Is She Interested or Just Friendly

One of the things about meeting a girl who you find attractive and who you are interested in, which can be both exciting and frustrating, is trying to figure out whether she is actually interested in you that way or is she just being friendly. Since generally, men are more direct and women are more subtle in the way they express their interest, this issue is much more relevant to men who are trying to figure out whether a certain woman is interested in them. While there might not be magic, error-proof way to determine early on whether a certain girl is interested in you, there are a few things you should keep in mind that will help you determine that:

Different women show their interest in men differently. Just because one woman is being very outgoing with you, very touchy and very flirtatious, doesn’t necessarily mean that she is interested in going out with you or dating you, although that’s certainly a possibility. It’s also possible that the woman is being naturally friendly and naturally flirtatious and that’s how she is in general with men or with everyone. It’s possible that she enjoys the attention, and she loves seeing how she makes guys want her with her behavior.  One of the best ways to find out if she belongs to that category is to see how she interacts with other men. If she has twenty male friends and she flirts with all of them pretty much equally, chances are that her flirting doesn’t really mean anything one way or another.

On the other hand, just because a woman you met is being quiet or is not very talkative, doesn’t mean that she is not interested in you. I know this from personal experience, as quite a few women I have met in the past told me later how much they liked me when they met me and the reason that they weren’t very talkative was because they were shy and also because they didn’t think that talking too much was a good idea on their part (don’t you wish more women learned how not to talk too much…). They were also nervous and were concerned about making the wrong impression, so they thought that talking less is the safer way to go, so to speak. Many women who seem to be quiet and reserved in the beginning of your interaction with them, are anything but quiet a little later, when they get used to you and warm up toward you. Also, it often takes a woman a while before she herself knows whether she is interested in a guy, so it’s worth giving her and yourself some time before you determine whether the interest and the attraction are mutual. Just because the girl is not crazy about you from the first few moments she met you, doesn’t mean that she can’t develop an equally strong or ever stronger interest in you later, at her own pace.

Ironically, when a woman shows too much interest too early, it doesn’t necessarily mean that her interest is genuine or will be long lasting. Both men and women who rush with their feelings and emotions toward someone are often equally likely to lose these feelings and change their mind. This is the reason why guys often face this situation where the girl they met or went out with was totally into them to only have disappeared shortly after and not return their calls. In other words, as they say – if something seems to be too good to be true, it probably is.

Often, the only and the best way to find out if a certain woman is interested in you, if it’s not clear from her behavior, is by taking a risk and making a gentle move forward – getting to a woman a little closer physically or otherwise and seeing how she responds to your mild, casual touch on her hand, shoulders, knee, etc… and see whether these advances are welcome. If you are not quite there yet, and this would not be appropriate for your situation, then simply asking you co-worker or a classmate to do something after work or on a weekend, and then use that opportunity to get closer to them is one good way to do it. For example, if you are interested in that new girl who was hired at your department, here is one strategy you can follow. Have a few friendly conversations with her, even if it’s just small talk to break the ice, and after determining that you have some chemistry with her and hopefully going to lunch with her (whether in a group or one on one) if at all possible, you can tell her a few weeks later that you have tickets to a movie for next week, and see if she would want to join you. And, of course, you don’t have to have tickets right then and there. You can “have” them after she agrees to go with you.