How to tell if a girl likes you.

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After reading a lot of posts here, and other places in general, and doing a good bit of thinking, I've come to a conclusion I think I should share with men.

There is no sure fire way to tell if a girl likes you or not, unless she is the ambitious type like my sister who will chase after you and give you her number.

The problem with smiling and eye contact: Women may smile and make eyecontact to express interest in someone or smile to be socially polite, and the majority of the time she smiles and makes eye contact, it's to be socially polite.

The problem with not smiling or making eye contact: A woman may not smile and avoid eye contact to indicate she's not interested in you. But many women will also ignore a guy they like out of fear.

The problem with the hair flip: As I have previously said, 99% of the time the only purpose this serves is to get hair out of the way. I honestly wouldn't trust a woman who uses it as a pick up ploy anyway.


The fact of the matter:

Men, you must be brave. I recognize that on the inside, most men are just as emotionally vulnerable (maybe more so) as women. That is just part of being human.

The only sure way to know if a girl likes you or not is to get into a position where you can finally ask her out.

There are a few subtle indicators, however, which it might benefit you to be on the lookout for, which might help you determine if a girl likes you, but you will have to initiate some type of conversation first.

A girl who is not interested in you might be civil if you attempt to talk to you, but she'll generally say as little as possible, she'll use a fake polite tone, she might seem a bit impatient or pre-occupied, and she'll generally want to leave or get rid of you quickly. She will probably respond with "yep" a lot, and break her gaze from you to look around, or stare at you and nod more as she tries to communicate telepathically for you to go away.

A girl who may be interested in you as a friend will seem more relaxed, less impatient. She'll contribute more to the conversation, and she'll probably say something like "I"ll see you later" when she leave, indicating at the very least she was not horribly put off by you.

A girl who is interested in you is likely to seem nervous. However she's also more likely to stand there wide eyed rather than want to get away from you. She'll give you time to talk and when she talks to you she might talk faster than usual. She's more likely to get flustered than in the other two cases. Conversely a horribly shy girl might look down and be very quite, but still, she's less likely to be so eager to get away when you try to talk to her.

Now as a lot of you will have difficulty reading this level of subtlety, you are just going to have to accept the fact that you need to be more brave than NT guy. You are going to have to put yourself out there to as a girl out who may very well be giving you "go away" vibes that you can't pick up on. In most cases, if she's not interested and you ask her out, she'll just say say no, and she'll usually say it in a way like "Sorry, I can't, but thanks for asking me." She won't dwell on it, and neither should you.

She's bouncing up and down on your balls?

Mind you, even after sex you can't really be sure she's interested - could be a rebound thing, or a call girl who hasn't sent you the bill yet.

Isn't the real problem here the sheer weight that we give to these matters? Like Chronos said, you shouldn't dwell on it. And if you don't, everything will get a lot easier. After all, it's only a date, people do that all the time for all kinds of reasons other than finding a partner. Would it have the same weight if it were just a couple of stamp collectors hoping to compare their collections?

Rationally, it's a small risk you're taking when you ask a lady out. The whole thing is couched in easy terms so as to prevent a refusal from seeming offensive. You ask her if she wants to go here or there with you, she replies that she's washing her hair, you agree to go out "some other time" and you quietly resign yourself to the fact that it'll probably never happen. You're right that Aspies are usually too socially blind to recognise the guesswork-removing signals. It doesn't help that so many Aspies are still waiting for their first romantic encounter - there's no experience to draw on.

But I think the weight is mostly there because of the strong emotional charge inherent in these situations, which is amplified further by the virgin's sense of desperation. I don't see there's much help for that. Experience helps but it's always likely that you'll go down the same sorry tunnel again, especially if you've been "out of it" socially for a while.

Anyway, it's an interesting question, how to tell if somebody is interested. In my case, I've noticed that an interested one will usually give me more attention than most people would under the same circumstances. She'll often give me a little bit more eye contact than usual....sometimes I'll catch her out of the corner of my eye, looking at me for a second or two while she thinks I'm not noticing. She'll be a little more receptive to me than I'm used to from most. If you find yourselves grinning at each other a lot for no apparent reason, that's a good sign. She might find your jokes a little funnier than you were expecting. She'll show a warmth towards you that's hard to analyze but you might sense it.

One thing I've known once, that helped to keep me from prematurely falling in love with one lady, was that there was a second lady who was also giving me some good attention......I was extremely lucky for that to happen, and the second lady served as a great balancing force - in fact I'd probably have been completely besotted with either one of them if there had only been one. I didn't see either of them as likely candidates for a strong relationship, though I was curious enough to want to know more about them. It was great - I was free to pursue my friendships with both of them without getting too obsessional about either one. Sometimes my feelings would flip onto one of them and then I'd make a bigger effort with the other one, to restore the balance. But things like that don't happen often, and of course I wouldn't have "two-timed" with them if one of them had become sexual (I never felt that was likely). As far as I know, neither of them wanted it to go further (though who knows with women?), and they never showed any indication of being jealous of each other.......I had plenty of time for both of them, and I always made sure I wasn't playing one off against the other.

For most practical purposes you're stuck with this big obsession which you just have to cope with as bravely as you can.

I've noticed that in addition to eye contact and smiles, a girl that has the hots for you has a tendency to act as though she needs to go pee really bad. I mean, she will still talk to you, but you'll see her shifting her weight from one leg to the other and things like that.

As far as dates, I tend to just ask girls out for casual spur of the moment things like "I'm going to get something to eat, do you want to come with me?" Or something like that. At least that way, neither one of you has to worry about being stood up or having to do any preparation. She will be the one that picks the restaurant and you should just go there without argument as long as it isn't too unreasonable.

Excellent post, Chronos. I could not have said it better myself, and I think we all appreciate the female viewpoint and insights into the secrets therein.

Chronos, you have pretty much hit the nail on the head concerning this one.

She will come up with ways to be around you. If she could have done something in some other way somewhere else, but does not, that's a good sign. She will ask your advice about things.