Flow

How to tell if someone is interested in you

5 min read

No single sign tells you someone's interested. A smile can be politeness. Eye contact can be curiosity, or the fact that you're standing where she happens to be looking. What you can read with some accuracy is a pattern: several signals pointing the same way, over a few minutes, and how they change as the conversation goes on.

And there's a simpler method that beats all of this. You ask. More on that below.

This comes first because it matters most. Someone being friendly, laughing at your jokes, or standing close is a sign they're enjoying the conversation. That's all. It doesn't mean they want to be touched, kissed, taken somewhere else, or asked for anything they haven't clearly agreed to.

Interest in talking to you isn't interest in more than talking to you. Interest tonight isn't interest tomorrow. And interest before three drinks isn't something you can rely on after them.

When you're not sure, ask. When you can't ask, or the answer isn't a clear yes, assume no. That's the floor, and there's more on it in consent and respect in cold approach.

Signs that usually point to interest

None of these mean much alone. Look for several together.

Signs that usually mean wrap it up

When you see two or three of these, leave. Kindly and quickly: "I'll let you get back to your night. Nice meeting you." Don't sulk, and don't add "Wait, one more thing." Handling this well is a skill in itself, and handling rejection covers the part where it stings afterward.

The easy-out test

One honest way to check interest is to give the other person an easy, no-cost way to end the conversation, and see what they do with it.

"Anyway, I'll let you get back to your book."

If they say "Okay, nice meeting you," you have your answer. Say goodbye and go. If they say "No, it's fine, I've read this chapter three times anyway," they're choosing to keep talking. That's a much clearer signal than anything you could read from their posture.

This isn't a trick. You mean the offer. It just respects their time and gives you real information at the same time.

Why asking beats reading

Reading signals is guesswork, and some people are hard to read. A shy person might give you very few signs even if they like you. A naturally warm person might give you plenty without any romantic interest at all. People who work in service jobs are often paid to be friendly. Some people smile when they're uncomfortable because it feels safer than being blunt.

So the signals tell you if it's worth asking. The ask tells you the answer.

Good asks are clear and easy to say no to:

A clear yes is a yes. "Maybe," "I'm not sure," a long pause, or a change of subject is not. Take it as a no, say something warm, and move on. Don't ask a second time, and don't try to talk them around. For the mechanics of asking, see how to ask for a number without it feeling awkward.

A note on "IOIs"

If you've read pickup material, you've probably seen "IOIs," or indicators of interest, along with long lists of them: hair touching, lip licking, playing with jewelry. The idea comes out of the pickup community and it's in the pickup glossary.

The problem with those lists is how people use them. Someone who's taught that hair touching means interest starts seeing interest everywhere, and starts treating a checklist as permission. People touch their hair because it's in their face. They play with a necklace because they're nervous, or bored. Reading every gesture as a signal makes you worse at noticing what's actually happening, which is usually right there in what the person says and whether they keep choosing to talk to you.

Treat the observable stuff, like questions back and staying put, as useful. Treat the micro-gestures as noise.

Your own signals matter too

Interest is easier to show back when you're not hiding yours. If you like someone, it's fine to say so in a low-pressure way: "I came over because I thought you seemed cool." That gives them something clear to respond to, and it makes it easier for a shy person to be honest back. How you hold yourself matters as well. Relaxed body language and comfortable eye contact make you easier to read, which tends to make the other person more relaxed.

The short version

If you log your approaches in Flow, it can be useful to look back and notice whether the conversations that went well had anything in common early on. Over time, you'll get better at telling a polite conversation from an interested one, mostly because you'll have asked enough times to calibrate.