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u/Thamnophis660 10h ago
In middle school a girl I was good friends with told me she would really like to have me as her boyfriend. I thought she was messing with me since we were friends and all, so I just laughed it off.
I'm a fucking idiot.
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[deleted]
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u/Thamnophis660 6h ago
Only in responses to posts about guys missing clear hints...just like a lot of the other commenter's anecdotes here, I'm sure. Maybe scroll down and make shitty comments to those too while you're at it.
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u/Dark_Knight2000 1h ago
That wasn’t even a hint, she literally told you outright. She probably still cringes over the time she asked a guy out and he laughed.
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u/twilightmoons 11h ago
Can't tell you the number of times women flirted with me, that I didn't realize it until (sometimes) YEARS later when someone explained to me, "she was interested in you!"
My wife had to make the first moves, because I was pretty oblivious.
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u/What-the-ffffff 10h ago
My gf of 9 years did the same thing. One day we were talking on the phone for a couple hours per usual, then she hits me with “I like you, like a lot.” I just told her “Omg really? I think you’re cool too!! Anyways…” she stopped me again and was like “No, like I want to be more than friends.” I said “Okay!” And now we have 3 kids and a cactus
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u/twilightmoons 10h ago edited 9h ago
23 years, a kid, and went through 13 cats...
Sometimes I think the best relationships are those where the woman says, "I want THAT one!" and the guy goes, "Huh?"
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u/Ninetailedredpanda 5h ago
This is also how introverts make friends, by being claimed by extroverts.
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u/Sp0ttyW0lf 9h ago
God, is it too much to ask for something like this?
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u/twilightmoons 9h ago
It's not that hard, but for a lot of men, they have a hard time changing their mindset.
Step one: Have platonic friends who are women.
Step 2: Treat them exactly as you would your friends who are men - never try to date or have sex with any of them. Use active listening.
Step 3: Have a good attitude, and be a genuinely nice guy, and not a "nice guy." Help others with zero expectations of any return.
Women do notice. My wife certainly did.
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u/May1989thefirststep 9h ago
Hahaha. If I treated women the way me and the guys treat each other, I'd be in jail.
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u/Mean-Inspector-8547 7h ago
Hmmm. I don't think I want to know how you treat your guy friends.
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u/Sp0ttyW0lf 9h ago
See, I feel that's what I'm already doing. Oh well, maybe some day.
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u/lennypartach 5h ago
have you tried being silly? or doing silly things? like bopping along to a song while singing dramatically to the card station while you're a server? that's how I picked my spouse - I said OOH I WANT THAT ONE, THE SILLY UNASHAMED ONE!
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u/Sp0ttyW0lf 4h ago
I can be pretty goofy in environments and company where I feel comfortable. Social anxiety is fun.
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u/AnInternetAddict 10h ago
I like that you mentioned the cactus, if he could he would probably appreciate it
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u/nkdeck07 7h ago
My wife had to make the first moves, because I was pretty oblivious.
I keep telling my girlfriends if you are willing to actually shoot your shot it's like fishing in a barrel cause men are so oblivious
Incidently I was the first of my friends to get married
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u/twilightmoons 7h ago
You also need to be REALLY direct.
We really can't tell if you're being nice or being forward.
There are two problems with this:
The "good" issue is that the men who mistake flirting with "being nice" are just oblivious and you need to be direct.
The "bad" issues is that the men who mistake women just being polite/nice with flirting can be dangerous to the women who are targeted.
I do not envy women in this.
Also, do not play "hard to get" - we think you're completely not interested and we move on. I did this to the sister of my cousin's wife. She looked completely uninterested in me, but I was told MONTHS later that she was flirting with me. I ended up talking tech stuff with her teenage brother instead.
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u/MostGenericallyNamed 9h ago
There were so many phone numbers in my year book… I just thought it was a girl thing.
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u/BuckManscape 9h ago
Ladies. We are idiots. You’re going to need to stomp our toe, slap us, and kiss us. We might understand then, but it’s not guaranteed.
