[Outdated, please look at pinned post] Casual Conversation

I think most men are so infamously dense because they don't want to misinterpret things. It's a really thin line to walk and falling might ruin a friendship or make things very awkward. Very good manners/kindness and flirtatiousness are very difficult to distinguish.

Making the first move and reading things wrong can really hurt, especially if the other party wants it too. I had a female friend that was very friendly, who'd hug and hold hands with me at times. Friends told me to go for it. When I did she told all of her friends and I was collectively humiliated by the whole school. You could say I dodged a bullet, but it felt like I was by a car.

I'm over it now but I'm now very risk averse. Unless somebody are practically yelling at me to date them, I will only assume friendly intentions

I am terrified of making people uncomfortable, generally a lot more with women than men. Unless someone is very explicit, I will pretty much never act on a percieved hint.

It's actually more a question of women's hints being unable to penetrate men's insecurities and generalized incompetence when it comes to intimate matters.

Historically, I've been terrible at interpreting hints. These days, I often worry about whether these hints are genuine, leading me to assume they are simply being kind.

Whenever I attempted to decipher these hints in the past, I was invariably rejected. Consequently, as an adult, my self-esteem has suffered greatly. So much so, that with the last woman who dropped hints, I merely wanted to be friends. Five years later, I still think about it.

Needless to say, my job doesn't provide many opportunities to meet women.

How am I supposed to tell that you're actually hinting and this isn't just you? I've literally had that happen where a girl seemed super into me. Constantly talking to me and coming up with every reason to be close to me or touch me. I asked her out and she had a boyfriend and I'm just like "alright I'm never asking a girl out again this shits infuriating"

So now I just don't even think about it much. Occasionally I'll see a pretty girl and want to interact with her but then remember my experiences and go back to not caring.

I ignore their hints because I'm not interested in ever having kids in a world like this and because they hint to bait me into some kind of trouble where they control the narrative.

I know I suck at picking up on hints, unless it's someone I know very well - and even then I suck at it. I'm honestly just sorta scared that if I mistake a non-hint for a hint, then I'll ruin a great friendship or something.

However, there once was this one woman who made it fairly obvious she was attracted to me and, after a few dates, said something to the tune of "we're going back to your place now, or this isn't going to work out". So anyway, we're married now. Half the time her "hint" when she wants to have sex is asking me why I still have underwear on. Of course sometimes things still progress there naturally, but then she also makes it fairly obvious if she's truly in the mood.

Point of the story is, ladies, if you really like the man, feel like he likes you too, and he's not getting your hints, don't be afraid to be direct. Sure guys like the chase too, but to have a woman straight up tell you that she's really into you and feels a special connection with you that she's never felt before? It's just such a beautiful experience... There's just so much I'll never forget, even if our ways were to be parted one day.

The Apple Vision Pro will fix this. You'll get a ❤️ symbol above people's heads when they are interested in you.

Proviso, comment is based on old memories.

There was some research done on how women flirt. Women particularly put out IoIs (Indicators of Interest). These include things like hair flick, lip touching etc. When a woman is attracted to a man, the rate of IoIs goes up, sometimes 200-300% baseline.

Unfortunately, the catch is the baseline. Women vary widely on this. Some normally use 2-3/hour, others all the way up to 120/hour. This is where men can often get in trouble. A woman sending them 60/hour might be a 20 flirting outrageously, or a 120 who is actively disinterested. Trying to advance things will get vastly different results with these 2 women.

Because of this, a lot of men get risk adverse. Even if they pick up on the hints, they are not sure if they are reading them right. Conversely, a few men go the other way. These men tend to have a disproportionate, problematic effect on women. This is why most men don't think that sleazy, overly handsey men aren't much of a problem, but women vastly disagree.

Basically, men are stuck in a "damned if they do, damned if they don't" situation. Even worse, the men who figure things out tend to find a good partner and pair up, taking them out of the pool.

To add to the confusion, what women say they want, and what actually works can be quite different. The same applies to men. However, since men are generally expected to make the first move, they tend to screw it up a lot more (and get burnt).

I'm seeing a lot of "acting on a not-a-hint is way too dangerous" comments. I'm curious as to what you think acting on a hint is. They almost never mean "let's make start boning with no further communication".

Just ask "are you flirting with me?"

I mean, if men are bad at taking the hints of human women, maybe that means we are meant to take the hints of women of other species like elves, fairies, sexy space aliens or something else.

Be a fucking adult and express your desires and intents clearly.

Men cannot afford to go through the process of trial and error to learn to follow hints. The risks from misreading the situation are far too high.

Women resort to dropping hints when they're too scared to risk rejection by being direct.

I'm an autistic woman, and I've found great success in leaning into my autistic tendencies. By that, I mean just being blunt and upfront. One of my favourites is that if I've got chemistry with someone I don't expect to see again, before I bid them farewell, I'll give them a note with my number on and say something like "I had a great time hanging out with you tonight, would you like to go on a date with me sometime?" And then I hand them my number and scuttle off like a crab because I can only put on a cool face for so long before I crack under the anxiety.

I don't even think it's true that men are particularly bad at this. Everyone is.

And I don't think hinting is automatically a negative thing like so many are implying. It just depends on your preference and then ultimately comparability. Hinting is a form of flirtation. Flirtation extends the tension period of romance/sex, and can add fun and excitement. Some people prefer a direct approach.

Nah, we pick them up, but false positives are way too dangerous to risk it.

Well first of all there's no such individual as "men" so it's impossible to generalize. Some can and some can't. I think it's however safe to assume that on average we're not that great at it.

In my own case I think I'm quite good at reading the underlaying emotions of especially my girlfriend but then again I know her really well anyway. However this goes a bit against my suspicion about my autism because you'd think I had more trouble with that. Then there's also the fact that I'm tall and somewhat handsome if I may say so myself so I haven't really experienced the situation of a woman not wanting to talk with me but I can see when they don't want to talk with someone else.