Either through memes or comments I keep seeing this sentiment pop-up from time to time. And I’m wondering what your (yes, you) consensus is on it.
I for one am too pessimistic to do anything with potential hints. Like even if there is a good chance I still just don’t want to risk it.
One problem is that it’s very socially unacceptable to mistake not-a-hint for a a hint. Maybe people should stop trying to ‘hint’ and be more direct.
This right here. I do not try to take any hints. If you like me say so.
It’s worse when they do that shit on purpose like it’s some stupid power move. I catch wind of that and I’m immediately flaccid. All interest is gone. I don’t need that shit in my life.
If you get a “hint” wrong you could end up having a meeting with HR, being told to “fuck off, creep”, or some other negative result. So men might see what could be a hint, but the price of getting it wrong is too high for many reasons. So you either stop looking for them or just stop acting on anything that isn’t direct.
It’s also kinda the woman placing the responsibility and the work on the guy for making the “real” moves in an encounter or relationship. He needs to pursue her and pay attention, not the other way around.
I would also add there is an element of the expected pursuit of the woman after she has said no. Like, no means try harder. I think it’s a good thing that a guy (or whoever) backs off once someone says they aren’t interested. You shouldn’t expect the guy you like to push past the first rejection then call the guy you don’t like a creep for ignoring your no.
Like there isnt decades of movies that hinge on this whole premise too.
Especially in a workplace. If you decide to actually ask out a coworker No doesnt just mean no, no means “be very careful about what you say and how you act towards them for the immediate future in case they take something you say or do as a further advance and decide to report you to HR. Or decide that you are now treating them poorly because they rejected you and decide to report you to HR.”
Just to be clear, these arent the ONLY outcomes and yes are extreme but I have seen both happen first hand.
Generally speaking, don’t shit where you eat. Which is another way of saying, don’t try dating in the workplace. That is almost always a bad idea, in many ways.
Regardless of any other fallout, I’d rather be someone women feel comfortable around, not someone they think “oh jeez, I have to be sure not to give any indication he might read as flirting.”
Yeah. I would totally rather not be treated as a creep. Sure wish I had a button I could press to change that.
Very well put.
It’s common sense not to flirt at your job. You say something like “I’m going to the Flaming Donkey for a few drinks around 8 PM. Drop by if you want.” If he or she doesn’t show, then that’s it.
I wasn’t making a judgment on the concept, only offering that it does happen. You are correct of course, it’s not good to date co-workers.
I’m an autistic woman, and I’ve found great success in leaning into my autistic tendencies. By that, I mean just being blunt and upfront. One of my favourites is that if I’ve got chemistry with someone I don’t expect to see again, before I bid them farewell, I’ll give them a note with my number on and say something like “I had a great time hanging out with you tonight, would you like to go on a date with me sometime?” And then I hand them my number and scuttle off like a crab because I can only put on a cool face for so long before I crack under the anxiety.
Aspie man here, it’s harder for us to do that. I have a friend who I gave the standard, “Hi, my name is MapleEngineer and I have Asperger’s. That means…” speech to when I thought she was hinting. She said, “Ok, you don’t like hints?” “No.” “Ok. I’ve always found you attractive and have fantasized about sucking your cock. We should get together.” We did. It was awesome.
Life would be so by easier if the normies didn’t muddy the waters so much with their hints and clues.
Oh yeah, it’s why I mentioned I’m a woman - it’s certainly relevant to my experience here. I don’t have to worry about being perceived as threatening - if I flirt with a woman in an upfront way like I described, I never feel like there’s a risk of frightening her. Whereas on the flip side, if a guy asks me out, I’m always a bit on edge because of the small minority who are not safe to politely turn down. “Privilege” is definitely the wrong word for this, but being perceived as non threatening does make some things simpler.
I have been accused of being incredibly dense because I mask by playing all new relationships with women as completely natural. The woman I mentioned in my comment was hinting hard but I played it neutral. After I had a couple of hours to think about it I went back and said, “I have Asperger’s and here’s what that means. Here’s what masking is. I mask by playing hard neutral. I think you might be hinting. Hinting doesn’t work with me. If you’re hinting you need to stop and just say or ask what you want to say or ask. I won’t be offended. I will probably say, ‘Yes’ (I’m a sexy Aspie and I always say, ‘Yes’. )” So she just asked, I said, “Yes” and we had a good time. She told me that she had always found me and my attitude toward sex very appealing but thought I didn’t like her because I never flirted or expressed any interest. She said that in the almost 15 years we had been acquainted I had never even touched her. I said I thought it would be fun if the first time we touched was a kiss. The first time we touched it was a kiss. Now I’m waiting to find out if she’s going to go with me on a short road trip with one or two nights in a nice hotel this weekend.
I could’ve written this comment word for word. It really does make things a lot easier to just be direct, being able to do this is one of the very few outright advantages of our non-standard brains imo!
dog bless you
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awoooooooooo
I’m male, and bi. I’m about equally bad at picking up on hints from men and women, but it seems more common with men to just flat out state what they want, either immediately, or after I miss their clue, which I’d presume to be cultural.
