Being friendly or flirting?

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I had the most horrific experience last night and I've now realised that I need to learn how to tell if a guy is flirting or not.

A guy from school that I catch the bus with messaged me on facebook and asked to go on webcam with me. So I was like yay I'm making a guy friend (and an NT one for the first time). He was really nice to me and called me pretty (which my friends always say to me and he had a girlfriend so I didn't suspect anything) but then he asked to see me topless. It came out of no where and it just made me so angry/sad/embarrassed and I just wanted to shut the laptop and run away but I thought I should defuse the situation because if he got angry at me saying no he might spread rumours about me. So I just apologised while he kept on asking me and eventually I got enough courage and said bye, shut my laptop and cried for a bit.

It was such a horrible event because I thought he just wanted to be my friend and now I'm scared of talking to guys unless I can know they don't have ulterior motives. I'm not sure if he was flirting with me and I didn't pick up on it or if he sneakily made me think he was trying to be friends with me when he had other ideas.

I know giving people compliments is a sign of flirting but how can you tell if it is flirting because friends give you compliments all the time.

I don't know, I just feel so violated and scared of humanity.

Sorry if I put this in the wrong forum :/

Asking to see you topless isn't flirting. It's exploitative. It's disrespectful and he should be the one ashamed, not you.

I know I'm a different era, but I've read about sexting and how guys expect their girlfriends or prospective girlfriends to send them pictures of various parts of their anatomy. That doesn't make it right. It makes women commodities -- pieces of meat. And it should become as socially unacceptable as bullying.

And it's probably a trend for men to send explicit pics. I haven't read that, but that's probably why that politician that got caught doing it did it. Again, not right, even if the men like to. Flashers have always gotten a charge by showing off their shortcomings to random women on the street.

It is sometimes difficult for me tell if it is flirting or compliment. But asking you to be topless is not a way to flirt or be friends. If i am interested in a girl the first thing i think of is to respect her, but for some reason girls do not seem to realize that.

Okay so that guy was just an idiot.

asking to see any woman topless outside of a semi-commited relationship is disrespectful, you did the right thing by cutting him off.

now, i would be the last person to deny a womans right to be topless, and wont stop anyone from taking their tops off, but i wont ask them to, unless i have to to administer first aid or a simular reason.

I have experienced that guys always have a hidden motive (mostly sexual) for making friends with a girl. The rule is, always keep it in mind so you can notice hints, make sure you point out ambiguities so that things stay crystal clear and never ever send any parts of your body,this will always be used against you.

Sorry you felt that way, it must have been upsetting. But this is how we learn...

It is usually "flirting" if a guy calls you pretty.

However, you should be alert when someone haven't really talked to much wants to connect with you on a really intimate medium right away, like in the case of this guy...you only talked with him for a little bit and then immediately wanted to see you on webcam.

If he was just a friend or liked you for more than just your looks, he would have spent much more time actually chatting with you and getting to know you *as a person* instead of immediately wanting to see your face and body on webcam.

I agree that this is a little exploitative: guys shouldn't be treating you like that. As a girl who was very naive with guys around your age, I can tell you that the attention from showing off your body to many people isn't worth it, and I'm glad you see that. However, guys around your age are generally...erm, horny and mostly just wanting one thing, so that's another thing you should keep in mind.

That's just creepy of that guy, usually this sort of thing won't happen so don't worry too much about it. In general in order to tell whether someone is flirting, see if they do things beyond a typical friend relationship, see if they act in ways different to how to act towards other people, and if it's still hard to tell maybe ask some of your other friends for help. Of course in your situation if it comes out of the blue there's not much that can be done by the time it happens but then again it's his problem.

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Thanks everyone for your advice. I don't feel so bad about it now. I'm just going to try and forget this incident but I'll never go on webcam with guys again.

Now I'm embarrassed for my gender...