Are you guys really that clueless, or is it some sort of ruse?

[lahnnabell]

So, let's say my guy is socially clueless. He loves me, adores me, respects me as a person, etc. What do I do if I find out that he is unsure of where the boundaries lie with flirting? I find that a lot guys are naturally very aloof when it comes to flirting and the kinds of messages they are sending. Even my guy friends will come to me upset, confused about why their girlfriends are accusing them of being disrespectful. They are literally at a loss and cannot understand what they've done wrong. Can you fault a guy like this? Or is he really conscious of his behavior and only playing stupid to avoid getting himself into trouble?

An ex of mine was blatantly disrespectful a lot of the time we were in public with friends. He would flirt with other girls and do little things to drive me crazy, but then profess that he had no idea he was doing it and that I was being unreasonable. It was maddening. He was very good at lying to me when he needed to. It took me a while to realize that I was becoming a doormat by accepting his behavior. It's one of the reasons I hate liars so much. The habitual and pathological liars are the scariest.

Even still, I find most of the guys in my life are ever socially clueless. Social mediums like Facebook and Myspace perpetuate this as people don't feel like a comment made online has the same weight as one spoken aloud. What do you guys think? Think of it in terms of your own girlfriend, or a hypothetical girlfriend... What kinds of behavior don't bother you, and what causes uneasiness? How much control does one person have over the flirtatious attempts of another (i.e. watching another guy attempt to flirt with your girl)?

[doppelgaenger]

No, your guy is clueless. Just because we are men does not mean we are stupid.

[FullofSighs]

were clueless up to a point, after a certain point its just to throw something new into our life. The hard part is finding his point that that exceeds the point of clueless and is actually conscious of it. But the way i see it, it is almost impossible to talk to the opposite sex (or same if you roll that way) without flirting unless you absolutely hate them and talk to them with a tone that says gtfo out of my face i don't wanna talk to you. Thats how i see it, and thats generally how i am. I usually dont realize it up to a point where i know im doing it cuz i wanna do it

[lahnnabell]

No, your guy is clueless. Just because we are men does not mean we are stupid.

I never meant to imply that men were stupid. However, I do find that this "cluelessness" is consistent with many of he men in my life. Be it friends, boyfriend, whatever. I was interested in finding exactly how much of it is genuine, and how much of it might be a clever ruse to avoid obvious drama. I agree that flirting is inevitable (I'm a waitress, trust me, I know) most of the time, but I still think there is a line dividing what is harmless flirting and what kind of behavior is too indulgent. I have a specific idea in my head of what I find acceptable. Most guys probably don't think about such things unless otherwise provoked by a situation I take it? For example, if a guy is blatantly hitting on your girl when you're barely two steps away, you'd step in before he got very far, or would you let your girl take point and blow him off nicely?

[dono01]

He knows. Unless for some reason his self awareness is THAT bad.

On the other side of things, girls tend to mistake genuinely nice guys for flirtatious ones. I have seen it happen more times that I can count.

[sehvral]

Depends on the situation. I don't really care about random people trying to flirt with my girl. She came there with me, she'll leave there with me, and he's not even a blip on my radar. Generally, I have no problem letting her get rid of the guy. Until he starts getting physical in his flirting. Once there is physical contact, I step in. Not that it ever really gets that far, she rejects them long before that point.

Now, for your original question, what do you see as harmless flirting, and what crosses the line?

[dewilliams2]

What do you mean by flirting? I mean I've been accused of flirting when truly I was just being friendly and had no intentions.

Sometimes I do things I am unaware of but its also because women tend to be hypersensitive to words and read things into them that are not there. If I say something it is exactly what I mean...I place no hidden messages.

But when I go out with my gf I treat her like there is no other woman in the room. I'm not one of those guys who checks out other women, I don't approach other women. Now with that said if they approach me I will be nice to them...I'm not goin to throw a rock at them and be like "get the **** away"

[MM894]

Depends on the situation. I don't really care about random people trying to flirt with my girl. She came there with me, she'll leave there with me, and he's not even a blip on my radar. Generally, I have no problem letting her get rid of the guy. Until he starts getting physical in his flirting. Once there is physical contact, I step in. Not that it ever really gets that far, she rejects them long before that point.

Now, for your original question, what do you see as harmless flirting, and what crosses the line?

Agreed with this. As a guy with a girlfriend, I don't indulge in what I would consider to be flirting with other girls. If I'm a straight male with hormones and self-confidence, I'll absolutely treat a very attractive girl differently in the manner that I talk to her. It's nature, and no guy is going to be "reprogrammed" in that regard. That said, I think when it starts getting physical, that's when there is a certain line crossed; I'll talk to girls (probably flirt with them, by many girls' definitions) but if physical touching starts happening, it goes beyond any notions of propriety that you can really set up for yourself.

