When did you realize she liked you?

In My Humble Opinion
41

[QUOTE=Way Too Happy]
I don’t take hints. I can’t take a hint 'cause I don’t recognize one when I see it. If someone wants to hint at something, the absolute minimum recognizable (to me) thing they can say is “Listen, here’s a hint…” I don’t know why that is, but I suspect at least a portion of that deficiency is gender related.

Me: What??
Her: I (thought you…, expected, am interested, was disappointed, am pissed, etc.)
Me: How could I possibly know that? I can’t read your mind!
Her: What was I supposed to do? Spray paint it on my forehead?
Me: Yes! I’m not Charles F’n Kreskin! If you’ve got something you think I should know, TELL ME!

Ah, well. My ex had to tell a mutual friend to tell me she was interested… it was so seventh grade.

Like never learning to dance, this inability to recognize subtle suggestion is a real life dating disability.
[/QUOTE]

Amen.

I met my ex in college. She had virtually every class in common with my roomie. Well, my roomie started talking about me and her interest was piqued. She came over to our room onec and I was sitting down playing video games. She watched me for a few seconds, made small talk, and then asked me if I liked the calendar on the back of the door. My roomie had some Russian calendar with naked pornstars on it.

“I’m not gay, if that’s what you’re asking.”

That’s the only time I got a hint. I mean that I got the hint.

She called up later in the week, after talking to her a few times.

“Do you have a bag?”
“Like..a grocery bag? I’ve got a bookbag…um…a bag?”
“Yes. An overnight bag.”
“Um. where am I going? I assume it’s overnight.”
“Nope.”
“Nope?”
“Nope. Pack your stuff. I’ll return you Sunday.”
I never get any hints. My personal life would have been a shit-load more fun if I got some of them. Gah…there was this model…and then a girl I worked with…and then another girl I worked with…and ANOTHER girl I worked with…ooh..and that OTHER girl I worked with…

Dammit, I need a lifetime supply of clue by fours or an injection of some hint-getting serum.

Hmph.

What’s worse than not getting the clue at all is getting it about a half hour after the time of action was. Ohhhhhgoddamn I hate that. I’d just be walking along my merry way and it’d finally hit me: “God dammit, she wanted to fuck me! Like..right now! I’m not doing anything special…I could be getting some ass right now! Fuck! Self, you are a fucking idiot!!! Signed, Penis”

42

Ooh…then that other girl…

Gah. This is getting depressing.

43

About seven years too late. :frowning:

(I’ve told this story before on the boards…)

See, I met this woman, G., at a workshop up north. She was smart, plump, curvy, Hungarian, a student at a university in Toronto, and I was totally taken with her. Of course, I also found out that she was going out with this guy who was at the workshop. I was crushed, but enjoyed being near her and my other friends.

I also found that she was significantly younger than me (I was 37; she was maybe 25), so I was extremely hesitant to make a move, even if she had been single. I was also going through an extreme financial meltdown, which made me even less likely to think of myself as a good prospect.

So after the workshop, I go back to Toronto, she goes her way. I hear from my friends that she is living in very basic accommodation during the summer, and walking several kilometres to get to school. I am impressed by her guts and determination, and that even more than her intelligence or looks sells me on her.

We meet maybe once more up north. But she is going back to Europe to pursue other projects. I sigh heavily, but realise it was not to be.

Fast-forward seven years, to last February. I’m up north again, it’s just before Valentine’s Day, two of my friends are newly in love and it shows, and we’re talking about all manner of things, and I mention, “You know, of all the women I’ve met here, the one who most impressed me was G.”

My friend says, “She totally liked you. Why didn’t you say anything?”

I say, “What? She was going out with that guy who made rustic furniture!”

My friend says, “He dumped her after two months! She went back to Europe because she couldn’t find anyone here!”

Why couldn’t my friends have sad anything sooner…?

