Submitted 5 days ago by FatTony@lemm.ee to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
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This is kind of a follow up question to this post: How important is flirting within the dating scene?
I have never in my life flirted with someone. Seeing how I’m still single I figure I might want to change strategies. So what is the best way to show someone you’re romantically (or sexually) interested in them?
And if you can, please include examples.
Note: I am a guy, straight, have a lot of hobbies, and finding women is no problem for me.
Step one : do some activity where you genuinely want to be there involved in that activity. You will meet new people there, it can’t happen if you stay home inactive. You are happy with your own person at this point.
Step two : be kind towards everyone there and show interest to new people with a curiosity state of mind. Talk to people, not only people of direct romantic interest…
Step three : “i had fun spending time with you tonight, is there a way for me to text you to do something together soon?”
Step four : most of the time, when you text to invite you use the word date only once, but it need to be there. She will notice and register that you don’t aim for platonic.
Step five : its out of your control, if there is reciprocal interest you will feel things moving, if it’s not moving over 8-10 dates you need to check within yourself if it’s the relationship you want and discuss the divergence with her. At that point every couple is different, you build the style of communication that will characterize your relationship going forward in this early phase. Let her bring the sex topic first, or most of it.
Dating app will push you just a bit faster to 3-4, but you are doing every step before that through your phone with artificial/imperfect feedback.
Speaking from US context, and referencing your other post.
“Hey do you want to go on a coffee date?”
There’s little words or statements that can act as indicators which are direct/specific yet not pushy. You need to take the risk and be at least a little direct. You also need to be able to receive and handle rejection well.
Social setting means a place you are both at voluntarily and not as a course of daily needs such as a party, concert, book club, barbeque, club, etc. Anything not income/job-related for either party. Not the grocery store, not the bus, not the DMV.
Reading signs of interest in you: -Someone stays physically near you (e.g. within arms reach) for the majority of the night at a social gathering. -someone keeps focusing on you over multiple gatherings -Someone is electing to talk specifically to you significantly more than to other people in a social setting.
These are signs, not invitations. You still need to ask about their intentions, and express yours in some way. Always form enthusiastic consent. If they’re not clearly enthusiastic then either ask their intentions very directly or move on.
I am not providing advice on sex at all here, too complicated and situational especially around consent.
Thank you! That was very thorough and clear.
I’ve always assumed this is something that comes naturally, when I’m into someone I take a deep interest in then, ask then questions about their passion, follow up and remember when they tell me things, try to spend time together either in a group or solo, look at them, talk to them eventually about my interest.
There’s no formula and it isn’t some mystical ritual or anything, just treat them well, smile at them, look at them, touch them appropriately and with consent, be engaged and interested in who they are. Don’t fall into the trap of feeling like all members of the opposite sex are a unified being, every person is different and the opposite sex is made up of people just like you, maybe with different bits if you subscribe to that type of gender identity.
That’s the trick - everyone is different, so what works for someone may not work for someone else. What I do know is, if you’re depending on cheat codes like physical or financial props, chances are you’ll burn out and lose interest after a while. Source: start noticing plenty of divorcees in the pool after 40.l with kids in tow.
hey, the commenter Snowstorm Is the only comment I see here that is accurate. following those steps is the best way to show romantic interest in someone.
Nah, Lost_My_Mind gives a much more typical representation.
I (f, gay) actually struggle with this despite being in a 4+ year committed relationship
I do as well to the point I’ve actually wondered if I’m aromantic in the past. Sexual attraction is so easy to describe. It’s easy to spot. I know when I’m experiencing it. Romantic attraction is so much harder. I think most times I’ve felt it for someone my wife has noticed it before me (not in an accusatory way, and we’re also poly now).
Watch some romance movies… even… Hallmark movies. Emulate no more than 20% of what you see and that will be sufficient. Too much more than that will cause an aneurysm. And realistically, normal human interactions are not nearly as concentrated as those movies. It’ll give you the basics.
In other words, you show romantic interest by showing romantic interest.
At some point it seems creep stalker status so do becarefu. So, 20% is good I’d say.
Ask them questions about themselves. You need to be genuinely interested, though. Faking it doesn’t work. At least not longterm.
I would suggest using a dating service so that you know the women are open to dating.
Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Now what I personally do, is I fly a drone miles above their house, for like 3 months. High enough that nobody is complaining about it, because it’s so high nobody notices it…but it notices you! Oh yes! It documents your every move in fact.
So I use it to figure out a womans schedule, how many pets she has, if her house has an alarm. That sort of thing.
Then, I buy a plot of land in a nearby city. Build a perfect replica of her house. And use to to become intimately firmiliar with the layout of her house. You know how you can navigate your house in the dark? Yeah, that kind of intimate knowledge of the layout.
Then when she’s going grocery shopping, as I knew she would, I fill her house with thousands and thousands of bees. The idea being that with her struggling to hold onto 17 bags at once, it will be a 1 or 2 second delay before she’s able to do anything once she realizes what’s happened.
So now she’s gotta deal with 6 months of tearing her walls down, doing expensive home remodels, the works. It’s a very costly repair, that’s leaving her pretty financially struggling.
At this point, she should be living at a hotel, or some other short stay place. You have the housekeepers change all the paintings in her room, before she checks in, with paintings of her, depicting a series of events.
