You’ve met an interesting woman whose inscrutable behavior is making you feel quite insecure. She’s an enigma, a “black box.” She’s very friendly to you—almost overly friendly, as if she’s flirting with you. And maybe that’s exactly what she’s doing?
That’s why these questions are circling through your head:
“Is she interested in me, or is she just being nice and polite? How do I tell the difference between flirting and friendliness?”
You just can’t interpret their warm smiles, their glances, and their warm, open words. Is this just a friendly show, or is there more to it?
Therefore, you first want to gain some clarity about how this woman feels about you before you respond to her possible (!) advances and start flirting with her too.
Because misunderstanding her friendly gestures could be very tricky – especially if you’re work colleagues or she already has a steady boyfriend . If you approach her even though her supposed flirtation was actually just meant to be friendly, it will be extremely awkward for both of you…
Of course, you want to avoid a rejection like that, which embarrasses you to the core.
That’s why in this blog article I’m going to tell you the 11 most important signs that will tell you whether someone is flirting with you or just wants to be nice.
Flirting or just being nice? Why the distinction is so difficult
Are you wondering the difference between flirting and friendliness? First of all: Distinguishing between pure friendliness or friendly behavior and sexual interest is actually not that easy.
There are several reasons for this:
- The signals are often very similar in both cases, which is why we men don’t know where we stand with a woman. The boundaries between being nice and flirting are fluid; it’s a fine line.
- A bright smile, for example, can mean that she’s flirting with you—but it can also be meant purely as a courtesy and simply express sympathy. The same applies to a nice compliment or if she enjoys spending time with you.
- We men in love are often driven by our ideals and see exactly what we want to see through rose-colored glasses. The woman then wonders why a guy immediately thinks she’s into him, even though she just wants to be nice to him.
- Flirting is usually very discreet and subtle, especially in the beginning. You don’t reveal your intentions right away to avoid being rejected. Instead, you send out a subtle signal at first, carefully testing whether the other person reciprocates.
- The uncertainty of whether the other person is flirting or just trying to be nice is often a part of flirting. You deliberately keep your partner guessing to make getting to know each other more exciting, which is intended to further fuel butterflies in your stomach. Women (and men too) like to use methods like ” playing hard ,”
Difference between flirting and friendliness: 11 clear signs
This initially leads to the question: What is flirting anyway ? It’s a communicative game of erotically approaching another person through things like glances, touches, compliments, or teasing.
The game of flirting can have different goals:
- test your dating market value and get ego validation
- just have fun with humorous small talk (for example at a party)
- signal one’s own sexual interest
- find out whether this interest is mutual
- approach each other charmingly during the date for kissing and sex
- initiate an affair, friendship plus or serious relationship
In contrast, friendliness and niceness are often just polite gestures. Moreover, they are social rules of interaction intended to facilitate professional, familial, and friendly relationships. The other person should feel good, but the sexual aspect is completely missing.
As already mentioned: Flirting and being nice are often difficult to distinguish from one another, especially for us men.
In the following tips, I will therefore limit myself to 11 clear signals where there is a relatively clear difference between flirting and friendliness:
1. She maintains eye contact for a particularly long time
It’s common for confident people to make a lot of eye contact with their conversation partner. So far, so normal. But if a woman is interested in you, she will exchange long, intense glances with you, as if she were “losing” herself in your eyes.
An even stronger sign is if she smiles dreamily or blushes. Then it’s quite possible that she likes you or is even in love with you .
Another possibility if she finds you attractive: She looks away shyly and is NOT able to maintain eye contact with you, even though she has no problem doing this with other people because she is normally brimming with self-confidence.
Or do you notice her secretly looking at you when you’re not talking? Then you might have a fan who hasn’t dared to reveal her feelings to you yet…
2. She seeks more physical closeness than usual
An important difference between flirting and friendliness is the touching:
If a woman is sexually interested in you, she will touch you frequently. For example, she might “accidentally” brush against your upper arm, adjust your clothing, or laughingly punch you on the shoulder while you make a few teasing remarks.