44

I’m woefully oblivious. Before my last relationship started, she:

  • Spent hours with me on the phone several times

  • Once spent all night searching through everyone with my first name in the San Diego metro area on MySpace to find me and send me a friend request because she didn’t know my last name

  • Drove across town to surprise me at our school, when class was out for the summer and I was only there to do paperwork, then insisted that we go to lunch and made me pick the place

  • Butted in on me inviting another girl over to suggest herself instead (this was more polite than it sounds–the other girl had already declined, and I hadn’t asked her out in a romantic context–it was to have dinner with me and my roommate that night because he wanted to cook for a couple of people; the two girls were friends and the other one probably knew she liked me)

  • Dropped hints continually the entire time she was at my house about how she wanted to help me unpack and clean my room (I had just moved in)

  • Came over the next two nights in a row and lied in my bed with me (!) for five hours at a time each night talking about completely platonic things

  • WITH THE LIGHTS OFF the second night

and she still had to tell me she liked me for me to figure it out. When I finally did, she said “the fact that I’ve been giggling like an idiot ever since I met you didn’t tip you off?”

The girl I just described met the aforementioned army dude on WoW, and in fact that online relationship was why she was in San Diego and I met her at all. (So I, for one, wish WoW had never existed. :wink: ) Seriously, though, it was also what drove her into my arms–he got so addicted to WoW that he wouldn’t pay any attention to her at all, and she would literally throw herself into his lap every night and beg for him to leave the computer and he wouldn’t.

BTW, the moment my roommate saw her interact with me, he knew what was going on. After she left he said, “So what’s gonna happen with you two, huh? She’s all over you, dude.” And I went into all kinds of denial-- “No, she’s dating this buff Army dude, what would she see in me? I have X flaw and Y flaw etc.”

Like Autolycus, I’ve since had the opposite problem: thinking girls are into me when they’re just being nice. That’s caused problems.

45

I’m wondering if it’s not so much not “getting” the signals as it is some kind of subconscious filtering of them. It seems that most guys fall into one of two general groups, depending on which of the following you’d find more horrifying:

a) To not respond when you think a woman is flirting with you, and find out later she was, and you missed your chance, or

b) To respond any time you think a woman is flirting with you, and find out immediately that she wasn’t and now thinks you’re a creep and/or imbecile.

I was born into category (a). Guys who are more like (b) tend to be one or more of the following: confident, persistent, shameless, clueless, and in some cases, actually smooth. Regardless of whether they’re truly suave or just deluded, the carpet-bombing approach to flirting seems to work, if only due to sheer volume. (Fearless bastards!)

46

See, I think a lot of my retardation has to do with not wanting to be a part of that OTHER group. You know, the guys that think any girl looking at them wants to swing from their nuts like a monkey. If I thought like that, I would quickly turn my approach to the “Carpet Bombing” approach for sure.

I’m not so afraid of rejection (I certainly don’t want it) as I am dismissive of anything that could be construed as a sign. I like good, concrete declarations, goddammit!

That and I’m a wretched candidate for any kind of relationship. I’d be better off being a manwhore or a mimbo right now.

47

All boy’s school, huh? So how many of the other persuasion?

48

…duplicate post…

49

[QUOTE=Mike Fun]
All boy’s school, huh? So how many of the other persuasion?
[/QUOTE]

Dos, and I’m not talking about the operating system. Whatever though.

50

I am the same way. I have always wanted to avoid being one of ‘those guys’, and I fear that I tend to overcompensate.

As for when I realized that she liked me, well she had to make it pretty blatant. After spending the morning visiting a few book stores with her and a couple other mutual friends she invites me up to her dorm room and we chat for a good, correction, a great hour or so. Come the end of the hour I am still clueless (mind you I am interested in her, just clueless to the fact that she was clearly interested in me as well). As I leave she tells me (tells me mind you, she doesn’t ask) to call her some time to ask her out for dinner or coffee.

When hearing her side of this story some months later on I was glad to find that she was about (but not quite) as clueless as I was and nervous enough that she said dinner or coffee when she doesn’t even like coffee. It makes a fellow feel nice to know that he is not so alone in his awkwardness.

51

She called down to the Motor Rewind Shop and asked me to take her to dinner as soon as liberty call was announced. Never made it to the restaurant. That mighta been a small clue. :wink:

Probably just as well that she didn’t give me a chance to screw it up - I’m horrible for missing clues until waaaaay too late. Fact is, most of my girlfriends and lovers over the years had to pretty much beat me over the head with their interest. Fortunately, I’ve always seemed to attract rather forward women.