this post was submitted on 16 Aug 2024
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In the unlikely event a woman reads this.
We are stupid creatures. Be direct. I reiterate, we are stupid. Or scared of being labeled a creep. Same result.
So, be direct.
Here is the thing, this is terrible flirting. Men are not clueless or dumb. We have been told by women that a woman looking at us or smiling at us or being nice to us is not her flirting. It is her being nice because society has told women they have to be that way all the time. So now women have to use their adult voices and actually say what they want and actually flirt back.
Well, some of us are also clueless when it comes to reading female interest, or were at an earlier point in life
That is again not on you unless the woman very clearly said hey I like you. This is because we have taught women that you flirt by being subtle and coy and we have taught young men to ignore that.
Also, women flirt for a lot of reasons that have nothing to do with actual interest. They'll flirt at a restaurant to get better treatment. They'll flirt because they're bored. They'll flirt because they want to see how you'll react and talk about it later w/ their friends. I'm convinced that women flirting isn't a good indicator at all for interest, I need actual, verbal confirmation.
My wife had to be pretty direct with me before I got the hint. When we met, she signaled to me to come over (she was w/ a group of friends), asked for my number, and texted me first. I have been conditioned that approaching a woman in a group is generally a bad thing, asking for their number is creepy unless we've already hit it off, and texting first can also be creepy unless it's for a specific reason (e.g. I had a good time, want to do X?). But women get to do all of those things. I'm happy to initiate (and I did for our first real date), I just don't want to be labeled a creep.
So I just treat any kind of flirtation as an indication that they want something from me, and avoid acting until I know what that something is. So please, be direct. It's not that I don't notice the flirting, it's that I'm unsure what you're looking to get out of it. Verbal confirmation confirms it, and at that point (you don't need to say "I like you," but something like, "I'd like to get to know you"), I'll be much more interested in reciprocating (speaking as a generic man here, not my married self).
And some of us are clueless about reading nearly any human body language.
Hands down, some of us are just deaf to flirting. Because it's portrayed as so much more uncommon that a Girl flirts with a Guy. You are 100% right. But I've seen dudes getting hit on with a Baseball bat, and they were like "Whaaat? You sure?!" I tried to help a Girl Friend of mine out to set her up with another friend of mine. Bro was dumb as a Golden Retriever but twice as loyal. And now they are going steady for years.
Absolutely.
A LOT of us are, though..
Usually correct, though sometimes it IS and other times it's just her being nice voluntarily. Such is the mysteries of interpersonal interaction!
Boo! Adulting sucks! /j
Based and true
Not sure if stupid is the word I’d use, but we tend not to pick up on subtlety very well.
Paraphrasing from memory a comment I saw in a similar thread on a different site:
We don’t have nearly as much practice on picking up subtlety, and many of us are well aware of the potential blowback of perceiving interest and acting on it (“ew gross i’m just being nice you creep”).
We aren’t mind readers. Frankly, if I was a mindreader, I wouldn’t be hanging out on Lemmy. I’d be hanging out in the casino at the poker tables.
Eh, I usually pick up on relatively subtle cues, I just have trouble interpreting them. I can tell they're flirting, I just don't know if they're doing it because they're interested in me, or they just want something from me (better service, helpful directions, or material to laugh about later w/ friends). So even if I pick up on it, I'm unlikely to actually act differently until I have verbal confirmation.
This causes some issues w/ my wife, so I try to reassure her that I understand she's frustrated or whatever, but that I'm unsure what she's expecting me to do about it (is she looking to vent or does she want me to problem-solve). This occasionally pisses her off (why can't you tell what I want?!?), but she usually realizes that I have a valid reason to be confused and is more direct after a bit of time thinking about it.
Communication is absolutely key in any kind of relationship, and that goes both ways. I don't think I'm autistic (wouldn't be surprised if I'm at the mild end of the spectrum though), but I do appreciate confirmation of certain social cues.
Obtuse is the word you're looking for
What acute answer.
I am not a mind-reader, but if you were a mind-reader, I would think you'd have a better ROI hanging out in the gallery of Congress
I think stupid pretty descriptive. I have not once but twice regularly slept with a woman and not get it.
The first I consider kinda excusable because I was 18. We hung out and just somehow naturally transitioned into having sex. We never really talked about it and I didn't question it because at 18 you don't question free pussy. It went on for months and then we just drifted apart. I thought she met someone else and left it at that. Years later I found out she was expecting something more but didn't know how to move forward with me so she moved on.
