Differences in guys: Who's supposed to make the first step?

[meridannight]

But, maybe that's why I differentiate between "instigating" and "approaching". When I was single, I instigated a lot. Smiles and grins. Looks and glances. A suggestively raised eyebrow. Those sort of things.

I had no idea what you meant by 'instigating', by the way, until you described it. I don't mean this in a negative way about you, and maybe the way you do it is clear, but such behavior could also be called teasing. Or, 'come-and-get-me,-I-won't'. I never saw much point in playing around rather than getting straight to the point.

And those would not be signs that would tell me a guy is interested in me. A lot of guys smile at another and it doesn't mean anything beyond courtesy friendliness. It depends a lot on the context, more so on the context, than any particular thing you do, I would say. (Again, I have no idea how you actually do it in real life, so don't take this as criticism aimed at you or anything).


My point of view seems to be very similar to [MENTION=22879]kindy64[/MENTION]'s on this one. And guys tend to be rather dense, I think so too. I think I am that dense myself. Just because a guy smiles at me or looks at me or ''raises an eyebrow'' at me would not make me think he's interested. If you're gonna play it like that you have to make it pretty damn explicit for me to get it. Luckily, I make my own moves on guys I am interested in, so that's not that important to me that I'm so dense.

It's more a physical thing anyway -- I feel whether a guy might be interested or not, rather than understand it. I'm not always right, but my feeling has never been wrong either in a sense that I don't confuse lack of interest for interest.


And, by the way, I was scared of rejection when I was younger and in high school. I had had no experience and it seemed like the most daunting thing in the whole world to do, to ask anybody out. I grew out of it. Once I got a taste of it, I wanted more. I actually started to like the whole process. I have my own approach, things I will do, and things I can't do. The timing has to be right, etc. But that's the beauty of it. And there really is nothing to be afraid of here. And if you really like a guy a lot, you have no other options left. You have to man up, and do it.

[TwisttheLeaf]

[MENTION=21405]meridannight[/MENTION] I completely agree. It is situational as well as in the -HOW- of the flirt/tease. I only see it as "teasing" if there's no reward at the end. In my case, that wasn't the case. I only flirted if there was genuine interest.

I must be VERY clear in my techniques, though, as I rarely had an issue with getting the response I was aiming for.

I see what you say about the "I never saw much point in playing around rather than getting straight to the point." In my case? I enjoy it. It's like.... foreplay. A precursor "getting to know you" moment type of thing.

That said? Friends back then also found it highly amusing that at times I would just walk up to someone and open with "Hey. (insert eye contact and a wide grin) Wanna fuck?" So, I guess you could say that in my case, I did a lot of "mixing things up" depending on how I felt in the moment.