I don’t know if anyone can help me with this, but how do I tell the difference between flirting and friendliness? I grew up in pretty much total social isolation from peers, so neither really ever happened, and when they happen now I can’t tell which is which. Also, how do you go from talking to someone at the beginning/end of class (or other activity) to actually being the kind of friends who see each other elsewhere and do activities together?
Edit: Thank you, this is good advice. Does anyone have any advice on how to tell with women? I’m bi, and more interested in women, and they are much harder to read than men on the subject, because women’s behavior with female friends is often fairly flirty to begin with.
It’s not always this clear-cut, but if a guy touches you at all while he’s talking (brushes your hand, etc.), makes an unusual amount of eye contact, or makes a point of being alone with you, it’s flirting. If he’s talking or joking about sex, it’s more likely to be flirting.
How do you become the kind of friends who see each other outside of class? That used to confuse me SO MUCH. The easiest way to transition from “person I’ve spoken to” to “actual friend” is to say “You want to get lunch together sometime?” It’s also possible to ask “are you going to event X?” (I used to find this step nervewracking. But remember, most people are not offended by offers of companionship. Most people want to make new friends.)
Also, notice how people hang around after an event. Most people don’t leave right away, briskly. They sort of mosey and talk. If you’re like me, your instinct will be to think, “Well, I’m done with that, time to go do something else.” But more social people spend a colossal amount of time just hanging around, and they exchange more closeness that way. You can’t make friends with people who only see you in brief bursts.
There often is not any difference at all between flirting and friendliness. People vary very much in their ways. And yet we are supposed to easily tell the difference, with threat of imprisonment for failing.
The main effects I have seen and experienced, is that flirting typically involve more eye contact, and that a lot of people flirt while denying they do it, and refusing to to tell what they would do if they really flirted, and disparaging others for not knowing the difference.
My experience is also that ordinary people are much more direct and clear in the difference between flirting and friendship, while academic people muddle it.
yet we are supposed to easily tell the difference, with threat of imprisonment for failing.
It can be hard to tell the difference, and it can be easy to mess up when trying to flirt back, but it takes rather more than than simply not telling the difference between flirtation and friendliness for imprisonment. There has to be actual unwelcome steps taken that cross significant lines.
The way the mating dance typically goes is as a series of small escalations. One of the purposes this serves is to let parties make advances without as much risk of everyone seeing them turned down, and lose face. It also lets people make stronger evaluations and back out in the middle gracefully.
Flirtatious talk is not an open invitation for a grabby hands. It is an invitation for further flirtatious talk. It may be an invitation for an invasion of personal space and increasing proximity. This in turn can be invitation for casual, brief, touches on non-sexual body areas. The point of no return, where it’s hard to gracefully back out and pretend nothing was happening, is usually the kiss. That’s usually done as a slow invasion of space, by the initiator, who must watch for the other to either lean in and take position, or lean and turn away. (or occasionally sit wide-eyed and frozen like a deer in the headlights).
Don’t take the example order above too seriously. It’s more complicated than a straight progression as laid out here. In addition to varying cultural attachments of these behaviors, all of them can vary continuously from completely innocent to drenched in erotic meaning, and escalation can happen in any of them at a given time. A clasp-and-release on the upper arm is an escalation from not touching, but far below resting a hand on the thigh.
And really, you can talk and ask for clarification from people you’re flirting with. Heck, asking “are you flirting with me” is itself a reasonable flirt-and-escalate move. Being explicit can kill the mood for some people, but if you’re not actually sure where in this dance you are or which direction it’s headed, it’s generally safer than risking unwanted boundary crossing.
I should also say that with strangers (in a bar say), this whole thing usually starts earlier with looks at someone punctuated with looks away when you see them looking back.
That’s usually done as a slow invasion of space, by the initiator, who must watch for the other to either lean in and take position, or lean and turn away.
If you’re reasonably confident in the other person’s interest, simply announcing “I’m going to kiss you now,” followed by a brief pause, works quite nicely, signals confidence, builds anticipation, and still gives them the opportunity to back out.
