No, but someone who just met him has a good reason to believe he is more likely to be these things than the guy next to him who is relaxed, easy-going and confident. The shy horse-faced girl might be a great lay and her outgoing model-cute friend might be a total limp letdown, but when both of them seem interested in you, which one are you going to guess is going to make for a better fling?
in dating, attractive people are often presented with a humber of options and need to make quick judgements based on limited information. Unfortunately, there is no easy way to tell someone who is just missing your signals from someone who is deliberately ignoring or transgressing your signals, which is why a little social awkwardness can make potential partners really uncomfortable.
Women are human beings. While their body language is different thanks to cultural expectations, they’re not aliens. I can clearly see when a woman is interested in some guy. She looks into his eyes just a touch longer than normal, she fiddles with her hair, she leans in, she touches his arm, she takes on slightly exaggerated postures with a little more arch to her back, a little more stiffness in how she holds herself to push her breasts out and pull her stomach in. I’ve even seen women do the “package” check.
Since there are straight men out there who clearly can and do understand women well enough to comfortably ask them out, perhaps it’s not “men” and “women” but “some people” and “some other people.”
Actually I’m pretty sensitive to such things-as in, yes I do notice them. But they don’t appear to mean a damned fucking thing. I once had an IHOP hostess get really into me, half-joking that she deliberately sat me near the front so that I could be “next to her,” and so on. When I asked her out she shot me down. Yes I know, ordinarily you don’t ask out service personnel (we had a recent thread on this), but it stretched my credulity to think that she flirted like that with every single lone male that walked into the place (and if I was her boss I would tell her to knock it off). Fine-maybe she did-point is this kind of thing has happened to me with all sorts of females (be they on the clock somewhere, or not). After feeling deeply puzzled and confused more than a few times you end up not trusting the next apparent opportunity that comes along.
Having been married for more of my life than I have not been … to the same woman no less … I readily admit that I am not looking for signals. They could happen all the time for all I know (doubtful given my outside the house world is work and the grocery store). But remembering the short period of adult unattached single days, and at times of marital conflict (oh yes those times happen) thinking about what being single would be like, I gotta go with several other posters … I probably wouldn’t be able to tell friendly from “a signal” if my life depended on it.
Being nervous about asking out a girl does not equal social awkwardness or inability to read signs and engage people. It also doesn’t the person is majorly invested in who he is asking out. But unless you’re one of those A+ douche bags who throws their sausage at everybody, a girl you’re asking out you are invested in on some level. You at the very least like her and hope some of the attraction is mutual. It does take some guts to expose yourself to rejection by someone you’re into. You can be reading her signs perfectly and hitting it off great, but taking that extra step and leaving yourself open to hearing that awful word “no” can be tough, even for the most outgoing and charming among us.
I wish people who like to dole out the straight dope on dating would at least have the courtesy to tack on the disclaimer “I don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about.”
Some people are just weird. I have a girlfriend who is cute, smart, outgoing and reliable. She started seeing a guy she’s been close work friends with for years. Things were going great- they hung out almost every night, he took her on good dates to concerts and candlelight dinners and the whole bit (and insisted on treating her)…but when he’d sleep over at night, all they’d do was cuddle and making out. After a month of that, she was starting to get confused and decided that a big-deal romantic gala event he invited her to was going to be the big night.
He jumped out of her bed, horrified, and said he never had any intention of having a physical relationship or being anything more than friends, leaving her baffled and humiliated.
I’d guess that if she wasn’t flirting for tips, she is in a relationship that was getting shaky and she was flirting- without yet being ready to follow up- to reassure herself that she still has her mojo.
Nah, some women do that with people they’re not interested in at all. A few women I know seem to only interact in flirt mode - not just with me, but with absolutely everyone. And some men, straight men especially, are just not very good at spotting those signals, yes.
Sven, there’s a big difference between comfortable around women as friends and finding it easy to ask them out; we’re not talking people with massive social problems here. Plenty of men find making the first move difficult, but you’d never know it from the way they interact with you when you’re just friends.
Kind of inevitable that there would arise as a collateral part of the thread another installment of this long-ongoing debate
Yes, but apparently very badly. It’s a common stereotype of the straight male (by now hackneyed even for TV comedies) that we are whooshed by “signals” and “clues” and like things to work in a linear IF (A) AND (B) THEN (C) logic and get baffled when they don’t.
