What defines friends who may want more vs just friends?

[Piddle]

What makes a friendship between 2 people a flirty friendship with one or both parties hoping for more vs just really good platonic friends?

 

Like bantering? What makes banter flirting with boundaries for it not to be overtly sexual vs just normal banter between 2 friends?

 

Texting and calling? What makes a text or a phone call just what you do for all friends to touch base vs what you do just because you really want to hear from that person because it warms you in that romantic way? Does the frequency matter?

 

And anything else people can think of.

[jen1447]

Sexual and/or romantic undertones/subtext/etc. Platonic friends don't flirt with each other.

[preraph]

You can't go by how many texts or calls, really. Some people are just chatty. One of my gay male friends loved to talk on the phone. Then I've dated guys who didn't do anything but make dates on the phone. So you can't go by that. I wouldn't think it would be hard to notice if a man or woman is wanting something more because they may make up excuses to see you, like helping you or asking for help. And if they're touching more than just a hug greeting or goodbye, like always reaching over and putting their hand on your knee or arm or leaning in close, well, touching like that is flirting. If it's a guy and he's dropping hints all the time and commenting how good you look, that's probably a flirt. If they try to lead you into conversations about sex. I mean, there's just boundaries most people understand on those things, but I know sometimes it's new to you. For example, a married guy I was good friends with and I went to lunch because we worked together and at some point he started talking about porn a lot. I was uncomfortable with it (although probably more tolerant than most would have been) but I didn't think it meant anything. But it did.

[jliebt]

In my experience, you can always feel a real shift in the dynamic. It's kind of hard to put in words. Example: I had a male friend who was part of a larger social circle. I think both of us could feel that we had particularly good chemistry and a lot of shared interests, but I tried to keep him firmly in the friend zone as he was a bit too young for me. But at some point, it turned into a brief "thing" - I have no better word for it. Private texts (away from our other friends) became more frequent. He began to regularly compliment me on my appearance (e.g. when we were at the beach and I was stripping down to my bikini, he admiringly looked me up and down and said "that's a good look for you"). We spent some private time together which teetered on the edge of feeling like a date, although we never said it was.

 

Eventually, we each got together with other people, and went back to keeping a safe distance. One day, a long long time later, he tried to address the elephant in the room with me and in a roundabout way, tried to find out what exactly I was thinking during that strange time between us. I sort of just dodged the issue - some things are better left unsaid, especially when we were already with other people.

 

In summary...you can always feel the shift in some way!

Edited April 16, 2016 by jliebt

[BilleRae]

I agree with the above replies. I would pay attention to the context of the texts and/or conversations you have; is there a romantic undertone? For example, "Good morning [insert pet name]." Also keep an eye on what he's like around you, does he subtly make physical contact? If so these can all be signs that it's more than a friendship. I hope this helps.