Men of Reddit: What was a time when you thought a women was giving obvious signals but turns out that wasn’t the case?

35 comments

1. When I was in my mid to late teens I had a friend I thought might be into me but I was too shy to make a move. Good thing too because it turned out she was a lesbian.

2. I was positive this girl at my job was into me and asked for her number… I was even feelin like the man after but she completely ignored my text lol

3. In college a group of 4 of us were smokeing weed and hangin out, 2 guys and 2 girls. We were all being flirty and dancing, and it was a great time.

   At some point we kinda huddled up, and one of the girls which I was interested in was stroking my dick through my pants.

   Found out a few minutes later when it happened again that it was the dude.

   I was so pissed I only let him do it a few more times before moving away.

4. She invited me on a 2 night ski trip. Said she really wanted me to go because she wanted to hang out with me outside of the environment where we met.

   Jumped in the backseat with me and slept against me most of the way there.

   Spent a good amount of time playfully teaching me how to ski because I’ve never been before. Very flirty.

   Came to the lodge on the day I decided to relax rather than ski and spent the day sitting with me learning card games and talking. Really good conversation.

   Pulled out a blanket and cuddled during a movie that evening.

   Planned to make an official move once we got home and got super excited when she pulled me aside to talk about something on our own.

   ……she asked me to help her hook up with my best friend on the way home.

   My friends on the trip ended up being madder about it than I was. I was just confused and kinda broken.

   Actually stayed that way for a while too. Couldn’t help but think that if I had gotten THAT situation wrong how could I ever know that a girl is actually interested.

   Edit: Guess I left an important part out.

   The trip was to chaperone kids we worked with….which is also how we met. Her group and mine began working together to get the kids to socialize a little more. The only time we weren’t surrounded by, and looking after children was when they were on the slopes.

   Even the cuddling on a couch during the movie was done with a floor full of kiddos in the same room.

   Making any type of move on the actual trip beyond what was already being made would have been wrong place wrong time.

   Also I’m happily married 14 years running now. So no need for wishes of luck, or words of encouragement in romance!

5. Got sent a picture of her butt with “Come visit soon” across her panties with those iron on letters.

   Attempted to visit soon, got told we were just friends.

6. When I was younger I did this alot. And it’s the main reasons I’ve never been friends with girls. Every time they laugh at a dumb joke or they touch my shoulder or just be nice to me. I would “fall in love” and it wasn’t even them I was in love with it was the attention that I never really got.

7. Witnessed it happen to a buddy. We were at a festival and this woman gravitates towards him. They strike up a conversation and proceed to spend the next two days talking non-stop. She’s doing a lot of flirting and touching. I’m happy for my boy, who honestly is a great guy that has a hard time making the first move with women. He’s not a player at all.

   He asks for her number when the festival is winding down and she turns him down because she has a BF. Turns out he works the festival and can’t entertain her. He tells us on the way home. The guys are like WTF?!? And the women in our group wanted to get the pitchforks out.

   Edit: looking at some other comments I think the folks that suggested she was looking for a hookup were onto something. But my buddy isn’t the type to hookup upon meeting. I think his “entry window” expired as the festival wound down.

8. Girl with BPD was in manic episodes every time I met her. Then we had our first talk when she wasn’t manic. That explained a lot.

9. A casual friend was making it *very* known that she wanted to be sandwiched between my wife and i, but only through innuendo and very playful questions about our sex life (what kind of porn do you two watch? here’s what I watch.” etc) and then begs us to come visit her city for months.
   When we end up going she acts super flirty up until the moment she picks us up from the airport. Then she couldn’t be less flirty for the few days we were there. She’s very reserved and actually a little bit of a cold shoulder. Except she’d wear very skimpy outfits, *but* would give off the *”If you make a move I’m going to snap at you”* vibe the whole time. We’re very confused, but have a nice trip nonetheless. I think we’ve heard from her twice in the year since that trip. We still laugh about the whole thing.

10. 2 cases:

    1.) I approached her on the bus, we started talking, had a very good conversation. I asked for her number, she added me on Fb. I texted her, she didn’t even read it. Just as I wrote it down I decided to look her up and see what’s up with her. Turns out she got married about 3 weeks ago. Good for her.