The second however. I was is my late twenties and should've known better. We met on Tinder, she was quick to get in bed and I was quick to get in bed and so quickly in bed we got. This time we "had the talk" to make sure this is just sex and we're not looking for anything more. Months go by and we're hooking up almost daily. We start hanging out a bit more, she starts staying over etc etc. Eventually a year and a half passes and I haven't given a single thought to our situation, so out of the blue she's "we can't continue like this". And I'm just puzzled because I have no idea what we're talking about. So she said that she was always a bit into me and it just grew and grew and now she wants more. In hindsight it's obvious but I was completely oblivious the entire time.
So we are stupid. I could be balls deep in some pussy and not know if they're actually into me. I'm so oblivious I told my wife "no hints, no roundabouts. If you have an issue you tell it to me straight because I do not understand anything less than straight".
Now that I'm an older, very married guy I look back at the times in my late teens and twenties when women were trying to flirt with me and I was pretty clueless about it.
It's why I can never cheat on my girlfriend. Even if the opportunity arose, I wouldn't notice anyway.
Hello. I'm a woman. And I'm also a dumbass who thinks she has no shot with pretty much anyone. Plus I'm easily embarrassed.
Plus if I'm interested I'm like "Ugh i don't want to be a creep who'd approach someone for their looks", projecting because I get uncomfortable if someone finds me attractive, completely ignoring in the moment that if you don't do that you'll never get to know the person.
This behaviour makes no sense. Just wanted to reassure(?) you that guys don't have a monopoly on stupidity.
This is the beauty of the human condition, so many shared experiences even across all boundaries.
Also as a guy: Unless he's an 11/10 nearly every guy is going to be stoked about a girl being attracted to their looks even if they aren't romantically interested.
I have been told exactly twice that I looked handsome by women outside my family in my entire long life, and have also been reassured by many people that I know and trust the judgment of, that I was a solid 7/10 in my college days.
Stupid me had zero clue, interpreted their stares as mockery and just basically kept to myself from frosh to graduation.
Please don't make the same mistake I did and just let the decades slip by. Take that risk, ask the guy/girl because you don't want to be like me pushing 50 with 3 short and unsatisfying relationships to show for it.
Yes it's scary, yes it's risky, but a safe life of no risks will leave you pretty hollow towards the end of it.
I wouldn't even say it's men being stupid for the most part (everyone is stupid sometimes of course) but most men are having anxiety or other social problems AND a lot of them are afraid they come off as a creep. Unfortunately it's usually the ones that will almost never be creepy, but that's just how it is.
So yeah I totally agree, being direct is good, and also trying to pay attention to what men do over what they say, because we find the worst ways to express the best things often and that shit can be confusing. If you're not sure, you can always revert to directly asking them and most men will be honest.
But yeah, seems like there's a slow shift from men actively pursuing over to the whole thing being genderless. Some people are pursuing, and some are being pursued. I think it's a good change, because no matter the gender, usually the way to pursue someone is very similar and I think all the gender roles in all of this just enforce traditions that cease to be healthy.
most people don't have anxiety or other social problems, only the terminally online do
Nah, most women I met are just as bad in flirting as men. It is has to do with the personality and attraction.
If one finds the other attractive there is not much you can do wrong. If one finds the other one not attractive there is not much you can do right.
More accurately, we don't get hints.
Iv been hit in it the past by her asking me if I want to go to a bar with her friends?
How was I meant to interrupt "me and my friends" as intimate?
It’s so weird. Half of y’all will pull the earbuds out of our ears on the subway to shoot your shot and the other half will be actively getting motorboated and wondering if we like you.
The second type of guy is perfect, by the way. You’re doing good, stay humble.
Once at a bar I had two women that I knew hug each other across the seat I was sitting in, with my head trapped between their chests. I didn't think anything of it (although I was attracted to both of them), but years later another friend told me that they were both into me and were having a sort of competition for months to see who could get with me first. They both lost, of course, thanks to my utter cluelessness.
I'm really not
I'm male, but i can imagine that a woman might feel insecure too.
aaaaaaaand unnecessarily gendered
I'm a gal looking for gals. I hate flirting because it never did me well and all I get from this is usually rejection. I know I am doing it bad but this is the way I am: a shitty flirter.
That could be the same with any man, woman, dog, cat, robot, anyone in fact. This is certainly not depending on gender whatsoever
Is it unnecessarily gendered when the original post was about a woman looking for a man?