I’m bad with social clues in general, so I dunno if it’s a male-thing, or a me-thing.
@VeganCheesecake It’s a bit of both. I think the relevant concept here is Ask Culture versus Guess Culture.
I’m not sure if @FatTony is talking about romantic hints or all hints, but I think in many cultures women are socialised to be little a bit more Guess Culture than men, even if it doesn’t come naturally. The same goes for LGBTQ+ in cultures that are repressive. And of course some nationalities tend towards one or the other.
As someone whose natural state is very Ask, I found this concept really helpful. Sometimes I straight out ask the Guess people if they are hinting to me.
That’s a fun way to put this into concept!
The funny thing is, despite often being bad at ascertaining what is being hinted at, I have very much been raised in a ‘guess’ culture, a family that found itself to be very high-brow and fancy, which lasted until the companies went bust, and the debt caught up to them.
Anyway, that leads to me, while having lots of problem with reading ‘guess’ people (unless they grew up in similar circumstances, that usually helps), also apparently being pretty hard to read for many conversation partners.
In the end, I found that jumping over my shadow and just spelling out what I’m trying to say, ask, or think I’m being asked, usually resolves things.
@VeganCheesecake yeah I was raised in a mostly ‘guess’ family as well! They think I’m oafish.
You’re right it does cut both ways. My ‘guess’ ex thought I was super hard to read because they couldn’t grasp that I literally meant exactly what I said not some extra hidden meaning.
These days I’m with another ‘ask’ person so the only stress like that is figuring out what our mothers are trying to get at.
My mother’s actually pretty approachable in that regard, she’s a surgeon from a mostly working class family that married in. Anyone else can be pretty difficult though. Especially the part of the family that didn’t crash and burn financially, though they life on the other side of the country, luckily.
I’m usually a bit taken aback when I meet a ‘guess’ person that gets legitimately offended when being asked stuff directly, because pretty much everyone in my circle is pretty chill.
I guess everyone is living in their own world, in the end.
That’s interesting how it’s linked to social class so clearly in your family!
Come to think of it, the guessiest guesser in my life is from an industrial factory-labourer workingclass background, but different country. They experience direct requests as confrontations, so they are very easy to inadvertently hurt. It used to exasperate me, until I read the above concept.
Yeah, kinda curious, might also be one families customs vs the others, though. Might also be a family that became wealthy at the turn of the last century, and then got stuck in the way they thought they where expected to act, enforced via ‘traditions’ taught. Dunno, really.
The guessiest person I ever met was actually the mother of my last partner. She was, on the one hand, usually offended by direct requests, while also very much assuming and extrapolating things from anything indirect one said, to the point where she often became incredibly offended by things no one said, but that she heard. It was exhausting, to a degree, and my first instinct was that she was looking for things to be offended about, either consciously or subconsciously, but I also feel that I can’t really judge someone for the way they perceive the world.
I think once you get a group of people all guessing it normalizes it within a family as well maybe?
It really is a perception thing I think, but yeah it can feel incredibly exhausting for us, instinctively oppo and I guess frustrating for them.
I had some insight once when a sibling was complaining about how they kept making excuses not to pick up a gift they’d accepted and they seemed genuinely angry the person was still offering and hadn’t “taken the hint” they don’t actually want it. It’s flabbergasting to me but seems like that’s really how they see things.
Three things: one woman’s “hint” is another woman’s platonic behavior and “hints” are meant to be subtle so that they provide plausible deniability if there is no interest returned.
Dont blame us for not “getting” hints when part of the point is to be able to easily brush them off as not being signs of romantic interest. If you are interested in a dude, use your words.
And lastly, us not asking a woman out in response to her hints doesn’t necessarily mean we didn’t get the hints. It may just mean we aren’t interested in that particular person and dont want to make it awkward.
Also there’s a lot of flak in our society for men who overstep their bounds. Responding to a hint can also be harassing someone.
Let’s get to the point of clarity where the hint is recognized as the harassment.
We’re not bad…we’re careful.
Make the wrong call and you are considered a creeper or worse.Nah, we pick them up, but false positives are way too dangerous to risk it.
Men cannot afford to go through the process of trial and error to learn to follow hints. The risks from misreading the situation are far too high.
Uh yeah, they can. That’s exactly how it was done before the Internet. Yes, it’s embarrassing, but nothing ventured, nothing gained.
You misunderstand, he’s one of those guys that thinks he can accidentally rape someone by misreading social cues.
Ah.
I’m a bisexual trans woman. I’ve dated men and women while presenting as male, and as presenting as female. In my experience the whole “not picking up on hints/not leaving strong enough hints to be picked up on” thing is not a gendered issue.
Honestly I really don’t think men and women are as different as they appear.
