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Can't read signals


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I have never been able to read the "signals" a woman MAY or MAY NOT be giving me.. I am clueless!! lol.. I have made a fool out of myself thinking that a woman was showing interest, and then I have also apparently didn't see the signals that girls have sent. They tell me that they have been interested for a long time, and It floored me. I had no freakin idea. LOL...

 

Well, anyway this new girl has moved into my small town and is BEAUTIFUL.. Ordinarily I would say that she is wayyyyyyy out of my league, but I THINK that she was showing interest in me last night but I can't be sure. For instance about 5 of us were having our picture taken in a bar last night, and she kept putting her arm around me, and for one picture she had her arm around me with her hand on my hip, practically on my ass :) She also made a lot of eye contact and was full of smiles. But then again, she is a sweetheart and always has a smile on her face. If I don't do anything, and just wait to be more certain if she is interested, someone will swoop in, and swoop in fast before I do and screw things up. Yet, I would be horrified and embarrased if I totally read her signals wrong, and mistook friendly for something more. I would hate to offend her and be rejected with this blond beauty :) It would make all of our future time spent around each other feel very awkward and would screw up our friendship I think. Is there a subtle way of dropping a hint, without the ramifications of rejection and embarrassment?

 

Ladies, how in the hell do we know if your showing an attraction for us guys? I'm tired of looking like an idiot for making a move and getting rejected (sometimes messing up a friendship), or finding out later down the line that a woman USED to have an attraction for me, but moved on after I didn't make advances over a period of time. HELP, I can't figure you WOMEN out AT ALL!! LOL.. In actuallity I shouldn't be dating anyone right now probably anyway. I've just came out of a relationship, and I'm having a hard time dealing with that! This girl is just unreal though.. Hell, I probably don't have a chance with her anyway. She could have her pick of darn near any guy she wanted.

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I have the same problem...

 

Maybe invite her to coffee or lunch or something as friends, you might have an easier time reading her one on one.

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Signals and hints bug me. I prefer to be told directly how things are, or to ask how things are. I don't approach things in a purely black and white, mechanical fashion, but sometimes one person has to attempt to be just a little direct.

 

If I tell a woman that I would be interested in carrying on a conversation with her, that I think I like her personality, that I find her attractive, or that I would like to spend some time with her on a date, I tend to find out whether there is the possibility of her being interested or not. If your mother taught you some basic manners, you should be able to find out what the situation is without offending anyone in the least.

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There are books on body language that can help give you a better understanding of nonverbal communication. Since you are just interested in female body language, you can do some searches on the internet and find some rules of thumb regarding these signs.

 

If you are afraid of putting it all on the line, BigB's idea would work too. If you have a group of friends that you do things with, just mention that a bunch of you are going to a movie, or going out, just ask if she wants to tag along. You can then talk to her at this gathering, get some better clues as to whether she has interest or not, and if she does, proceed to ask her out on a date with just you two.

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Correct me if I'm wrong ladies, but here are the signals:

 

1. She touches you. It may seem like an "accident" or just an innocent reaction to something you said, but it's not. Now, don't confuse bumping into her around the corner - i.e. an obvious accident. I'm talking about the kind of touching where you're in a conversation with her and she leans in and gives you a tap on the shoulder or arm. If you've gotten that far, you are probably in the game.

 

2. She suggests a future activity together - preferably just the two of you. Now remember, it may not necessarily be a "date" she's suggesting, it may be more subtle, like "Maybe we could go hiking together" or "Play tennis" or do some sort of "get to know each other first" kind of activity.

 

3. She laughs at your jokes, even if they aren't belly-aching funny.

 

4. She compliments you - preferably more than once.

 

5. Bonus: She gets close to you and more or less gets you to touch her. For example, she says she has a headache or a fever and gets up close to you, as if to suggest that you should touch her to see if she has a fever or not. Be careful with this one, though: women want to initiate the contact. If she is unsure about you, touching her first may not be a very good idea.

 

I'd say if you get at least four out of the five, you're in the game. That doesn't mean you're in for long, though - you'll have to keep her interested. But for the time being, you're in the game if you've got at least four of the five on the list.

 

If she touches you and you get one or two more on the list, you MIGHT be in but you've got more work to do.

 

If she doesn't touch you, if all she does is smile, compliment you and have an occasional laugh with you, you're most definitely NOT in - and you may never be. It's the touching - that's the most important one of them all.

