Real vs. Fake flirting

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Someone has probably asked this before (probably me months ago ), but is their a way to detect flirting & if/when you do (b/c its overt or your improving socially) how to know if its legitimate flirting or fake flirting?

I'm sick of having to ask friends if they're actually flirting with me .

If they're your friends, they probably aren't.

What do you mean by "real" and "fake"? I can think of at least two notions of "fake flirting":

1. Flirting with deliberate intent to seduce you, but to trick you into doing something for them
2. Flirting with no attempt to seduce you, but rather just because they like flirting

Friends wouldn't do #1. The best way to tell with #2 is to see if they're like that with a lot of other women.

A married woman that I know has drawn my attention to her face and neck and also to her hair by touching it and moving it with her head movement. I've checked this all out and it says that when a married woman does this, she's doing it to show she is 100% content with her marriage.

Don't read too much into it -- it could just be subconscious. Her subconscious says you are attractive, her conscious mind says "I'm married, and there's no way in hell I'm going to ruin that."

Those movements are called Proteans -- wiki here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proteans_%28body_language%29

Last edited by billsmithglendale on 24 Aug 2010, 5:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.

3. Flirting is the only way the person knows how to interact with the other gender, and they're doing it to be "polite."

I also did think about flirting a little back, not to noticiable like, just a little fun, after all we do get on very well and enjoy each others company.

*shrug* I have no idea. If you figure it out, let me know. XD

2 examples of fake flirting that I've confirmed that I can give you are:

1. A female friend of mine keeps complimenting my shirts, etc. and making references to wanting to "screw me under the table right now" etc. b/c a guy we know is convinced that every time your complimenting someone, your doing it b/c you secretly want to have sex with them . So its a running joke and I get it.
2. Some guy I know has called me "sexy" and made weird kissy faces at me *facepalm*

I'd like to add #3 to the list: Flirting with no attempt to seduce you, but to play a prank on you because they expect you to think it's real

That's basically what I meant by #1.

Seemes like women who are in relationships flirt with me a lot. I hate this. I like the attition but I know it's not going to go anywhere. I fell like I'm being used as practice so they don't get rusty. Just incase their relationship dose not work out.
I complaned to my best friend who is a NT. He raised a good point. If a woman/girl is not maried she's alllways on the look out for something better. I still get the sense that most of the time I'm just practice.

Who knows? That's like trying to figure out a Rubik cube for our kind.

Yup. Some people can solve it in 5 minutes and others may never figure it out. D:

I meant something different -- even if the intention isn't there, it may be the only way some people know how to communicate. They've been pretty their whole life, and that's all they've been, either because that's all that is there (they are undeveloped mentally) or that is all that was expected of them, because they are pretty. Thus, they flirt because that is all they know, it's their default communication style when being civil.

Kind of sad, really. I once spent a day with a person like this, and she was like a record that kept replaying itself every two hours -- same topics of conversation, same things to say, etc.

When you say real versus fake do you mean "flirting with an intent to pursue you romantically/sexually" versus "flirting with any other intent"?