    2.) I met her at a party, we had excellent convo and chemistry from the first minute. After a while I asked her out, turned out she was just a very open and friendly person… but we managed to discuss everything properly and we’ve been good friends ever since. Later I introduced her to my cousin and they were an immediate match. They’ve been together for more than a year so far

11. A girl at the gym was staring at me for multiple days like to the point it was awkward if I didn’t introduce myself. I said hi and i thought we hit it off, i asked for her number and she gave it to me and her last name. I texted her the next day no response. I waited a week to text her again and she told me she just got out of a relationship and wasn’t looking to date at the moment. I said ok see you at the gym. I see her at the gym we just say hi but she’s never texted me again and I haven’t texted her. This was like 9 months ago.

    I later found out she talks to a lot of people at the gym lol

12. It happened just a couple of days ago to me in traffic. This girl had her blinker on and I thought she was going to turn, but she kept going straight.

13. One time a girl was hella flirting with me at a group outing; holding my hand, caressing my beard. She even said something incredibly sexual, something along the lines of “I want you to ***k me on a table with your hand around my throat”. This was after some drinks so it was a gradual build up to that point.

    When I attempted to hook up with her she told me I had the wrong idea?

    Idk anymore

14. In the 90s. A cutie working at the mall gave me a FREE pair of Jordans 12. I went back the next day and she gave me another Free pair of the same shoe different color. This time I asked for her # and she declined because she had a BF. She said she was quitting that job soon and felt generous.

15. When I was 25, a girl (27yr) and I was going out to dinner, texting constantly, and visiting each other at our places of employment. When she’d visit me at my work, we’d step away from everyone and she’d randomly flash me.

    On Valentine’s Day of all days, we met out for dinner, had a bottle of champagne, and followed up with her willingly showing me naked pictures of herself on her cellphone. She said she had the best boobs and the cutest vagina ever. Don’t get me wrong, they were nice but not the best.

    I took this as a high indicator of interest so I went in for the kiss. She laughed, turned her head, and said she wasn’t that type of girl. Then followed up by saying “I’m not a slut.” I prematurely left her at the restaurant.

    Another night she invited me out for drinks. I sat across from her and majority of the night she was flashing me and reaching across the under the table with her foot playing with my man goods. At one point that night she said she wanted to be celibate for an entire year to “be like Jesus.” The night ended with me saving her from being arrested at the bar, holding her hair up while she puked her guts out, then asking me to cuddle with her back at her apartment(she was topless and refused to put a shirt on). Fortunately, I managed to get out of there unscathed.

    So to sum this experience, just because a woman willingly shows naked pictures of herself, touches your junk, it doesn’t mean she’s interested or a slut for that matter. Fortunately, I met a good woman shortly after dropping this one and we were together for 7 years.

16. The most embarrassing moment I’ve had, she leaned on my shoulder while watching a movie with a couple friends, then after like 2 minutes my shoulder was getting kinda uncomfortable so i put my arm up on the head rest and she backed away. I’m legit on the verge of jumping out a window anytime i think of that moment. Please just kill me rn

17. Had a girl I met once ask me for a motorcycle ride, I told her sorry I couldn’t im going on a trip 100 miles North to a motorcycle rally, she tells me she’s always wanted to go and asks if it was weird if she asked to come with me, I said yes it’s weird but yes you can go, whole way up she’s rubbing my back, talking about sex stuff, we get up there, have few drinks, go in tent to sleep I make my move and she denies me, I was sure it was in the bag too.

18. A girl at this coffee shop i frequented would ALWAYS come to the window to ring me out, and inquire about my life. She’d give me compliments damn near everytime, lean forward when talking to me, hold up the line to talk to me, laugh at everything, and get embarrassed over small minor un important mistakes. I asked other girls that I knew didn’t like me to see if the signals were a sign that she was flirting, and they agreed. So instead of asking for her number, I gave her mine to put the ball in her court and if she wanted to talk, she could text me, if not, nothing lost nothing gained. A week passes with no text, I finally see her again at the shop, she rushes to the window and says she somehow accidentally lost my number so she hands a slip of paper with her name and number on it. Even dotting the i with a heart. I texted it later that day, to no response whatsoever. Now when I go, she actively dodges me, by avoiding sight from the window, hides when I pull up. You would’ve thought I sent a dick picture or was overtly sexual or something. Nope none of that. I literally asked if this was so and so from the coffee shop I frequented. That was it lmao. Everyone around me is confused by the mixed signals too. She doesn’t even need to dodge me like who gives a fuck if you aren’t interested 😂

19. When I gave her my number and she called me the next day, we arranged to meet and she ghosted me

20. This is when I just learned the hard way that some girls are genuinely just flirty with everyone, and that doesn’t mean they are actually into you.