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Tamed Wildflower

Oh gosh guys are so funny! You all boggle my mind as much as women boggle your minds!

 

As for Amerikanjin's list of signals, yes this is a good list. Only I wouldn't pay such strict attention to his calculus at the end. (the x number out of y number, if she does this but not that...)

 

These signals are not meant to be really cryptic, they really are meant to communicate. They're not supposed to be complicated. Doesn't it make intuitive sense that if someone enters your personal space, touches you, laughs at your jokes, compliments you, smiles at you, that she might be trying to communicate that she likes you? I honestly am not trying to make fun of you guys, but truly, the idea that men would NOT read these actions as flirtation is what boggles my mind about men!

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These signals are not meant to be really cryptic, they really are meant to communicate. They're not supposed to be complicated. Doesn't it make intuitive sense that if someone enters your personal space, touches you, laughs at your jokes, compliments you, smiles at you, that she might be trying to communicate that she likes you? I honestly am not trying to make fun of you guys, but truly, the idea that men would NOT read these actions as flirtation is what boggles my mind about men!

 

It's difficult because when we're interested in someone - I mean really interested - we often have a tendency to confuse our interest for the woman's. It's easy to look for the slightest sign, like smiling or warm friendliness, without thinking that we do these things all the time with other people. One of the biggest mistakes I used to make was getting caught up in a woman's smile. Particularly in the case of beautiful women, there's a tendency to get all excited when she flashes a smile our way.

 

It's obviously easier to gauge interest level when you have known someone for a while, because you can compare her behavior toward you to her behavior around everyone else. The difficult part is when you're still trying to size someone up. Added to that, in some situations (i.e. the bar pick up), you've got a limited time to make a good impression, so some people jump at the first signs of interest without realizing that it may very well end at just a smile.

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Well, one girl made out with me twice before she told me she wasn't interested. Kinda spins the whole thing around?

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Tamed Wildflower
Originally posted by 7on

Well, one girl made out with me twice before she told me she wasn't interested. Kinda spins the whole thing around?

Yeah, sometimes things can be more ambiguous, I suppose. She probably was on the "just fooling around", "just having fun" mentality when she did that with you, whereas it sounds like you were thinking something more could come of the make-out sessions.

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The thing is, a woman can decide at any time that you're no longer worth her time. Just because she's interested you doesn't mean she's going to end up sleeping with you.

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Originally posted by Tamed Wildflower

Yeah, sometimes things can be more ambiguous, I suppose. She probably was on the "just fooling around", "just having fun" mentality when she did that with you, whereas it sounds like you were thinking something more could come of the make-out sessions.

That's exactly why signals are so hard to read. Flirtatiousness for fooling around or for fun looks just the same as flirtatiousness for actual interest. I'm certainly going to read a make-out session as fairly serious interest. In fact, the only "fooling around" / "just having fun" guy behavior I can think of is someone who literally hits on every girl in the room - and most girls I know consider that creepy and repulsive.

 

But please - I invite you to explain the ambiguity.

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Some girls - just like some guys - just like fooling around to get their own kicks (i.e. an ego trip). Maybe they're drunk and they're doing something they wouldn't consciously do otherwise - dating/attraction to the opposite sex is both a conscious and unconscious process.

 

Then again, it's entirely possible that she was planning to carry on a bit further, only to encounter some signal in you that she didn't like. Women - much more so than men - are picky when it comes to these kinds of encounters. I'm making a generalization here, but for women, the whole process is a bit more complicated than it is for men. For us guys, we see a piece of ass we like, we go after it. And we make it obvious. And we don't relent.

 

The funny thing is, the guy goes after a chick thinking he can make his pitch, run his game, sell himself etc. and somehow convince the girl to give it up - it doesn't work that way. The girl wants to be pursued, and she'll act in a way so that the guy thinks he's the one pursuing. But in reality, it's the woman who chooses, who makes the final decision as to what happens. The woman chooses the guy, not the other way around. The man simply makes his interest known.

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actually, direct and prolonged eye contact is the #1 determinant of attraction. touching comes later.

 

we generally look at things we like and don't look at thing we don't like.

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Eye contact is good, but hell, lots of girls I know have given me eye contact - even prolonged contact. I never took that in and of itself as a sign that they were up for taking a ride on my baloney pony.