If you’re reasonably confident in the other person’s interest, simply announcing “I’m going to kiss you now,” followed by a brief pause, works quite nicely, signals confidence, builds anticipation, and still gives them the opportunity to back out.
Another version: “I’m thinking about kissing you”, and offering your cheek.
And really, you can talk and ask for clarification from people you’re flirting with. Heck, asking “are you flirting with me” is itself a reasonable flirt-and-escalate move. Being explicit can kill the mood for some people, but if you’re not actually sure where in this dance you are or which direction it’s headed, it’s generally safer than risking unwanted boundary crossing.
If you need verbal feedback, you’re probably better off finding out fairly early whether the person you’re flirting with is comfortable with questions or not.
What I’m particularly frustrated about is not telling the difference between flirting and friendliness (the line is blurry and that’s okay) but when specifically it’s okay to escalate to physical touching.
I’m afraid this isn’t going to be helpful, but like everything else, it depends. Touches too can straddle the line between friendliness and flirtation, and mere physical contact needn’t be an escalation at all. A glancing contact with someone’s hand when passing them something isn’t. Prolonging that contact is. Clapping someone on the shoulder is usually just friendly, but adding a squeeze intensifies that.
I should also say that with strangers (in a bar say), this whole thing usually starts earlier with looks at someone punctuated with looks away when you see them looking back.
Surely this is more general than that? I mean, you didn’t say it wasn’t, but ISTM it wouldn’t be worth mentioning if that was what you meant. Did you actually mean it in a more inclusive sense?
Or am I just very wrong about interpreting/doing this? :-/
I didn’t mean to imply that trading glances like this was exclusive to strangers. However: it is a larger portion of the initial signaling, because fewer signals are available than between friends or people otherwise interacting. Secondly, it’s more noticeable in strangers, again because of the relative lack of other interactions and signals.
Oops, that wasn’t the generalization I was thinking of. Sorry; I should have been more explicit. I meant I do this to strangers a lot simply because, e.g., I’m outside and it’s nighttime and I’m trying to determine whether or not they’re someone I know in the first place, which has nothing to do with this.
Oh. Yes, people look at each other a lot, naturally, without any signals being sent. It’s going to be near impossible to tell from short textual descriptions whether what you’re doing is anything like the sexual signaling, but I would suspect not. It’s usually done at a fairly subconscious level
and that a lot of people flirt while denying they do it
Or without even realising. Several years ago an acquaintance on whom I was developing a crush told me she was aware of this; this puzzled me since I thought I hadn’t yet initiated anything like flirting, so I asked how she knew. Then she took my hand and replicated the way in which, a few days before, I had passed her some small object (probably a pen). I didn’t realise I was doing it at the time, but in that casual gesture I was prolonging the physical contact a lot more than necessary, and once put on the receiving side it was bloody obvious what was going on.
http://www.wrongplanet.net/ is a community page for asperger/autism people that contains social descriptions on a level that might be helpful. I do not read too much of it, but maybe it is useful.
Well, that’s the whole idea of flirting—that you can’t really tell the difference. If it’s clear and upfront, then it’s not called flirting anymore, but rather an advance (friendly or more explicit).
You have a lot of uncertainty arising from a simple gesture/look/invitation, and (I believe) this is where all the fun really comes from: dealing with a lot of different scenarios that have very similar initial contexts but have a wide range of possible outcomes, and choosing the outcome you want with so little effort.
I also believe that your ability to tell the difference between one person’s flirting and friendliness is strongly influenced by how well you know that person.
how do I tell the difference between flirting and friendliness?
Flirting is tinged with sexuality, either explicit or subtle. Maybe a touch on your arm, a wink, or innuendo. A lot of it is context-dependent, as well: for instance, the exact same words and behavior can be flirting when a guy says it to a girl, but not when a guy says it to a guy (the social default is that everyone is straight; this is different in a gay bar, for instance).
Also, how do you go from talking to someone at the beginning/end of class (or other activity) to actually being the kind of friends who see each other elsewhere and do activities together?