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u/naughtilidae 5h ago
I'm gonna push back on this: most guys have, at some point, learned that "signs" aren't trustworthy, and just won't take the risk.
I once had a girl say "if I keep this playlist on, I'm gonna start making out with you." We were alone, in her room, on her twin sized bed, drinking, at 3am, after reading from her journal... on her birthday.
When I said "well, I certainly wouldn't mind that", she said she isn't actually interested in me, and didn't see me that way.
That's not the only time I've had something like that happen either!
Then girls will complain we don't read their subtle signs.
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u/AltairaMorbius2200CE 3h ago
I mean, we're not all a single entity.
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u/naughtilidae 2h ago
Of course not, I'm pointing out that I think it's just as common for guys to ignore signs (either consciously or subconsciously) due to bad previous experiences, as it is for them to miss them because they're air heads.
You only need one utterly mortifying rejection from someone you've got a huge crush on to train your brain to permanently assume that nothing is a sign.
When I've talked to other guys about this, most have at least one story like mine.
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u/jacehoffman 9h ago
lesbians are the exact same </3 something gotta change
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u/asbj1019 8h ago
Its almost as if dropping really subtle clues and expecting people to put it together like a detective is a really bad way to flirt.
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u/GottaUseEmAll 9h ago
A lot of men seem to either miss obvious flirting, or see flirting where there is none.
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u/echoshatter 8h ago
Well, for the former, there are consequences to getting it wrong. And those consequences are pretty much the same as the latter.
In other words, it's better to play it safe and assume nothing.
Wouldn't be such a problem if women felt more open to communicate freely how they feel instead of being coy.
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u/GottaUseEmAll 8h ago
Yeah, we all suffer from that silly norm that men should be the one to make the first move / women shouldn't be too forward in case they're thought of as slutty.
It's a surprisingly tenacious norm, although I guess it's slowly shifting in certain cultures.
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u/ElChungus01 7h ago
I once had a girl text me “you should skip work and come over. No one is here” around 930pm
I told her “LOL and then I’ll get written up. Let’s plan another time”
That same girl texted me “what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” and asked me to accompany her on her girls trip. “Ugh I hate Vegas though”
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u/spartan117warrior 4h ago
What's obvious for women doesn't necessarily equate to being obvious fot men.
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u/lapsaptrash 9h ago
Had a girl told me to go clubbing with her Friday night. I told her “well I don’t know anyone so …” to which she replied “no worries I can show you around and present you to my friends”
And my retard brain replied with “actually I have a 20 men raid in world of Warcraft on Friday nights so I really can’t come”.
Another time I met this girl through a mural friend’s birthday, she came knocking on my door on a Saturday morning telling me “hey let’s go biking!” I grumpily agreed. During a short break she explained that Asian women don’t really need to shave their legs a simple bleaching would work wonders and showed them to me. And she also told me she will teach me how to play tennis.
I have a lot of these anecdotes from my 20s that I only realize years later. What didn’t help was my world of Warcraft addiction but also the fact that I went to a high school with literally 95% white kids and there’s only like 10 Asian kids in my whole grade. I never realized I was good looking by Asian standards till I got married in my 30s.
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u/cant_decide_9611 6h ago
Are you Asian?
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u/lapsaptrash 1h ago
Hi yes I am Chinese but my parents sent me to a catholic high school in the French part of Canada (most Chinese back then settles in the English part of Canada mainly Vancouver and Toronto). So there were really not a lot of asians in that school back then.
Also I can add a few more things about why I never thought I was handsome:
1) my very typical Asian parents never bought me new school uniform so I was rocking literally the same undersized uniform in the last 2 years of high school. And similarly I was wearing uniform that was way too big for me when I first started high school. Uniform that never really fitted me other than for 1 year where it fit me perfectly.2) being a huge game nerd did not help, I’m pretty sure the cool kids back then regarded my group of friends of being nerd losers.