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Tamed Wildflower
Originally posted by Chipmonk

 

That's exactly why signals are so hard to read. Flirtatiousness for fooling around or for fun looks just the same as flirtatiousness for actual interest. I'm certainly going to read a make-out session as fairly serious interest. In fact, the only "fooling around" / "just having fun" guy behavior I can think of is someone who literally hits on every girl in the room - and most girls I know consider that creepy and repulsive.

 

But please - I invite you to explain the ambiguity.

 

Thanks for the invitation Chipmonk, :) , but I am not sure if I am being invited to explain why signals can sometimes be ambiguous or to decipher them so that they are not ambiguous anymore. It seems you understand how they are ambiguous, but I have no magical powers that can make everything clear!

 

To me, it seems that once you get to the point of making out with someone, and especially when you are making out the second time, you are at a point where you don't have to be necessarily communicating in signals anymore. As I write this, I remember that I am quite the direct type when it comes to this kind of thing, so for me signals are only for the VERY initial stages-- the stages where you are BUILDING attraction as much as you are COMMUNICATING it. (I have posted several times about how it seems to me that the dynamics of attraction work differently for men and women, if you are interested, ask and I'll find them and post a link to them.)

 

You are right that the initial flirty signals don't always say more than "I am interested." You are right, they don't always say whether the person is interested in making out, or in screwing, or in dating, and if in dating they are looking for something casual or something serious. As far as I am concerned, this is what direct verbal communication is for. :)

 

(Although, come to think of it, sometimes you can tell if the cute girl in the bar is interested in dating you or taking you home and riding you by the tone of the conversation and the intensity of the body language. For example, is she "getting to know you", or is she making lots of sexually suggestive comments? How intense is the touching and the eye contact? But yes, much of the time, it IS pretty ambiguous.)

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  • 2 weeks later...
Confused826

Sorry for bringing this thread back up but this is the one spot i have found that might answer my question

 

There is a Girl in one of my college classes that I recently ran into in the mall that I had no idea she was there when I walked into the food court and she saw no problem to call me over and ask her to sit with her. we talked for awhile but it was mostly her since i am kind of shy before she had to go for an interview. OK first of all let me say that before this she never had a problem touching me to get my attention if i am close and not really looking her way she always could have called my name but she would always and i mean always touch my side never any where else where it would have been easier like on the shoulder.

 

OK back to the mall as she got up and walked past me she pretty much runs her hand over my arm and gives it a light squeeze and says bye

 

This all boils down to how could i find out if she is seeing someone without making it to obvious that i am interested how would you bring it up in a conversation with a girl cause i would like to ask her out but I don't want to make my self look like an a**

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Tamed Wildflower
Originally posted by Confused826

Sorry for bringing this thread back up but this is the one spot i have found that might answer my question

 

There is a Girl in one of my college classes that I recently ran into in the mall that I had no idea she was there when I walked into the food court and she saw no problem to call me over and ask her to sit with her. we talked for awhile but it was mostly her since i am kind of shy before she had to go for an interview. OK first of all let me say that before this she never had a problem touching me to get my attention if i am close and not really looking her way she always could have called my name but she would always and i mean always touch my side never any where else where it would have been easier like on the shoulder.

 

OK back to the mall as she got up and walked past me she pretty much runs her hand over my arm and gives it a light squeeze and says bye

 

This all boils down to how could i find out if she is seeing someone without making it to obvious that i am interested how would you bring it up in a conversation with a girl cause i would like to ask her out but I don't want to make my self look like an a**

 

At this point you don't have to ask her if she is seeing anyone. She has given you enough flirty signals that there is no way you could possibly look like an ass fo asking her out. If she IS seeing someone, or has a boyfriend, and you ask her out, then it is completely in her court for her to decline and tell you that she is seeing someone else/has a boyfriend. At that point, she's the ass for sending you such strong "Ask me out!" signals.

 

My only other advice is that when you post, please kindly use punctuation more consistently. :)

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ConfusedInOC
Originally posted by cubbbb

For instance about 5 of us were having our picture taken in a bar last night, and she kept putting her arm around me, and for one picture she had her arm around me with her hand on my hip, practically on my ass :) She also made a lot of eye contact and was full of smiles.

 

The only way she could make it more clear she is interested in you is to club you over the head and drag you home....

 

:laugh:

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