter the gender/orientation. I do notice men sizing me up etc, but that just pisses me off. Any genuine interest is missed by me–I have been known to turn down dates that I didn’t realize I was being asked out for? (horrid sentence, sorry).
I didn’t know that the two girls rooming next to us sophomore year were lesbians–i thought they were just close friends.
I shouldn’t be let out alone. :rolleyes:
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### Author:  [@The\_Chao\_Goes\_Mu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Chao_Goes_Mu)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2007, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-less-sensitive-to-sexual-signals-from-people-your-preferred-gender/392862/33 "2007-02-21T12:34:55Z")
Ok, I give, what’s the _Kinsey Scale_?
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### Author:  [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2007, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-less-sensitive-to-sexual-signals-from-people-your-preferred-gender/392862/34 "2007-02-21T12:54:23Z")
[QUOTE=pizzabrat]
I notice all the time, and it makes me feel bad to ignore them. Looking away from and pretending to ignore a guy is easy. Doing the same to a girl seems cruel.
[/QUOTE]
“Last week in _Adventures in Poultry Cookery_ we discussed how to make sauce for a goose. This week, we turn our attention to the vexed question: What should be served with _gander_?”.
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### Author:  [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2007, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-less-sensitive-to-sexual-signals-from-people-your-preferred-gender/392862/35 "2007-02-21T12:57:48Z")
[QUOTE=The Chao Goes Mu]
Ok, I give, what’s the _Kinsey Scale_?
[/QUOTE]
You’d better turn in your Gay Card. [What you get](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinsey_scale) is a rating from 0 to 6 where 0 = “nauseated homophobe” and 6 = “queerer than a pink $3 bill”. Kinsey says that homo/hetero is a continuiunuiunuum, not a binary state.
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### Author:  [@The\_Chao\_Goes\_Mu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Chao_Goes_Mu)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2007, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-less-sensitive-to-sexual-signals-from-people-your-preferred-gender/392862/36 "2007-02-21T14:06:54Z")
[QUOTE=Malacandra]
You’d better turn in your Gay Card. [What you get](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinsey_scale) is a rating from 0 to 6 where 0 = “nauseated homophobe” and 6 = “queerer than a pink $3 bill”. Kinsey says that homo/hetero is a continuiunuiunuum, not a binary state.
[/QUOTE]
Nope, keeping the card. I have good credentials and 3 toaster ovens. Based on their scale I’d say I’m a 5. 😉
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### Author:  [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2007, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-less-sensitive-to-sexual-signals-from-people-your-preferred-gender/392862/37 "2007-02-21T15:15:36Z")
[QUOTE=The Chao Goes Mu]
Nope, keeping the card. I have good credentials and 3 toaster ovens. Based on their scale I’d say I’m a 5. 😉
[/QUOTE]
Three toaster ovens? That’s quite a conversion rate.
…So you’d potentially consider a guy if it was, like, the third year on a desert island? 😃
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### Author:  [@The\_Chao\_Goes\_Mu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Chao_Goes_Mu)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2007, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-less-sensitive-to-sexual-signals-from-people-your-preferred-gender/392862/38 "2007-02-21T15:25:29Z")
[QUOTE=Malacandra]
Three toaster ovens? That’s quite a conversion rate.
…So you’d potentially consider a guy if it was, like, the third year on a desert island? 😃
[/QUOTE]
Pretty much. 😉
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### Author:  [@pizzabrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pizzabrat)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2007, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-less-sensitive-to-sexual-signals-from-people-your-preferred-gender/392862/39 "2007-02-21T15:28:53Z")
[QUOTE=Malacandra]
“Last week in _Adventures in Poultry Cookery_ we discussed how to make sauce for a goose. This week, we turn our attention to the vexed question: What should be served with _gander_?”.
[/QUOTE]
Huh? Probably the same sauce you used for the goose.
Gasp! OOOOOOOOOH! 😛
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### Author:  [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2007, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-less-sensitive-to-sexual-signals-from-people-your-preferred-gender/392862/40 "2007-02-21T16:41:53Z")
[QUOTE=The Chao Goes Mu]
Pretty much. 😉
[/QUOTE]
\*makes mental note for the unlikely event ever arising. 😛
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