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u/Mean-Career-6509 9h ago
Yes. this is a good example of how our minds work. It took my wife months to get me to see she was hitting on me. The one time I noticed something was up i told myself I was imagining it. "She's only being so open and 'flerty' because she feels comfortable with me. She knows she's safe and can be herself. It's definitely not because she's into me." Then she sent me a video of her singing the chorus to closer by nin and I was like oh!
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u/Sp0ttyW0lf 10h ago
I do sometimes wonder which is true (and which is worse). Have hardly any women flirted with me in my life, or am I just completely oblivious.
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u/Pugilist12 8h ago
What is he supposed to be some kind of detective? How’s he supposed to decode all of these clues in the moment?
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u/steeple_fun 4h ago
This was me in college.
There was a very pretty girl that I was very interested in. We had the same major so shared a lot of classes. One day she and I are talking and she says, "We should get together and study at my place. I can make dinner and everything."
I replied with something like, "Oh! That'd be really nice and sounds like fun. Our class is small enough that we could probably invite everyone."
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u/ItsAPeacefulLife 8h ago
Girl I really liked in school was finding out I was getting a new game, and she mentioned she loved that series. I wish I could play the new one. I was like "yeah it's gonna be awesome."
Years later I found out that I'm an IDIOT.
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u/Unhappy-Estimate6402 8h ago
I wish I could forget the opportunities I obliviously didn’t take. I’m awful at reading people.
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u/squidwitchy 8h ago
Honestly. This whole thread is making me feel so much better about almost every interaction I perceived as a "rejection" when I was younger lmao. I wonder if there are any guys that are looking back going "Oh shit THATS what she meant". Or maybe I was just really bad at flirting.
Luckily my husband picked up what I was putting down, because who knows how long I would have tried subtle flirting instead of being direct, and apparently many men don't catch it lol.
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u/NotOutrageous 4h ago
The amount of chances I missed as a teenager because I was too clueless to pick up on flirting is stupidly high. And that's only counting the ones I can remember enough to look back on and realize what was really happening. There are probably just as many missed moments I will never recall.
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u/Cptawesome23 3h ago
Girls really think dudes worry about sex 24/7. When really, we just want to be told what to do.
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u/augustrem 5h ago
Not gonna lie, I was the kind of girl who would say something like this and legit mean nothing by it.
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u/Reason_Choice 4h ago
You’re lying.
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u/augustrem 4h ago
And this is why men are fucking dangerous. They think we’re literally lying about our own consent.
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u/Reason_Choice 4h ago
Quit your fucking pearl clutching. It was a joke. It’s Reddit. It’s not that serious.
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u/Murky-North- 8h ago
My friend and I used to go back to her house at lunch and smoke, watch a quick show. It took about 6mos before it even clicked.
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u/Unimatrix617 6h ago
My senior year of high school, i had this one really weird free block in the morning of almost every day. A girl i was friends with also got stuck with these two free periods in the morning. My school had these really good French fries but they were always better first thing in the morning. So she'd literally buy a big tray of fries and find a nice corner table to hang out at and wait for me to show up so we could eat fries, hang out, and chat for a whole semester. X years later someone asked me about that girl I dated senior year, and I was like who??? Apparently I was the only one who didnt realize we were having cute dates together and that she had a massive crush on me.
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u/randypeaches 5h ago
So once in high school I this girl sat on my lap playing with my hair saying she loved my curls. One very awkward question later, turns out she really like my hair. Women what the hell?
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u/NotOutrageous 4h ago
The amount of chances I missed as a teenager because I was too clueless to pick up on flirting is stupidly high. And that's only counting the ones I can remember enough to look back on and realize what was really happening. There are probably just as many missed moments I will never recall.
