I consider having better social and dating skills than the average Joe after being a dating coach for so many years. However, I'm still flabbergasted at times at how poor I am at deciphering if a girl is attracted or wants me to make a move or not. The signals women give can be quite confusing at times. Some women show it openly with strong eye contact, and some don't. Some show it through being around you and some show it by shying away from you. How can you really tell if she wants you to make a move?
How to Tell if She Wants You to Make a Move – Indicators of Interest
The idea of indicators of interest is popularised by the pick up artist community. Hair flicking, physical touching, starry eye contact are some examples. I categorize indicators of interests by mostly 1) positive 2) neutral and 3) negative.
1) Positive Signals
Indicators of positive interest can range from hair flicking, strong eye contact, her making excuses to spend time with you or her. She reciprocates your signs of interest. Some more overt interest includes her asking you your number, initiating physical touch with you or invite you out with her friends. She may ask you a lot of questions and seem genuinely interested in you.
Some Examples of Positive signals:
- Flicking her hair
- Touching you
- Qualifying to you (being more compliant to your advances)
- She's double texting you
- Strong eye contact
- She agrees to go out with you
- She allows you to touch her by not moving away when you do
- You tease her and she responses well and giggles
If you're looking to date attractive women that get hit on almost everyday of their life, it boils down to subtlety. Subtleties be displayed in the form of stealing tiny glances at you and then looking away almost immediately. Whether it’s intentional or not, it doesn’t matter.
Your ability to notice and play along with these subtleties is something you develop with experience. Chances are, if reading this article, the majority of success you had with women only happened because she initiated. In my experience, a lot of women, especially attractive women, won’t initiate with you, in addition alongside with the cultural pressure to wait for the man to initiate.
This brings me to the next category.
2) Neutral Signals
Typically, a man knows within a couple of seconds if he’s sexually attracted to a woman or not. Women aren’t like that. They are often quite unsure about a man and need to be swayed on way or another.
The majority of girls you approach are going to fit into the neutral category. She doesn't seem interested or doesn't seem particular uninterested. If you're out with her, when you slightly touch her on the shoulders, she will not move away, however, she may not give you any signal that she likes it. She may agree to come back to yours, however, when you make your advances, she pushes your hands off.
Neutral signals:
- She gives you logical responses
- She's lukewarm with her attention
- She's doesn't really agree or disagree to your opinions
- She agrees to go out with you but post phone it
- She pays attention to what you say but isn't too bought in
I'll say that 80% of the women you approach and go out on dates with are going to end up in this category. The ones that you don't weed out is going take up the most of your time from the get go. I highly recommend you screen from the get go (it's a good frame to screen either way) so that you don't end on on a date that goes to nowhere.
Secondly, women do not ever stay in this category. They'll eventually become receptive or unreceptive. If you're not going to make a move, she's going to figure out you're not the confident individual you frame yourself to be and she's going fall into the unreceptive category.
3) Negative Signals
Negative signals can come in the form of wanting to bring her friend along when you ask her out for coffee. If you approach her by the bar and she tells you she wants to spend time with her friends, then she’s unreceptive. It’s important to note that a lot of sexual attraction is fleeting. You might have a lot of attraction going for you with a girl at the night club and she totally forgets you the next day.
Negative signals:
- She comes up with excuses to why she can't meet you
- She's moving away from you in person
- She's not texting back at all
- She has negative body language to you
- She doesn't give you a slight bit of attention
- Your interaction with her feels coldly indifferent
All in all, negative signals are pretty obvious. If you're a functional human being with least bit of social skills, you SHOULD be able to figure out negative signals. No, they are NOT a 'shit test'. You do not continue pursuing women that are not interested in you. That's border lining on harassment.
Her dis interest can stem from multiple reasons. You're probably of lower status that her. She is already in a committed relationship that she's happy in. There's no to and fro and natural chemistry when you're with her hence, leading to incompatible. She has her period on. She's not looking for a casual experience.
Lastly, don’t be biased about indicators of interest. If a girl isn’t into you, then see it for what it is and move on. If you find yourself conjuring up reasons as to why she’s interested in you, she's probably NOT into you, and you’re going to waste a lot of time.
However, there are nuances to this. There are many women out there who are quiet and shy that won't show obvious indicators of interest. This brings me to the next portion.
What if She’s Acting all Quiet and Shy?
When getting good with women, you’re often told to dress well and fix your body language. You might think: I have done all this work by investing in myself, why isn't she marrying me on the spot right away? Naturally, you'll think that putting all this work will lead to a smooth sailing social interactions, right? This may lead to you to have higher expectations of your interactions with girls and people.
This isn’t often the case. On the flip side, from the girl's point of view, she may perceive you as an attractive individual that she feels shy being around. No matter how many suits you purchase or the deodorant you wear, understand that girls are human’s beings too. They feel shy or stifled and that social interactions are imperfect by nature.