Your username is awesome
It’s the roles that’s different. Men are the ones who are supposed to detect and then transform hints into direct communication.
After 34 year, i think my husband is tired of hints. Recently he said, "i don’t know what you’re talking about. If you want (do it), touch my (junk).
I think most men are so infamously dense because they don’t want to misinterpret things. It’s a really thin line to walk and falling might ruin a friendship or make things very awkward. Very good manners/kindness and flirtatiousness are very difficult to distinguish.
Making the first move and reading things wrong can really hurt, especially if the other party wants it too. I had a female friend that was very friendly, who’d hug and hold hands with me at times. Friends told me to go for it. When I did she told all of her friends and I was collectively humiliated by the whole school. You could say I dodged a bullet, but it felt like I was by a car.
I’m over it now but I’m now very risk averse. Unless somebody are practically yelling at me to date them, I will only assume friendly intentions
How am I supposed to tell that you’re actually hinting and this isn’t just you? I’ve literally had that happen where a girl seemed super into me. Constantly talking to me and coming up with every reason to be close to me or touch me. I asked her out and she had a boyfriend and I’m just like “alright I’m never asking a girl out again this shits infuriating”
So now I just don’t even think about it much. Occasionally I’ll see a pretty girl and want to interact with her but then remember my experiences and go back to not caring.
Tbh, it sounded like she was into you
It’s happened multiple times with multiple women and I’ve resigned myself to believing it’s clearly something about me that no one is willing to tell me is a problem so I’ve just given up entirely ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
something about me that no one is willing to tell me
Let me try: You’re decently attractive, quick to offer help and have a meek and gentle nature. Sounds like you? These women were looking for a shoulder to cry on without giving anything in return. She was touching you because things weren’t going so great with her boyfriend.
Be a fucking adult and express your desires and intents clearly.
“How about we finish this drink and we go to my place to fuck?”
Works 100% of the times, everyone should try it and stop it with the immature waste of time that is flirting /s
Or you could just say “Want to come back to my place?” Like a civilized adult.
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Does that express your intent and desires clearly though?
Yes, it does.
So if she accepts, it means she understands and is 100% dtf to you? Boy I have bad news…
Did I say that “DTF?” If she wasn’t interested in you, she wouldn’t go. When she’s there, you feel the situation out, see where it goes.
You’ll understand these things when you’re an adult.
Please dont be that edgy it hurts, I have taken home a girl or two back in my going out days. The last one that I’ve bought a house and made kids with. While I had fun I’m glad I don’t need to deal with that anymore, particularly in this decade as it was abit more relaxed when I did it.
What you seem to be missing in your simplicity is that the whole post is about young males scared about making a move, mentioning plausible deniability, wishing women were more clear, and needing more than a hint to take a risk these days. The person I replied to made an asinine comment dismissing all these concerns, and you ran with it thinking it was smart, and triple down.
I’d put that percentage a bit lower, even for women. They could be flirting with a gay man, or a man that just doesn’t find them attractive.
Proviso, comment is based on old memories.
There was some research done on how women flirt. Women particularly put out IoIs (Indicators of Interest). These include things like hair flick, lip touching etc. When a woman is attracted to a man, the rate of IoIs goes up, sometimes 200-300% baseline.
Unfortunately, the catch is the baseline. Women vary widely on this. Some normally use 2-3/hour, others all the way up to 120/hour. This is where men can often get in trouble. A woman sending them 60/hour might be a 20 flirting outrageously, or a 120 who is actively disinterested. Trying to advance things will get vastly different results with these 2 women.
Because of this, a lot of men get risk adverse. Even if they pick up on the hints, they are not sure if they are reading them right. Conversely, a few men go the other way. These men tend to have a disproportionate, problematic effect on women. This is why most men don’t think that sleazy, overly handsey men aren’t much of a problem, but women vastly disagree.
Basically, men are stuck in a “damned if they do, damned if they don’t” situation. Even worse, the men who figure things out tend to find a good partner and pair up, taking them out of the pool.
To add to the confusion, what women say they want, and what actually works can be quite different. The same applies to men. However, since men are generally expected to make the first move, they tend to screw it up a lot more (and get burnt).
Even worse, the men who figure things out tend to find a good partner and pair up, taking them out of the pool.
Why does this get an ‘even worse’ qualifier?
Because it leaves the blind leading the blind, leading to really stupid ideas getting too much traction. Both in being too aggressive, and being too passive. Neither work well.
It also creates a biased pool, which helps fuel the really negative views of women.
It’s the same effect as happens in weight loss groups. Those who succeed tend to move on. Those that hang around and gain “authority” tend to have failings.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good thing for the people involved, but bad for those left.
https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2005/01/27/news-58/
This is about only hiring the top 0.5% of software engineers, but it applies to dating too! The people in the pool the longest are the least attractive.
Hints are great if what you look in a partner is the ability to solve puzzles. Otherwise, they should be skipped. Proper communication is key to any successful relationship.