    This girl I met at work, she would always rub up on my arm, and when we would go out for lunch she would sometimes hook our arms together. We would always tease eachother, and to make things more complicated, she would always leave me after lunch time by saying, I love you!

    So one day I decided to ask her out, as it turns out, she was happily taken, and she “didn’t like me like that”. Big F on my part. After talking with some of our other friends, she is just naturally flirty like that.

21. Before: She sent flirty messages to me. Then she started talking about hanging out and “you know, doing stuff”. She sent pics of herself in corsets sometimes. Other times, she sent pics in her underwear.

    After: “I don’t know where you got THAT idea!”

    But I mean, what would anybody think?

    EDIT- Actually, there is a postscript to that. She got rolled out by our (female) mutual friends over that. Saying stuff like “That was low EVEN FOR YOU”, “Of course he thought you wanted him, LOOK AT WHAT YOU SENT”, “You do shit like this to guys all the time, it’s not cute anymore”, etc. Afaik, none of them have spoken to her since.

    I never even told them what happened. She told them and they jumped down her throat about it. They were pissed.

22. During one shift as a bartender, this really pretty woman always came to the bar to order her drinks and was very flirty. After about the 4th drink, she said she and her friends are going to [another bar] and I should come after my shift and meet up with her.

    When I got there, she was sitting at a large round table with about 15 guys. Not a single other woman was there.

23. I usually take it as a sign when she is in my bedroom with her clothes off. Surprisingly this only means she is interested maybe 10 percent of the time.

24. Not romantic signals, but friendship ones. We were friends in work, but we literally texted all the time, had very similar senses of humour, liked the same moves and TV Shows, had some deep conversations about life, the universe and everything. Used to go for lunches and dinners together, had a bunch of nights out with work where we would end up chatting to each other. Never once made a move on her and never wanted to, nor did she ever show any romantic inclinations for me, but she was my best friend.

    Left my the department we worked at together and in my first day at the new department, popped in to the old place to see how she was and she said I was a creep and stalking her and reported me to her boss (my old boss) and was threatened with a complaint to HR. Two years on, no clue what happened or what I did wrong but it absolutely destroyed me.

25. Colleague of mine.
    Kept staying after work to hang out with me.
    Said multiple times that we should go on holiday together.
    On one particularly drunken night she wouldn’t stop telling me how amazing she thought I was.

    Asked her out and got shut down immediately.

26. Around a year ago there was this one girl who my friend and I would thought forsure was into me.
    This was in grad school.
    She would follow around, message me thru out the day.
    Then I’d ask her out and she’d say yes, and flake last second.
    This happened 3 times in a row and I kept thinking her behaviour would change, but she continued to act the same way. It got to the point where our entire friend group at school thought 100% we were banging, and when I told them we weren’t they thought I was lying. The way she acted around me wasn’t even like a friend, it was full blown flirting, following me around, texting me at night, sending me snaps. And we’d organize a hangout but she would always have an excuse last minute hours before the date.
    I later found out she was in a toxic/abusive relationship with a guy at the time and they were on and off.
    I think she may have just had me as a second option or something for when that relationship would officially end.

27. I had a women say she wanted to be with me for the rest of her life. We even signed some paperwork and invited people over.

    Turns out none of that was correct.

28. Oh fuck, you’re gonna make me relive this

    There was this girl I used to have a huge crush on for years. She knew about it, a lot of water ran down that river

    Then a group of my friends, her included, went to spend a few days at my grandparents’ vacation house. Drinking, going out, going to the beach, having a great time.

    The whole time this girl is all over me. Sleeping next to me with her arm on top of me, sitting on my lap. Once she said “Oh I’m about to go shower” and I jokingly said “Better go in groups to save time”, to which she replied “You wanna come?”. We held hands and everything. Even my friends told me they were noticing that we were super close together

    Eventually our time there ends and we return home. But after like a week, I tweeted I was going back there. She replied “Can I join?” to which I said yes

    So we go, just the two of us. We watch movies cuddled up on the couch, sleep in the same bed, everything. Eventually I obviously went in for the kiss. She literally screamed and said “What the fuck are you doing?”. I told her I thought she had been all over me for a few days, that even our friends thought so, and she said “Oh I think you all got the wrong idea”

    So yeah, that sucked

29. Spoof 1: this beautiful and intelligent girl heard about my work in science and art through mutual friends. She then reached out to me through social media, asked about me and what I like to do, then asked me if I wanted to get coffee and get to know each other. We hang out, she says she’d love to work with me. I agree. She adds me on a different social media platform. I add her back.

