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.
this post was submitted on 16 Aug 2024
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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).
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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.
this is terrible flirting
Absolutely.
Men are not clueless
A LOT of us are, though..
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.
Usually correct, though sometimes it IS and other times it's just her being nice voluntarily. Such is the mysteries of interpersonal interaction!
women have to use their adult voices
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:
- What’s subtle to you is entirely invisible to him
- What’s obvious to you is still mostly invisible to him
- What’s embarrassingly obvious to you is just starting to become subtle and therefore potentially noticeable to him
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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.
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I saw this girl staring straight into my eyes. I almost told her Arch btw, but the memes told me not to.
jk, I tipped my fedora and said a passing hello. No room in life for a trad sub
"Good day, m'lady!"
"Are you perchance familiar with the glorious medium of Japanese animations?"
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Girls think looking at people indicates interest? How the hell am I meant to know that?
Please, use your words!
Girls ≠ Girls that are on 4chan
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>vagina-bearer
Heh, nerd.
The cute boy said I was too intense, so I just stared at him until he started to cry
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I think the pendulum of gender empowerment has swung in women’s favor so much that for alot of guys, there’s the fear of coming across as a creep for even trying to flirt or staring too long at a woman. At my work, there’s a fairly sizable amount of women, but the dangers from acting interested towards any women could cost you your job.
We had one lady who got a security guard fired because she said he made her feel uncomfortable, not that any incidents had happened at all, she really couldn’t even say that he had said or done anything offensive, she just had a bad feeling because he seemed “weird” and reported it to HR. Just the feeling of uncomfortableness is enough to get somebody dismissed in some places.
Granted, that’s at a workplace and workplace romances probably aren’t a good idea anyways, but society in general has primed me to think that any advances towards women are unwelcome, unless they’re not. You’ll never know unless you risk getting reported just for trying. So the incentive is to just not try unless it’s blatantly obvious, because I know I could easily misread basic kindness for sexual interest. Even going on walks, I have to avoid walking behind women for fear they’ll think I’m following them or that I’m being a creep.
In day to day encounters between plebs, women have all the power in relationships in Western society, men are like dogs on a leash. If you want to show us interest, just give us a pat on the head, scratch our chin, or something.
We had one lady who got a security guard fired because she said he made her feel uncomfortable
I have seen guys report women to HR because of actual, verifiable sexual harassment (physical touching, etc.) and be laughed out of the HR office because “women cannot sexually harass a man” and “men always want it”. Many of these men were also punished for attempting to report, with some even being fired.
They asymmetric societal standards currently in place are insanely misandric and bleedingly hypocritical.
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I've been hit on by a variety of genders and have never noticed a single time! Except for months/years later. .....I think.
My assumption would be that she's going to punch me in the face for accidentally being offensive.
I spent all of my highschool years being stared at but being autistic I thought it was them 'oogling the freak'.
After I got old and fat I met up with an old HS friend and they asked "Why didn't you ever date anyone, tons of girls were into you'.
And I was like 'They were?! WHO?!'
and then they list off a bunch of girls I always thought hated me. And not in the funny 'kindergarten girl throwing rocks at you' way but in the legit 'Mean Girls' kind of way.
Then he said "Well, were they smiling when they were staring at you?"
I think and say "I guess, but I always interpreted it as the same crooked 'enjoying the chaos' smile people get when they see a train wreck."
And he was like "No dude, Jen was super into you and really angry that you avoided her for three years."
For allistics: Most autistic people HATE eye contact and almost always, without therapy, interpreted as a threat.
For autistics: Staring at the bridge of their nose makes them THINK you are looking them directly in the eyes without giving you the jibblies.
Also for autistics: if you find yourself doing anything that requires speaking to a group, as long as you are more than 5 to 6 feet (160-170 cm) away from the people, you can look just over their heads, and behind them, and they will think you're looking directly at them. It's a common stage acting/singing technique.
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Step 2: offer them delicious food OR offer to have sex with them
offer them delicious food
She's probably just being friendly.
offer to have sex with them
Yeah, still not sure, might just be her way of being friendly.
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NGL this is how my first girlfriend forced me to realize their intentions.
Lured me over to their house for free venison sausage dinner, then didn't let me go home.
I legit had zero clue she was into me until she flung me down on the couch. She had been planning this for weeks.
Unfortunately it didn't last, but it was fun while it did.
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