How do you know when someone is flirting with you?

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I've never been able to tell when someone is flirting with me. (Until they get VERY, VERY intimately touchy, but usually only creepy people do that to me.) Friends have told me a few times after someone's been flirting for a while that the person in question obviously likes me and has been amping up the flirting. I'm totally clueless. Always.

And it bugs me because:
a) I don't want to be a jerk to someone who likes me, whether or not I like them as well, and;
b) If I like that person too, it would save me a lot of agony if I just noticed these things!

Some people make a lot of jokes that could be flirting (like, "hey sexy boy" etc.) but they don't mean it. Once a girl I had a crush on at my first job kept touching my butt all day, and then before the shift was over said something about people who touch your butt constantly and pretend it's an accident....my head got all swirly with the possibilities so I don't remember exactly what she said. She was giggly and silly with me all the time, and MAYBE flirty, but I never figured it out.

I can never tell if people are just trying to mess with my head (like torture me, as in try to get me thinking they like me for kicks...as happens disgustingly often in high school), trying to flirt with me, or trying to joke around because we're friends....gah! I've never been able to devise a system of signs that I can use to tell me if people are flirting or not like I can with some other social things.

Does anyone have any advice on how to tell the difference between flirting an not-flirting?

When girls laugh at something that's not funny (laughing with you, that is), they're usually flirting with you. You can also look for other clues, such as more eye-contact than usual. If you're sitting next to her, see if she's leaning towards you, and if she has her legs crossed, see if she has the upper leg towards you (sorry, but I'm not good at explaining stuff in english).

She was flirty and you figured it out (hence posting it here). You just never followed through for whatever reason.



If you ask her out and she says yes, it's flirting. If she says no, it's not.

Furthermore, if they're already with someone or if you don't like them, it doesn't matter. Just don't play along.

I've never been a good flirt.
When I met my spouse (of almost 6 years now) I really went out of my way to show him how much I liked him. I tried doing things that might seem obvious.
On our first date I made sure that he noticed I was trying to sit next to him.
I asked him if I could wear his jacket when I was cold.
I took him to a place where I knew the bartender so I could impress him with free drinks.

I called him on the phone a few times, which is something I never do.

On our second date he seemed a bit nervous and sat across the room from me. I knew that if I didn't act I might lose this one too, so I asked him if he wanted to sit with me - and he did (!?)
I tried to be extra open about how I felt because I knew that shutting down and being silent never worked for me in the past.
Sooo.... I sucked in the fear and I put my hand on his...
The rest is history.

I must admit that I was scared to death to be open with someone. I just knew that doing the things I normally do (not talking, avoiding contact, not showing interest...) had never gotten me anywhere in the past and so I thought I would just give it one shot. Thankfully it all paid off.

I think maybe you can tell if someone really likes you by how much effort they put into their flirting. It's possible that this girl doesn't go around touching everyone's bum... she might be going out on a limb to show you she likes you. You might want to compare how she interacts with others to how she interacts with you. Does she try just that much harder to impress you?

Or, perhaps instead of trying to decipher all of her code, send some of your own.
Go out on a limb if you like her, and see where it goes.
Start off with little gestures, that don't seem too obvious and see how she reacts.
When you think she might be flirting with you, try and show your interest in her.
Go from there and keep on trying...

Just for clarity, I want to make the point that when a girl flirts with a guy, it doesn't always meant that she actually likes him.

All the advice sounds good though.

For the record, I've been told that I'm really bad at flirting. Somehow I managed to pickup the habit of batting my eyelashes, and I never know if I'm doing it! It is really annoying.

Thanks folks! It's hard for me to trust any conclusions I come to about flirting, but the tips help a lot(!), and I think I may just have to start being really straightforward about it if I like someone and try to just deal with it if I'm wrong.

^Darn I was going to put my 2 cents in.

If they are laughing at your lamest jokes, or doing the hair flick while looking at you, dead give aways

Hmm for me they try to get my attention and garner it won't allow any other women near me basically they get possesive NOT VERY just a little so that I can tell they want me, um and they sometimes take stuff and pick on me a little they don't do it infront of others or to get a laugh they just do it to me w/only me around so basically they tease me hope that made sense.

