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Friendliness or flirting?


DesJ

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People have probably talked about this before, but I've realized that while I thought I was just too unobservant to notice flirting, I really just can't distinguish it from being friendly. I now find myself walking away from encounters thinking "Oh god, was that flirting? Did they think I was flirting with them?" and in the past I've been informed that someone I thought was trying to make me feel welcome in a new environment was actually "into me". So far as I can tell, flirting and friendliness are pretty much the same in theory. Is knowing the difference a matter of experience or would it be easier if I had any personal understanding of why people flirt at all or what it feels like to want to flirt?

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There Is No Cure

Flirting is complicated. It's a fine, fine art. There are different kinds of flirting and some people are actually immune to it perhaps because they have never consciously had a need to flirt with someone, not actually because they have no experience. You can subconsciously flirt and there are mixed messages people can send that could be either flirting or friendliness. Idk...just don't let it bother you, I suppose ^^ Some people don't get flirting, and that's ok.

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I am with you all the way there. I don't know flirting. I was being friendly when someone walked me up to my dorm once and offered him a soda and asking him if he wanted to rest for a while (piggyback ride up three flights of steep stairs) and he apparently thought I was flirting. Your guess is as good as mine but you're not alone in the ignorance. :cake::cake::cake:

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I am with you all the way there. I don't know flirting. I was being friendly when someone walked me up to my dorm once and offered him a soda and asking him if he wanted to rest for a while (piggyback ride up three flights of steep stairs) and he apparently thought I was flirting. Your guess is as good as mine but you're not alone in the ignorance. :cake::cake::cake:

:blink: A man giving a piggyback ride to a woman is always gonna be sexual, for future reference. Unless he's saving her life or she's a little kid or something.

I've learned to be suspicious of any opposite-sex person who is unusually nice to me or takes an interest in me. Not that I'm rude to them or anything, but it makes me be on the lookout for any flirting that I might want to avoid.

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.diva plavalaguna.

I can never tell if someone is flirting with me, especially because it seems to happen so rarely. One time this guy was being uber nice to me at a fast food place and I thought he was just one of those guys who really loves meeting new people, but then it kinda turned out he was flirting and I walked right into it. Had no clue how to get out of that. >.>

I don't try to flirt and I really have no idea how. :P I just like talking to people and being silly, especially online. Really helps me open up. ^^

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AdmiralAddax

I agree with you guys! I can never tell, either! I mean, unless it's super obvious and not subtle in the least bit.

Last summer, one of my male friends and I hung out (when we were first getting to know each other) and talked a lot, etc. I thought we were just friends, and talked about to my other friend how creeped out I would be if he thought it was for romantic intentions. My friend said, "Oh of course not! We're all just friends here, geez!"

...Later on, that same friend told me that our male friend had a crush on me all along and was flirting with me the whole time! WTF, friend?!

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I agree with you guys! I can never tell, either! I mean, unless it's super obvious and not subtle in the least bit.

Last summer, one of my male friends and I hung out (when we were first getting to know each other) and talked a lot, etc. I thought we were just friends, and talked about to my other friend how creeped out I would be if he thought it was for romantic intentions. My friend said, "Oh of course not! We're all just friends here, geez!"

...Later on, that same friend told me that our male friend had a crush on me all along and was flirting with me the whole time! WTF, friend?!

This! That's totally happened to me too! When I was new at my dorm I hung out with one of the guys a lot because I knew no one else, he was nice, and we had a lot of things in common. So we shot the breeze a lot. I thought he was just being friendly. Turns out that he liked me but I was too clueless to figure it out. My other friend told me he had had a crush on me after the two of them began to go out some months later. I was completely and utterly surprised by the news.

Then another time I got to talking to this other guy that nobody in the dorm liked that much. He was rather crude... but he liked old movies and so we talked about movies for a while. We had several more conversations, but I was just being nice like I try to be with everyone. No big deal. Well he must have thought I was flirting with him because he bought me a box of chocolates and a card on Valentine's Day. I was shocked and embarrassed. It was totally unexpected and unwanted. Needless to say I tried to be more careful around him after that, but I fear I may have accidentally led him on at parts because I seriously have no clue what people can consider flirting.