She will also stand or sit very close to you during the conversation, so that you have (almost) physical contact with each other.
If it’s purely a friendship, there’s usually more physical distance. And physical contact between friends is also rare, usually only in the form of a hug to say hello and goodbye.
3. She seems nervous, clumsy or overexcited
Another sign of flirting is sudden changes in behavior when the woman is near you. Pay attention to her body language, too!
For example, she might feel nervous and insecure around you, tremble slightly, or turn red while you’re talking. This is true even though she’s normally very confident and poised around people.
In addition, there is often a certain clumsiness or stumbling when speaking.
Or she seems overly happy, silly and overexcited in your presence, even though she is not usually known for being in a particularly good mood.
4. She frantically adjusts her clothes and hair
Friends don’t try to impress each other and have no problem showing off their baggy tracksuits.
But do you notice how the woman nervously adjusts her clothes or hair as soon as you enter the room or get close to her? Or does she even dress up especially for you and wear figure-hugging clothes that are supposed to drive you, the man, “crazy”?
There’s a big difference between flirting and just being friendly. These are suspicious signs that she wants to please you—there might be a hint of love in the air here!
5. She teases you more and more intensely than usual
People who like each other tease each other. This happens among colleagues, friends, and family. Of course, it also happens when flirting that people make fun of each other. It’s not for nothing that the saying goes: ” Those who love each other tease each other !”
And yet things are a little different when the woman is interested in you.
In that case, she will tease you much more often and more intensely than is normal among people who simply like each other.
Your entire conversation will then be punctuated by witty humor. There’s always a teasing undertone, creating a sizzling flirtatious atmosphere. For example, the lady will playfully criticize you the whole time, as if you were an old, quarreling married couple.
Or she calls you a “real bastard” and laughs heartily.
What is typical of such teasing remarks is that the words are often crude and do not fit at all with the positive body language (contradictory signals).
Want to counter your partner’s playful “attacks”? Then read my article on how to tease women when flirting . Armed with this knowledge, you can have a fun exchange.
6. She gives you very intimate compliments
Sure, friends and colleagues also praise each other from time to time. The difference between flirting and friendliness, however, lies in the type and frequency of the compliments. If a woman likes you, you’ll recognize it by the following comments that come up regularly:
- Sexual compliments: She makes positive comments about your body, such as your muscles, figure, beard, voice, etc.
- Deep compliments: She praises your character traits, such as: “I admire how strong and calm you remain in difficult situations! That’s so manly…” Or: “Wow, that was such a lovely day with you at the amusement park. I don’t experience such spontaneous and cool activities with any other man!”
Such effusive compliments that go straight to the heart are rather unusual in a friendly context. It shows that the woman likes you very much or even already feels love for you.
However, sober praise like “It’s great that you’re always so punctual!” isn’t a strong signal of interest. After all, you’d say something like that to your coworkers and your grandma, right? There you go!
7. She focuses only on you (in groups)
Imagine you’re both at a party, in a meeting, or out with friends. And instead of talking to the other people there, the woman spends the whole time talking to you. She doesn’t leave your side and seems to be glued to you, including her eye contact.
This form of attention is a sign that she feels more than just sympathy. She’s not just trying to be nice; she’s flirting with you.
Exception: You are friends, and she is only clinging to you out of shyness because she doesn’t know the other party guests yet.
8. She reacts jealously to other women
It’s somewhat logical: Anyone who has feelings for another person automatically reacts with jealousy and can hardly defend themselves against it. Jealousy is therefore a very reliable indicator of whether the woman is flirting with you or just being nice.
For example, does she ask critical questions about other girls you’re involved with? Does she get annoyed when you talk to one of her “competitors”?
Then there is probably something more going on than just pure sympathy and politeness
You can also specifically test her possible jealousy by mentioning your contact with other women: “The other day I was at the cinema with a good friend…”
The difference between flirting and friendliness should be clear:
If the lady is only interested in you as a friend , she’ll be completely indifferent to your other affairs with women. She might even encourage you to flirt with other ladies and try to set you up with them.