You have to actually be active and ask the person for their phone number, invite them to get coffee, go bowling, whatever. It doesn’t always work out—you may not meet up with 90% of them—but the other 10% will become your friends.
Correctly ascertaining others’ internal state and responding accordingly is a NEWT-level social skill. It is (at least usually) easier to ascertain your own internal state, specifically as it relates to the particular behaviors of the maybe-flirter, and respond accordingly. Here is how this breaks down for me:
“They might be flirting and I like it”:
-> And they are flirting: continue whatever I was doing, remembering that flirting is no guarantee of any particular outcome
-> And they are not: same (such should be the conviction that flirting is no guarantee of any particular outcome.)
“They might be flirting and I don’t like it”:
-> And they are flirting: Excuse myself from the situation; ask them to modify behavior if it recurs (or avoid them)
-> And they are not flirting: Their take on acceptable platonic interaction makes me uncomfortable, so again excuse/ask/avoid.
So, conveniently, it doesn’t matter!
Of course, it’s generally a fine idea to just ask, too, remembering that the given response may not be completely reliable. :)
As someone who has recently gained some, though not much, proficiency in this area, I think part of the problem lies with the question itself. We have been convinced by the media to believe that ‘flirting’ is a clearly definable mode of interaction that socially competent people have no trouble distinguishing from normal interactions. This is false. In my experience people talk about flirting a lot, but are very seldom able to point to instances of it except when there are very obvious body language cues. Almost all men and most women I know have trouble with this. We nerds I think differ more in how uncomfortable we are with the ambiguity, than in our ability to read the situation. You are not alone.
Having a rough road map in your mind does help. Gradual escalation with careful attentiveness to catch signs of discomfort. Just don’t take it as an automatic rejection if you see such a sign, it could just mean, ‘slow down’.
That said, as a hetero guy I might be operating under a different ruleset. You could probably be quite a lot more forward as a woman, due to not sharing a karyotype with 95% of the world’s violent criminals.
I’m bi, and more interested in women, and they are much harder to read than men on the subject, because women’s behavior with female friends is often fairly flirty to begin with.
Being in a sexual minority is hard. Some people can estimate sexual orientation from body language (the word is “gaydar”), but I can’t (but then I’m straight and married so I don’t need to). If you can’t, you might want to use a dating site when trying to meet up with women, or use the Internet to find nearby places where bi and lesbian women congregate.
I vaguely recall hearing that bars with misspellings in the name are either for gay men or gay women or both. I don’t remember which, I don’t remember how well defined the convention is, and I don’t know if you like bars. (I don’t.)
I don’t know if anyone can help me with this, but how do I tell the difference between flirting and friendliness? I grew up in pretty much total social isolation from peers, so neither really ever happened, and when they happen now I can’t tell which is which. Also, how do you go from talking to someone at the beginning/end of class (or other activity) to actually being the kind of friends who see each other elsewhere and do activities together?
Edit: Thank you, this is good advice. Does anyone have any advice on how to tell with women? I’m bi, and more interested in women, and they are much harder to read than men on the subject, because women’s behavior with female friends is often fairly flirty to begin with.
It’s not always this clear-cut, but if a guy touches you at all while he’s talking (brushes your hand, etc.), makes an unusual amount of eye contact, or makes a point of being alone with you, it’s flirting. If he’s talking or joking about sex, it’s more likely to be flirting.
How do you become the kind of friends who see each other outside of class? That used to confuse me SO MUCH. The easiest way to transition from “person I’ve spoken to” to “actual friend” is to say “You want to get lunch together sometime?” It’s also possible to ask “are you going to event X?” (I used to find this step nervewracking. But remember, most people are not offended by offers of companionship. Most people want to make new friends.)
Also, notice how people hang around after an event. Most people don’t leave right away, briskly. They sort of mosey and talk. If you’re like me, your instinct will be to think, “Well, I’m done with that, time to go do something else.” But more social people spend a colossal amount of time just hanging around, and they exchange more closeness that way. You can’t make friends with people who only see you in brief bursts.
There often is not any difference at all between flirting and friendliness. People vary very much in their ways. And yet we are supposed to easily tell the difference, with threat of imprisonment for failing.