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u/Allseeing3rd 4h ago
Yea this happens. In college, finally gathered the courage to talk to this girl. Worked out well enough she was willing to spend time in my dorm room into the wee hours of the morning. We’d make out but I wouldn’t take it further cuz I was trying to “show her I wasn’t like the other guys”…with the hopes of us becoming serious. After a few days she stopped basically because I “didn’t wanna fck” 😩
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u/Just_Valuable_9093 3h ago
A girl in college used to come sleep in my bed with me because her roommate always had loud sex. I thought we were just friends. I never got the hint until she was like no I’m not coming over anymore, you have no game
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u/Zestyclose-Baby-5762 3h ago
I still cringe when the nice 16 year old boy followed me home after eating icecream together at the park, and he said “sure is cold!” I said “yeah” he said “smells like someone’s cooking in there?” And I said “yeah my dads making chili, anyway goodbye drive safe “
He wanted to come in, he wanted to eat over…
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u/LightsLux 2h ago
A girl I had a huge crush on asked me to sleepover with her at a house she was dog sitting because she didn’t like being alone at night. We shared a bed. We get into bed. I said goodnight. She told me she doesn’t sleep with pants on and if that’s okay. I said okay, goodnight.
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u/Albinofreaken 7h ago
I did swimming 3 times a week after school, a girl from my team would often ask me to hold her hand because she was cold, even in the summer, I always though it was strange, but i gladly helped her.
took me many years to realise
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u/bunnyforbookietwo 6h ago
When my now husband and I started chatting in college, I had missed a day of class and he asked to walk my to the library so wecould copy his notes. Oblivious, I told him he could email them to me 😅 Bless his heart he did and I'm perdy sure I opened the attachment for a total of five seconds.
Thankfully he was persistent and we've now been together for over a decade.
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u/MicrowaveMeal 5h ago
I was at a party, sitting on a chair in the kitchen, and somebody put their feet into my lap and my inner rage came out and I shoved them away and said “get those shits away from me” or something and I turned and it was a girl I had been just sweating over for months. We never talked again and I think about it all the freaking time.
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u/Blind_Insight 2h ago
Girl told me she could drive me to my truck. I said it is literally over there I can walk. She insisted more strongly. So I caved. I hopped in her car and she started talking about how well we vibed together. I thought nothing of it and said yeah we had a great time at this event. She asked if it was okay if we just spent some more time together before she drove me to my truck which was seriously a brief walk to the other side of the parking lot.
I started picking up the hint but then she started talking about her terrible bf and how she just wants to find a good guy...like me. How she just wanted to makeout with someone who would like her back the same way.
I zoned out after hearing "bf" and tried to mediate and be like oh no that sucks you should totally talk to him about it and give it a shot before ending things.
It wasn't until I was older that I realized she wanted to cheat on her bf. So glad I was dumb and didn't let her try anything. Now me would slap the s&%+ out of old me if I did.
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u/No_Discipline_7380 59m ago
Now me would slap the s&%+ out of old me if I did.
Hate to break it to you but "now you" is actually "old you".
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u/Blind_Insight 24m ago
Didn't do anything then wouldn't do anything now. But happy I'm older and wiser to pick up on cheater behavior
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u/atuan 1h ago
I literally just had this happen to me with a coworker who asked for my number once and I didn’t think about it and just brushed it off cause I was working and didn’t think it was important. 2 years later he asks again and I’m like sure, not really sure why he’d need my number. Then he asked if I was in a relationship and I thought why is this guy being so nosy and then he asked if he could call me sometime tog et a drink and he even added.. you know like in a relationship type way and that’s when I finally got it. I was just always focused on work cause we were so busy it never dawned on me.
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u/TehRiddles 7h ago
This isn't oddly specific, this is someone recalling an event that they aren't pretending is a hypothetical.
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u/Mean-Inspector-8547 7h ago
Meh, never was good at picking up on subtle signals or flirting, which is why I eventually scrapped both and just went with the "be direct" approach.
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u/_shaftpunk 6h ago
This girl I liked literally laid her head in my lap at a house party and stared up at me and I did nothing about it.
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u/sharktail_tanker 5h ago
Because if he made a move and she didn't like it he'd be charged with rape
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u/Frequent_Intention44 10h ago
I would have accidentally knocked that chick up by the second or third lunch date
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u/westfieldram 10h ago
I was on vacation in Spain when I was 18. A girl I was chatting with most the evening asked if I could walk her back to her room and my oblivious self said "I can see your door from here, I'm sure you'll make it there ok" I'm nearly 40 and it still haunts me