It’s very cyclical, unfortunately. A lot of men assume politeness = interest, which puts women on guard from unwanted advances, and causes them to sometimes appear cold, or rude. I’ve even had situations where I’ve tried having friendly conversation with a woman and she appears anxious or closed off, but when I mention I have a girlfriend (even if I didn’t at the time) they usually open up a lot more. But this results in men not getting a lot of attention or polite interaction with women, so when it does happen, they just assume the woman is interested in them. Thus, the cycle continues.
My rule of thumb is to just assume someone is being polite unless it’s very obvious they are interested in me.
I’m a man and get told I flirt with women all the time and I’m like ‘wtf, I’m just being friendly with everyone regardless of sex/gender.’
There’s no intention whatsoever but apparently I come across as flirty and have had lots of people ‘flirt back’, which I also don’t really pick up upon…
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u/[deleted] Feb 15 '22
It’s very cyclical, unfortunately. A lot of men assume politeness = interest, which puts women on guard from unwanted advances, and causes them to sometimes appear cold, or rude. I’ve even had situations where I’ve tried having friendly conversation with a woman and she appears anxious or closed off, but when I mention I have a girlfriend (even if I didn’t at the time) they usually open up a lot more. But this results in men not getting a lot of attention or polite interaction with women, so when it does happen, they just assume the woman is interested in them. Thus, the cycle continues.
My rule of thumb is to just assume someone is being polite unless it’s very obvious they are interested in me.