Did she have a Big Bootay??
If so Im a triffle suprised you didnt touch her Butt back(such as a slap or a pinch )

The answer to the OP is that that girl most definitely WAS flirting with you. But it you ask her out ans she says no that doesnt mean her behaviour wasnt flirtatious; it means that she wasnt being serious when flirting with you. Thats how A LOT of girls are; they flirt just to stroke their ego or cuz they have the impulse but NOT when they're seriously interested.

continued thank-yous! and MissConstrue, please do add your two cents! it's an ongoing learning process and there have got to be more people than myself who have this difficulty (i hope P)

Well, I'm 47 and I'm learning a thing or two.

I have been told in the past that I didn't pick up on a woman's flirting.

Sometimes I get uncomfortable because of the things a woman is saying to me or how she pays attention to me, but I have no idea if she is flirting... no matter at what level... so I just kinda try and get through the whole encounter.

If a woman were to walk up to me and start touching my butt at work, I'd probably just think that's how she goofs around.
Partly because I don't think I pick up those flirt signals very well, partly because I just can't believe a woman would pick me to flirt with.

My former wife actually had a couple of nurses ask me out for her.
They told me a friend of theirs wanted to go camping at Big Bend National Park in Texas (where we lived) and wondered if I knew anything about it.

Well, I did know the place pretty well... so basically I wound up going camping with her and it got rather serious that first date.
I really had no idea she was that interested in me.
We worked together in the hospital sometimes with kids (she was in her Pediatric Residency program, I worked in the Lab) and I found her attractive and interesting to talk with, but I don't recall thinking... "WOW... She LIKES ME!".. especially enough to go out on a date with.

Miss Construe, please go ahead and post your thoughts.
I'm also interested in seeing what you have to say, although I'm not sure anyone's advice here will help me out.
I figure I'm a lost cause... some poor woman would have to hit me upside the head with a 2X4 in order to get it through to me that she wants me to ask her out or something.

The problem with flirting is that like the words "normal" and "love" its definition is constantly switching to suit the needs of the person using the word. That and flirting, to me anyways, has always been an ambiguous and difficult thing to follow.

This topic brings to mind a rather odd situation that occurred when I went to dinner with a friend of mine bout a week back. Me and my friend went to a diner downtown for dinner. Upon entering my being the clueless person I am asked for a table. It's just I'm so used to going to an actual restaurant that I'm not used to seating myself. That and I'm just polite by nature. Well our waitress was COMPLETELY thrown off by my manners and proceeded to be really catty to me for the rest of the meal.

She kept trying to find some kind of excuse to talk to me and she even made a comment to one of the other employees loud enough for me to hear. I believe the phrase was "I like that guy, he's really polite" but she said it in such a tone that I knew she deliberately wanted me to hear her. Now normally I'd consider this flirting but like the rest of you I don't have a clue. My friend couldn't figure her out either and I sure as hell wasn't interested so I just politely shot her down every time she tried to carry a conversation with me. Her tone and the way she was acting almost seemed "forced" to a point.

So I just assumed she was trying to take advantage of my good nature and sucker an extra tip out of me, which she didn't get.

The point of my story is that I think flirting is when a girl goes out of her way to get your attention. Just anything that may or may not be outside of her normal behavior. Particularly if you're the only person around. The only problem is that these kinds of behaviors are still really ambiguous and like other posters have said lots of women flirt without being serious. That and their reasons for flirting are numerous and its usually really hard to figure out what is flirting and what isn't. Most people mistake "friendly" behavior as flirting.

Tis quite the conundrum indeed.

The question that I'm having issues with is "How do you tell when someone thinks that you are flirting with/like them?" I really have a hard time telling, either because I'm paranoid, or because I am so egotistical that I assume that guys are just looking for an excuse to like me. But it really wierds me out, and when it happens during PE classes, I have a hard time breathing.

Sorry for hijacking the thread, but it is related to the topic at hand, and Wrong Planet needs another flirting thread like it needs global warming.

Just general interest and teasing is flirting, whether or not it goes beyond that tells whether dating would be acceptable.