In the modern world of dating advice, many forward thinking dating coaches for men have came forward with the idea that the biggest indicator of interest is if a girl is still there with you. She's willing to spend time with you.
If a girl is standing beside you, whether she’s quiet or openly flirting, you can assume it's a sign of an indicator of interest. I used to think that a girl will always openly show that she likes you. Only then, I would only be able to move the interaction forward. That may be true for Western cultures, however, in an Asian centric dating culture, a good percentage of women are shy and reserved in displaying affection.
There were dates that I went out on that didn’t ‘seem right’. There weren’t any of the obvious hair flicking or flirty touching. They're often quiet and somewhat little introverted. I thought they were plain disinterested. However, that isn't always the case. The fact that a girl is willing to spend a Saturday noon with me demonstrated that she’s already interested. She just felt a little reserved around me.
To put things in perspective, think of the time when you were a teenager and you had this huge crush on this girl. Every time she walked by, you felt stifled and you don't know what to say. You would just stand there, dumbfounded, silent and quiet. This is especially true if you're an attractive individual yourself. If you have good game, that can make girls and others naturally feel reserved around you initially.
So, ultimately, what gives? How can you tell if she's interested and wants you to make a move or not: 1) she’s quiet and attentive 2) if she’s flirting openly with you back and forth. Here’s where experience kicks in. One of the ways is to observe and listen to why she does or says something.
You're trying to read her intentions here.
In one of my last relationships, a girl I dated was really sweet around me. However, as soon she and I were around her friends, she acted the total opposite of prim and proper. If I had read her 'disinterest' when we were around her friends, I would have discounted the fact that she was only sweet around me.
She could be shy and reserved around you but outgoing around her friends. So ask yourself, why is she only outgoing around her friends? Could she be shy around someone she’s interested in? Instead of seeing her introverted nature as disinterest, that could be an indicator that she wants you make a move. On the flip side, some women are shy in group settings, but may be expressive around you and is able to open up to you.
How to Really Know: Pull The Trigger
If you're not sure if a woman is attracted to you, or think that you're stuck in the 'neutral' category. The best way find out if a woman she wants you to make a move is to pull the trigger and move the interaction forward. You can sit on the fences, debilitating your next move for months.... OR... you can risk the rejection. Not by trying to overanalysing the hundred and one indicators of interest, but by acting.
This means being moving the interaction forward deliberately to a more sexual and romantic one. It's also forcing her make a decision about how she actually feels about you. This can be as simple asking her for her number, asking her out on a date or being more sexually aggressive in your interaction with her.
You don’t want to waste time on women who are a time sink. You’re rarely going to change the mind of a women who’s not interested in you. Yes, you can lay off for a period of time and then come back and try again, with a new frame. However, in my personal experience, it rarely works in that way. You're better off meeting someone else.
How to Move Forward in a Calibrated Manner
For the risk averse, you can always pull the trigger in a calibrated manner. You can always use mini tests to see if she's slightly interested and would not mind you making a move.
Instead of blurting out:
"Hey, I'll like to go on a date with you".
You can always reframe and say:
"Hey, just popped into my mind, what are you thoughts on coffee with an interesting Singaporean guy?"
This way, you can baby step the interaction and see if she's ready for you to ask out. If she's not, then you tune it back and chat and flirt some more. The key idea here is to be able to demonstrate interest without forcing her to make a final decision on the relationship.
To use another example, instead of grabbing her by the face and attempting to kiss her on the onset, you can try to touch her on the shoulders, then the waist and the face to test out how comfortable she is with physical touch. Instead of outrightly saying that you want to have sex with her, why don't you invite her to your place for a popcorn throwing contest? Or something casual such as hanging out with your dog or taking a look at your baby photos? This way can always soften your approach and leave an exit route for her.
Conclusion
Ultimately, it'll come a point where you need to move your interaction forward and 'attempt to close'. If she's not interested after a couple of tries, then I suggest you move on.
This is why learning how to generate leads through online dating methods or cold approach is extremely important. One of the reasons why people get hung up on figuring out if she's interested or not is because they are not talking to enough women. Either that, or they are too afraid of a rejection: fearing that a rejection may challenge their self identity.
One of the most important concepts here is: time sink. You do NOT want to be wasting time stuck in your figuring out if ONE woman wants you to make a move on her or not. You want to be proactive, pull the trigger and figure it out yourself.
You should be pursuing women from your own personal values. You approach and talk to her because it's your personal values to pursue women you desire. Whether she rejects you or not, it does not matter, your actions are merely an expression of your values.
When you're upfront and honest about your desires, there'll be good percentage of women that are going to say no. That's fine, take the rejection on the chin and move. This saves you wasting time, effort and needless mind games of asking yourself if she's attracted to you on not. However, they'll also be the ones that say yes.