(I’m already on record from prior threads that I belong in the H. Oblivious clade.)
A lot of straight men have decided that a policy of “presume just an affectionate temperament, not an actual sign of interest” minimizes the potential for unpleasantness involved in seeking to decrypt “signals”. I’ve seen many who seem to fear that misreading “friendly” as “interested” will be considered an offensive or hurtful transgression.
Well, I think that there’s a problem with the definition of “hitting on”. Some people think a smile or a pleasant bit of conversation is flirting, while some would consider anything but a direct proposition is just talk. Women and men (generally) have very different ideas of what constitutes “hitting on”, as well.
I don’t think the rude comments that idiot men make to women on the street is intended to be in any way seductive, it’s more of a (stupid) “macho” display, and I don’t count it as “hitting on”.
Back to the first point, I’ve had women come up to me after a show and say “I like your voice/guitar/shoes”, etc., nothing more, and been told afterward by another woman “she was totally hitting on you”. I’ve also witnessed women getting bought drinks, engaged in conversation including lots of eye contact and touching, etc. and then not being certain whether the guy liked them or not. Go figure.
ETA: I voted once a year, only because once a month is too often…probably more like once every 2-3 months.
There’d have to be more than just a compliment for them to be definitely hitting on you, especially when you were on stage. I often compliment performers on something or other - hope they don’t all think I was hitting on them.
I don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about, and I’m not even saying anything.
Oh, and it has been years since any woman has flirted with me for any purpose other than to earn a bigger tip or make her boyfriend jealous. And my attempts at being forward and outgoing are stymied by exactly the kind of social awkwardness decried by even sven, despite the fact that I’ve never stalked anyone, and the “tiny risk” to ask a woman out has frequently resulted in disporportionately adverse consequences.
Fortunately, the whiskey never balks at a quiet night watching film noir.
I voted “once a year or so” although it’s actually closer to, say, 6 times a year. That’s about as often as I go to Goth clubs and live gigs nowadays (always without my wife), and in the last 10 years I can’t recall ever going without at least some mild flirting of the compliments and batted eyelashes variety (which can be fun in very limited amounts - I like keeping in practice for the missus), regular heavier flirting (of the “sitting close” and “see my lumbar tattoo and nipple piercings” variety - I’m still cool with that as long as everyone’s hands are where I can see them) and sometimes more direct come-ons (from the “sit on your lap” to “come to my place and fuck” variety. Not so welcome, but understandable, there’s a higher incidence of poly people in the community IME, so a wedding ring isn’t so insta-boing. I just hate disappointing pretty girls half my age when they ask me to come home with them).
I’m not sure if it’s:
the rarity value of being a Coloured Indiekid-PerkyGoth hybrid (A non-white Goth or Emo kid is not that rare here, but being that and older and makeup-less and not mopey and having your own car is);
being solvent enough to buy multiple rounds of drinks (a less-common trait, actually); or
just my winning personality (actually pretty bloody likely, I think even Goth girls tire of the angst…)
I don’t get hit on by people in normal social situations, haven’t for years. Even when I don’t have my wife, I mostly hang out with friends, so that’s easily explained .
A handful of times. I’m usually slow on the uptake so I don’t figure it out till it’s too late. One time in my early 30s I took my son to open swim at our local school. The lifeguard on duty jumps in the water, walks up to me, thrusts her shoulders back and asks me “is this top too see-through?”. All I could manage is the Ralph Kramden “hommina hommina hommina” but looking back I think “doggone it, she was flirting”.
I meant to add: last week I did get a bunch of positive signals from someone, and they weren’t complete bullshit for a change. We’ll have our first date tonite.
Doesn’t hurt that this is the most transparent and optimistic person I have ever met, either, so no more BS guessing games of any sort (I hope).
Outside of the US (well, in the UK, Canada, and France, the only other three countries I’ve spent significant time in), fairly often. Inside the US, pretty much never. I’m not even sure it was me failing to pick up on signals, although it might have been, because other people have noticed it too. Guess I don’t appeal to my own kind or something.