The main effects I have seen and experienced, is that flirting typically involve more eye contact, and that a lot of people flirt while denying they do it, and refusing to to tell what they would do if they really flirted, and disparaging others for not knowing the difference.
My experience is also that ordinary people are much more direct and clear in the difference between flirting and friendship, while academic people muddle it.
It can be hard to tell the difference, and it can be easy to mess up when trying to flirt back, but it takes rather more than than simply not telling the difference between flirtation and friendliness for imprisonment. There has to be actual unwelcome steps taken that cross significant lines.
The way the mating dance typically goes is as a series of small escalations. One of the purposes this serves is to let parties make advances without as much risk of everyone seeing them turned down, and lose face. It also lets people make stronger evaluations and back out in the middle gracefully.
Flirtatious talk is not an open invitation for a grabby hands. It is an invitation for further flirtatious talk. It may be an invitation for an invasion of personal space and increasing proximity. This in turn can be invitation for casual, brief, touches on non-sexual body areas. The point of no return, where it’s hard to gracefully back out and pretend nothing was happening, is usually the kiss. That’s usually done as a slow invasion of space, by the initiator, who must watch for the other to either lean in and take position, or lean and turn away. (or occasionally sit wide-eyed and frozen like a deer in the headlights).
Don’t take the example order above too seriously. It’s more complicated than a straight progression as laid out here. In addition to varying cultural attachments of these behaviors, all of them can vary continuously from completely innocent to drenched in erotic meaning, and escalation can happen in any of them at a given time. A clasp-and-release on the upper arm is an escalation from not touching, but far below resting a hand on the thigh.
And really, you can talk and ask for clarification from people you’re flirting with. Heck, asking “are you flirting with me” is itself a reasonable flirt-and-escalate move. Being explicit can kill the mood for some people, but if you’re not actually sure where in this dance you are or which direction it’s headed, it’s generally safer than risking unwanted boundary crossing.
I should also say that with strangers (in a bar say), this whole thing usually starts earlier with looks at someone punctuated with looks away when you see them looking back.
If you’re reasonably confident in the other person’s interest, simply announcing “I’m going to kiss you now,” followed by a brief pause, works quite nicely, signals confidence, builds anticipation, and still gives them the opportunity to back out.
Another version: “I’m thinking about kissing you”, and offering your cheek.
If you need verbal feedback, you’re probably better off finding out fairly early whether the person you’re flirting with is comfortable with questions or not.
What I’m particularly frustrated about is not telling the difference between flirting and friendliness (the line is blurry and that’s okay) but when specifically it’s okay to escalate to physical touching.
I’m afraid this isn’t going to be helpful, but like everything else, it depends. Touches too can straddle the line between friendliness and flirtation, and mere physical contact needn’t be an escalation at all. A glancing contact with someone’s hand when passing them something isn’t. Prolonging that contact is. Clapping someone on the shoulder is usually just friendly, but adding a squeeze intensifies that.
Surely this is more general than that? I mean, you didn’t say it wasn’t, but ISTM it wouldn’t be worth mentioning if that was what you meant. Did you actually mean it in a more inclusive sense?
Or am I just very wrong about interpreting/doing this? :-/
I didn’t mean to imply that trading glances like this was exclusive to strangers. However: it is a larger portion of the initial signaling, because fewer signals are available than between friends or people otherwise interacting. Secondly, it’s more noticeable in strangers, again because of the relative lack of other interactions and signals.
Oops, that wasn’t the generalization I was thinking of. Sorry; I should have been more explicit. I meant I do this to strangers a lot simply because, e.g., I’m outside and it’s nighttime and I’m trying to determine whether or not they’re someone I know in the first place, which has nothing to do with this.