    I then see photos of her and her fiancé. They married a few months after that. We’re still great friends and collaborate on projects.

    Edit:

    Spoof 2: I meet one of my friend’s sisters. She’s two or three years older than me and was finishing college that spring. We immediately hit it off. We start working on projects together. I help a lot of people in her organization, partly because I loved what I did and partly because I enjoyed working together. We spend a lot of time together, exploring the city, going to restaurants, coffee shops, museums; she even proofreads some of my college assignments. She moves to New England by the end of summer. I help her move out. We stay in touch in the fall. She calls me on Sunday mornings to catch up. She then says, “I miss being around you. It’d be great if you came to visit. You can stay at my place so you don’t have to pay for a hotel.” I consult a mutual friend about this. Mutual friend says she’s clearly into me and I should go visit if I’m into her. I save up some of my scholarship money that semester and buy a flight to New England. I leave town the day after a maths final exam. She picks me up at the train station. She grabs the back of my head, pulls me toward her, hugs me tight for a few seconds and we then walk to her apartment.

    As soon as we enter her apartment she tells me she’s seeing this really successful lawyer and that she won’t be spending the night at her place. That was 8 years ago. They’re married and have a child. The last time we saw each other was 5 years ago at her mother’s funeral. We don’t speak to each other anymore.

30. When single moms in custody cases try to play footsie under the table or touch me unnecessarily. Couldn’t be as it’s clearly in violation of attorney-client relationship conduct requirements and I’m clearly married.

    I mean, they know the shit show they’re going through. No sane woman would think it’s appropriate to flirt with her legal counsel or think any man ever would want to be involved with that shit show.

    Must be I’m misreading signals.

31. a girl sent me a really racy photo. the next day she felt the need to say we are friends. too bad.

    what was interesting was how many friends had felt that i mishandled the situation. i remember being in a car with them later that weekend. some felt i had shown too much interest, after a girl sends you a racy photo dont be overly excited, just be cool. some felt i hadnt shown enough interest, after a girl sends you a pic show some interest, show her you’re really into it. the only thing they all agreed on was that i mishandled it. it never even occurred to anyone that my reaction to a photo wasn’t what made us be in a relationship or not.

32. At the gym a few weeks ago. I saw a coworker from a job I had a year back. We had spoken a handful of times. She sees me and smiles, then says something to her friend and her friend looks over at me. After a minute or two, she lets her hair down and flips it a little bit, then looks at me again. I don’t usually approach people, and I’ve never really talked to anyone at the gym, so I spent my hour and a half workout working up the courage to talk to her. At the end of my workout, she and her friend are walking on some treadmills, so I smiled and get on the treadmill next to her and pull out my ear buds. She immediately hits the stop button and takes off without looking my direction. Her friend also jumps off and runs to the check in desk and starts pointing me out to the staff. I was utterly horrified and had no idea what to do so I just kept running, hoping they would leave. Instead they get on treadmills at the opposite end of the gym. I ended up running probably 3 miles before they finally leave, and as they walk past my treadmill, the friend gives me the finger and mouths “Fuck You!” I waited a few more minutes before getting off the treadmill. I went and asked the desk people if I did something wrong, and he gave some vague answer like, “Nah, we are just chillin.” I assumed my gym membership would be banned or something, but it’s been two weeks and I haven’t heard anything since.

33. Usually when a girl gives you looks and doesn’t stop lookin at you in a bar full of people means she’s interested. She smiled, kept looking, found reasons to ask me about things.

    So, I built up some liquid courage.
    Asked for her number.
    Texted and blocked.

    That one was like damn what? You gave me ALL THE SIGNS.

34. Man we got married and everything. I misread that situation quite terribly.

35. Met her at a conference. She was a rep for a company. Shared passion. Talked for quite a while, professionally and personally.

    She gave me her card, I contacted her about business, stayed professional. Closed a deal.

    She reached out a few days later to give me her personal number and then emailed me a few days after that with a message to the effect of, “If you want to talk about not work, reach out.”

    I reached out, citing that I intended business to be business, but now that it’s concluded, I’d like to ask her out.

    She made a TikTok about me, saying she was creeped out by her client asking her out.

    Whoops….