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Flirting with someone is like any other outwardly expressed emotion or action--it is only perfectly obvious to the instigator and is conditionally obvious to the target hinging on their skills of observation. If someone if flirting with you and you think they're being friendly, then who cares? You think they're being friendly, they'll eventually get the message that you're just being friendly and not flirting back (whether because they confront you or they realize it on their own), and everything goes back to neutral (hopefully).

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I can tell friendliness and flirting apart... to some extent. I have come to learn it because I wanted to adapt my behaviour to something that could not be misinterpreted as flirting, since I don't want to flirt at all. The very rare occasions in which I was suspecting someone of flirting with me, all I tried was going along with friendliness and eventually drawing the line (i.e. making the other person understand nothing was going to happen between us). Generally speaking, I don't talk to people much, so the problem doesn't even come up; though I like being friendly in the very few times I do talk.

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I definitely have issues telling when someone is flirting with or likes me. Unless it's PAINFULLY obvious. Or if someone else tells me that the person likes/is flirting with me -- in which case I worry that everything they say to me is potential flirting.

If I feel like I get along with someone, I just try to be friendly (even if I am quiet much of the time). Granted, I think I do tend to be friendlier/more relaxed/more myself around guys that I'm getting to know, rather than girls... but that doesn't mean I'm trying to flirt with all of them, it just means I tend to be a little more comfortable or get along a little better with guys (generally speaking, of course).

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Kurai-Tenshi_Niks

Sometimes it's hard for me to tell the difference between flirting and someone being friendly..I always assume someone is just being friendly though until the person blatantly comes out and tells me what they're doing.

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vrazda verlaine

Wow, I am far from all the replies saying you don't notice flirting. I usually err on the side of being paranoid that ANY new person I meet who's acting friendly might be flirting with me. :lol:

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Wow, I am far from all the replies saying you don't notice flirting. I usually err on the side of being paranoid that ANY new person I meet who's acting friendly might be flirting with me. :lol:

Yeah, since realizing that sometimes people are flirting I've been much more wary lol. Something I have noticed is that people, men in particular, are much nicer and friendlier when I'm wearing "girl" clothes (tighter shirts, tanktops, form-fitting jeans, etc.), whereas I'm essentially invisible when I wear my cargo shorts and baggy T-shirts.

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I think it does take a certain keenness that develops with experience.

For me it's hit and miss. From past experience I am often oblivious to other's romantic advances but some people make it apparent that they want something more.

Confounding, isn't it. :blink:

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One time my sister's friends were coming over, and got to our house before she got home, and as I was alone in the house when they got here I did the host small talk thing. One of them later said to my sister 'your sister was flirting with Edward!' (the other guy). So yeah, no idea what the difference between flirting and being nice is.

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Semantic Drift

Yeah, since realizing that sometimes people are flirting I've been much more wary lol. Something I have noticed is that people, men in particular, are much nicer and friendlier when I'm wearing "girl" clothes (tighter shirts, tanktops, form-fitting jeans, etc.), whereas I'm essentially invisible when I wear my cargo shorts and baggy T-shirts.

I've just started noticing this too... it's happened several times just recently that I was wearing "girly" clothes in the city alone, and random men started talking to me. I had absolutely no idea what was going on until the "Do you want to have coffee with me sometime?", and I just sort of freaked out. I've also had a guy friend sit me down and ask me very seriously if I had a crush on him, because apparently his girlfriend was suspicious about the way we talked to each other... I just don't get it. My sexual friends have tried to explain flirting to me, but completely failed.

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cthuvianace

I just don't understand flirting. I don't do it, and I don't notice when other people do. I would say that it's partially connected to my demiromanticism, since by the time I've reached the stage of friendship in which I can be romantically attracted to someone, it's far far past the point where flirting is even a viable option.

Also, apparently people think I'm flirting a lot, because I'm quite friendly, and don't realize what I'm doing. A friend of mine thought I had a crush on her for the first six months I knew her, before realizing that I wasn't flirting, that I was just being friendly, and totally clueless of how it came across.

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I get into trouble, because I'm a friendly person, and I tend to err on the side of assuming that any stranger who initiates a conversation with me is just being friendly (because I have this slightly irrational internal programming that says it's vain to assume someone's interested in me without incredibly blatant proof), so I'm friendly back. So, on the occasions that they eventually get to, "So, are you seeing anyone?" or, "So...would you like to see a movie/have dinner/get a coffee with me, sometime?" I tend to be a little startled, and it takes me a moment or so to find the words to politely explain the situation.

P.

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