Oh. Yes, people look at each other a lot, naturally, without any signals being sent. It’s going to be near impossible to tell from short textual descriptions whether what you’re doing is anything like the sexual signaling, but I would suspect not. It’s usually done at a fairly subconscious level
Or without even realising. Several years ago an acquaintance on whom I was developing a crush told me she was aware of this; this puzzled me since I thought I hadn’t yet initiated anything like flirting, so I asked how she knew. Then she took my hand and replicated the way in which, a few days before, I had passed her some small object (probably a pen). I didn’t realise I was doing it at the time, but in that casual gesture I was prolonging the physical contact a lot more than necessary, and once put on the receiving side it was bloody obvious what was going on.
http://www.wrongplanet.net/ is a community page for asperger/autism people that contains social descriptions on a level that might be helpful. I do not read too much of it, but maybe it is useful.
Well, that’s the whole idea of flirting—that you can’t really tell the difference. If it’s clear and upfront, then it’s not called flirting anymore, but rather an advance (friendly or more explicit).
You have a lot of uncertainty arising from a simple gesture/look/invitation, and (I believe) this is where all the fun really comes from: dealing with a lot of different scenarios that have very similar initial contexts but have a wide range of possible outcomes, and choosing the outcome you want with so little effort.
I also believe that your ability to tell the difference between one person’s flirting and friendliness is strongly influenced by how well you know that person.
Flirting is tinged with sexuality, either explicit or subtle. Maybe a touch on your arm, a wink, or innuendo. A lot of it is context-dependent, as well: for instance, the exact same words and behavior can be flirting when a guy says it to a girl, but not when a guy says it to a guy (the social default is that everyone is straight; this is different in a gay bar, for instance).
You have to actually be active and ask the person for their phone number, invite them to get coffee, go bowling, whatever. It doesn’t always work out—you may not meet up with 90% of them—but the other 10% will become your friends.
There is a good argument that this is intentional. (See slatestarcodex.com/2017/06/26/conversation-deliberately-skirts-the-border-of-incomprehensibility/)
I’m very late to this party, but:
Correctly ascertaining others’ internal state and responding accordingly is a NEWT-level social skill. It is (at least usually) easier to ascertain your own internal state, specifically as it relates to the particular behaviors of the maybe-flirter, and respond accordingly. Here is how this breaks down for me:
“They might be flirting and I like it”:
-> And they are flirting: continue whatever I was doing, remembering that flirting is no guarantee of any particular outcome
-> And they are not: same (such should be the conviction that flirting is no guarantee of any particular outcome.)
“They might be flirting and I don’t like it”:
-> And they are flirting: Excuse myself from the situation; ask them to modify behavior if it recurs (or avoid them)
-> And they are not flirting: Their take on acceptable platonic interaction makes me uncomfortable, so again excuse/ask/avoid.
So, conveniently, it doesn’t matter!
Of course, it’s generally a fine idea to just ask, too, remembering that the given response may not be completely reliable. :)
As someone who has recently gained some, though not much, proficiency in this area, I think part of the problem lies with the question itself. We have been convinced by the media to believe that ‘flirting’ is a clearly definable mode of interaction that socially competent people have no trouble distinguishing from normal interactions. This is false. In my experience people talk about flirting a lot, but are very seldom able to point to instances of it except when there are very obvious body language cues. Almost all men and most women I know have trouble with this. We nerds I think differ more in how uncomfortable we are with the ambiguity, than in our ability to read the situation. You are not alone.
Having a rough road map in your mind does help. Gradual escalation with careful attentiveness to catch signs of discomfort. Just don’t take it as an automatic rejection if you see such a sign, it could just mean, ‘slow down’.
That said, as a hetero guy I might be operating under a different ruleset. You could probably be quite a lot more forward as a woman, due to not sharing a karyotype with 95% of the world’s violent criminals.
Being in a sexual minority is hard. Some people can estimate sexual orientation from body language (the word is “gaydar”), but I can’t (but then I’m straight and married so I don’t need to). If you can’t, you might want to use a dating site when trying to meet up with women, or use the Internet to find nearby places where bi and lesbian women congregate.
I vaguely recall hearing that bars with misspellings in the name are either for gay men or gay women or both. I don’t remember which, I don’t remember how well defined the convention is, and I don’t know if you like bars. (I don’t.)
You’ll feel more uneasy when someone’s flirting.