She sees the painting of her running out of her house being chased by bees. She sees the picture of her being chased by naked naked clowns with chainsaws. She sees the painting of her standing outside her house smiling.
And she’s also gotten a second job. Wherever she gets her second job, I get a part time job there too.
At this point she’s going to be so rattled out of her god damned mind, that she’ll feel insecure about everything. Her safety. Her sanity. Her life. She’ll feel it’s all being attacked. And then I start talking to her at work. Just work conversations. But she feels to trust me, because all the crazy shit going on in her life, I’m the safe, sane, boring one in her life that just stays stable. She’s looking for that now.
But it’s time to finish the job. It’s time for work to take us all to an art exhibit. “The being of Clown”. It’s an art imitating life exhibit using real life clowns, posing still as an art display, in the nude.
When she sees this, she’ll get uneasy, but you’ll convince her to go. She’ll tell you she saw a painting of a clown chasing her with a chainsaw. You assure her that no clowns are going to chase her. Certainly not with a chainsaw! It’s an art gallery, not a haunted house! Besides, it’s a work thing. If she doesn’t go, she’ll be in trouble at work.
As the company trip is going well, thats when the big overhanging sky window shatters, as federal agents fall on ziplines and shooting guns at the clowns. In the commotion everybody scatters. Her out into the big bush maze, past the gardener, who’s trimming the bushes with a chainsaw. She screams and runs, as the gardener is just confused. Just then a clown runs out, grabs the chainsaw and chops off the gardeners head. Now he’s chasing the witness. Her. And now she’s being chased through a bush maze by a naked clown with a chainsaw. Just like the painting shows.
She’s running through the bush maze screaming “HELP!!! HELP!!!” As the clown disarms her screams by yelling “MARCO!!!” so everyone thinks it’s a game.
She finally runs into me, and I’m holding a baseball bat. Just then the clown cuts through the bush. I tell her to run, as I battle this clown.
Just as she finds the exit to the bush maze, there I am with a car yelling “GET IN! QUICK!!!” and we speed off into the night, grateful that we survived.
About 20 miles away we’ve pulled over, and the near life ending experience has us making out, and getting hot and heavy. So we go to her place, the hotel.
When we walk into her room, she sees it. The picture that used to show her standing outside her house smiling is now showing her standing outside her burnt down house kneeling on the lawn and crying.
She’s freaking out. She’s telling me there’s supernatural force at play. I tell her it’s just a painting. Then I ask why she even got those made. She says she didn’t they came with the hotel room. So I reassure her. “Do you want to go to your house, and check on it’s progress? Make sure it’s not burnt down?”
So we drive over there. Her house, is exactly how she last saw it. Walls partially rebuilt, dead bees everywhere, it’s still a work in progress, but it’s not burnt.
A few weeks go by, and nothing crazy happens, then I tell her that I have a surprise for her after work, but she has to be blindfolded first.
So I drive her over to the surprise, guide her into place, and she takes off the blindfold. She looks around the room…her room. She’s in her bedroom. In her house. The walls and remodel is complete. She says “How did this happen?” and before I could answer a stream of bullets come shooting through the windows. I get hit, and fall to the floor. Bullets still shooting. One of the bullets shoots a candle off the mantel. It falls to the carpet, and fire spreads. She calls 911, and the bullets stop. She’s not hit, but I’m clinging to life.
When EMS arrives, they tell her to wait outside. She can hear the EMS workers saying that I won’t make it. She begins to cry, outside “her house”, just like the painting said. When EMS are bringing my body on a stretcher, she insists on going with us to the hospital, but they insist it’s family only.
When she gets to her hotel the painting is now her tending over my body in a hospital bed, holding my hand, with a very grim look on my face. In the shadows of the room is a creepy smiling clown face.
The other painting in the room is a wedding scene. She and I at the alter. She’s happy. I’m happy. All her family and friends are in the seats. She doesn’t recognize all the people on the grooms side of the seats.
So she comes to hospital during visitation times. I’m unresponsive. I have a tube in my throat. The sounds of beeping machines monitoring my vitals. She keeps looking into the corners of the room. She doesn’t know what these paintings are trying to tell her, or why these clowns keep showing up in the paintings, but she knows there’s a clown in this room.
She’s checking on every curtain. She’s using her phone flashlight on every dark corner of the room.
“What are you doing?” She screams in fear and pulls out her blade. She turns to see a white coat doctor. “What is going on in here?” And she tries to explain about the clowns, and the bees, and the fire, and the chainsaw, but she’s doing it so fast she just sounds crazy. The doctor orders security to take her out of the hospital.
She goes home and sees the same two paintings. Just as they always were.
So she goes back a week later to see me, and I’m responsive, but not alert. I’m pretty heavily sedated. I say her name, and some jibberish. I ask if she’s ready for her banana. She, seeing that I’m delerious says yes. I hand her a pear fruit cup. She can see how out of it I am.
So over the next 6 weeks, she cares for me, everyday. Bedside care really makes you care for someone. And she makes priority to get me back to health.
And as I’m nursed back to health, I tell her I’ve enjoyed our time spent together. And she feels the same. And now we’re officially an item.
And THAT is how I show romantic romantic interest in women!
…what? Did you think I forgot the assignment?
Hazor@lemmy.world 4 days ago
I needed a laugh. Let me know when you publish your first novel; I’ll be pre-ordering it.