I will let you in on a Guy Secret.

We actually quite often do get those hints. Not always and maybe not as often as we should, but vastly more often than some women think.

So why does it seem like we ignore them completely? Why do we seem such fools?

That's because of everything that happens between the flirting and our decision on whether or not to do something. A thought pattern something like this might emerge:

“Wait, was that flirting? It sure seemed like it. Maybe she likes me? Or was that just some fun messing around? Maybe she was just being nice? Am I overthinking this? Probably. Maybe it was nothing. Or maybe it was? Should I make a move? Damn, it will be really awkward if I misread this. And how many times have I heard stories of women who were just being nice and some idiot decided to make it awkward? Goddamnit, I don't wanna be that idiot! Ah, is the moment gone? So was it flirting? Maybe. Probably. But what if it wasn’t? Maybe I'll just see where this goes first.“

We live in a society where men are continuously reminded that sometimes we give attention when it was not wanted. We are told stories by women how they were just being nice and smiling and having fun and suddenly the guy would assume that's flirting and things would get uncomfortable. And I'm not saying catcalling on the street and giving massage to your friend is the same thing. Neither am I saying that there's no difference between being nice and flirting. But sometimes we are in situations between these two and when the woman is being indirect with what she wants she leaves it to us to categorize her behaviour. And we start overthinking. We start asking ourselves: what if we are mistaken?

Look, sometimes we are simply clueless, that's true. And sometimes we do get it and go for it.

But sometimes we are a bit unsure. And in those situations most of us would rather be clueless than creepy. It's just the better brand of idiocy.