9. She is very curious and asks a lot of questions
Sure, a certain amount of openness in conversation is normal—even if you’re just getting to know each other as friends or work colleagues. However, it becomes noticeable when the woman is extremely curious and quickly starts talking about personal topics.
She then asks very personal deep talk questions right from the start , for example whether you are single (in plain English: whether you are still available), how long ago your last relationship was, etc.
She also fires off one question after another: your favorite food, your favorite TV show, what music you listen to, or where you last went on vacation. She wants to find out if you have enough in common for a relationship.
After such interrogation-like conversations, you’re as full of holes as Swiss cheese.
Another signal: She seems to be asking about you behind your back because you’re on her mind and she’s extremely interested in you.
10. She tells you very private things
When a woman wants to flirt with you, she’ll sometimes be unusually open about personal matters. She might even confide in you things she’d rarely tell anyone else. After all, flirting isn’t just about joking around; it also means opening up emotionally.
For example, she reports on special experiences from her childhood and youth, her last relationship or her relationship with her family.
Warning: This trust can also be a sign of the friend zone if you’ve already become somewhat friendly. So, it’s not a very reliable signal for distinguishing between flirting and friendliness!
11. She treats you differently than other men
Certain women are buddy types who treat all men with unusual kindness. Although this open behavior is usually meant only as a friendly gesture, the smitten men then imagine that the woman is interested and that they have a chance with her.
A pretty sure sign of flirting is to compare how the girl treats the other men around her.
Is she significantly more open with you? Does she say or do positive things to you that you don’t observe in her behavior with other guys (including all of the flirting signals mentioned above)? Then you’re probably something special to her and not just another “man among many”!
Flirting or just being nice? 4 tips on how to win over a woman!
Now you know the difference between flirting and being friendly – and you should be able to judge whether the woman is really into you. To help you win her over on a date soon, I’d like you to consider these four additional tips:
1. Consider how many signs there are!
Don’t make the mistake of focusing on just one signal a woman is sending you. Each sign, viewed on its own, doesn’t necessarily mean anything and can be interpreted in one direction or the other.
But the more typical flirting signals you notice in the other person, the higher the probability that they are not just being nice, but flirting with you.
This ultimately means:
The number of different signs also helps to recognize the difference between flirting and pure friendliness.
2. Wait to see if their signals repeat themselves!
Do you see each other daily or weekly, for example because you are work colleagues or share the same circle of friends?
Then observe the situation for a while to determine whether her kindness to you was a one-time whim, or if the woman flirts with you regularly. It could be that she approached you while drunk at a party and is already regretting her openness the next morning…
However, if she sends clear signals over a longer period of time (and while sober), the probability is higher that she is seriously interested in you.
3. Start flirting with her gently!
The best way to find out whether she’s flirting with you or just being polite is to initiate a flirtation yourself and observe her reaction. Be bold and go on the offensive a bit to test the girl!
Would you like to make a move? From experience, I advise you not to rush into it right away, but to approach the situation slowly.
This way you avoid embarrassing misunderstandings.
This means sending the woman a few subtle flirting signals (smiles, teasing remarks, compliments, etc.) and seeing how she reacts. This way, you can avoid overwhelming your partner with embarrassing advances and getting rejected if her supposed flirting was meant to be just friendly.
If the reaction is positive and she joins your game, you can continue to flirt with her. However, if she reacts neutrally or even dismissively, you should hold back, stop your flirting attempts for the time being, and treat the woman more in a friendly manner.
4. Conquer her on a date!
Ideally, you will then have clarified the difference between flirting and friendliness – and know that the woman is sexually interested in you rather than just being nice.
The next step is to boldly ask her for her cell phone number and then ask her out on a date , where you’ll then use every trick in the book to win her over. How do you then get closer to her during the meeting, even to the point of a kiss, so that you can later end up in a relationship?