My advice, if he's talking up a beautiful girl, it's male instinct, it doesn't mean he's going to get involved with her, it's in a guy's nature to try and talk to pretty girls, there definitely is a self-confidence factor there, and it's generally not even a self-conscious action. When it starts becoming a physical interaction, then yeah, I'd say a line might need to be drawn a little bit. Also, if he's not comfortable with you having the exact same limits as him, then yeah, that's a problem.

[lahnnabell]

Agreed with this. As a guy with a girlfriend, I don't indulge in what I would consider to be flirting with other girls. If I'm a straight male with hormones and self-confidence, I'll absolutely treat a very attractive girl differently in the manner that I talk to her. It's nature, and no guy is going to be "reprogrammed" in that regard. That said, I think when it starts getting physical, that's when there is a certain line crossed; I'll talk to girls (probably flirt with them, by many girls' definitions) but if physical touching starts happening, it goes beyond any notions of propriety that you can really set up for yourself.

My advice, if he's talking up a beautiful girl, it's male instinct, it doesn't mean he's going to get involved with her, it's in a guy's nature to try and talk to pretty girls, there definitely is a self-confidence factor there, and it's generally not even a self-conscious action. When it starts becoming a physical interaction, then yeah, I'd say a line might need to be drawn a little bit. Also, if he's not comfortable with you having the exact same limits as him, then yeah, that's a problem.

I agree that when flirting becomes physical, a very defined line is crossed. I agree that if I notice a girl flirting with my guy, I'll leave it to him to keep it at an appropriate level. It's actually even kind of amusing to watch girls throw themselves at him only to see him walk out the door with his arm around me an hour later. The same goes for me. I engage in conversation with men at my leisure, but the moment they take the liberty to touch me is when I throw up the barriers. I expect the same of my boyfriend.

My boyfriend is usually content to let me field the conversations men attempt with me. I remember I was visiting him at work one night, and while I was standing aside awaiting my food, a guy and his friend stood to wait and started chatting me up. They were Mexican and so we began to ramble off in Spanish. One of them complimented my beautiful accent and asked me how I acquired it being a non-native speaker. One of the guys left to go pick up his food at the counter and my boyfriend (based on what he told me later) confronted him with, "So, I see you're hitting on my girlfriend?" The guy quickly explained that he meant no offense and that he didn't know. I finished up my conversation and they left soon after. My boyfriend told me later on what he'd said, and I asked him why he felt the need to interfere when he doesn't usually do so (I was perfectly aware the guys were hitting on me). He told me that I couldn't see how one of them was looking at me intently, and that he wasn't in a particular mood to watch guys hit on me either. I wasn't offended by his possessiveness in that moment; it felt good to have him looking out for me.

[SirWagginston]

Like women, men have certain mental strengths. They tend to be more apt at math and science, and more decisive.

Possibly man's greatest fallback, however, is that he doesn't understand social hints and cues very well. Although body language is over 80% of communication, men are significantly less skilled both at reading these signals from others and at understanding the signals they give off themselves. I heard somewhere that women are approximately 10 times better at body language understanding.

I think this is a leading cause of arguments between partners. Men sometimes fail to pick up on signals of unhappiness that their partners assume they will notice and do something about. Women, for their part, sometimes infer messages that don't exist, and misunderstandings arise.

I don't think this necessarily excuses the flirtatious behavior, however. It depends entirely on how he was doing it... then I would know, as a male, whether or not the situation would be obvious, to me.

[Zero Profit]

why are girls so clueless about threesomes and only finding one woman attractive?

because its rare or it doesn't happen

[Gigabitch]

What do you mean by flirting? I mean I've been accused of flirting when truly I was just being friendly and had no intentions.

Sometimes I do things I am unaware of but its also because women tend to be hypersensitive to words and read things into them that are not there. If I say something it is exactly what I mean...I place no hidden messages.

You have to understand that your actions are possibly being perceived as flirting, both by your gf and by other women regardless of your intention. If you're a naturally charming guy, you have to be careful with what you say and do, whether you "mean it" or not.

My husband had to learn this one the hard way. He just kept getting the metaphorical smack with the rolled-up newspaper until he learned what was and was not acceptable. It took a third party pointing out to him how he was misleading people to really make him snap and knock it off.

[lahnnabell]

You have to understand that your actions are possibly being perceived as flirting, both by your gf and by other women regardless of your intention. If you're a naturally charming guy, you have to be careful with what you say and do, whether you "mean it" or not.

My husband had to learn this one the hard way. He just kept getting the metaphorical smack with the rolled-up newspaper until he learned what was and was not acceptable. It took a third party pointing out to him how he was misleading people to really make him snap and knock it off.

Giga, you hit it, as per usual. I've dated good-looking guys before, but my current boyfriend is quite devastatingly handsome AND naturally charming. Women start drooling the moment he sets foot in a room. This is refreshing, but can be maddening at the same time. I can't leave his side for two seconds before a woman has latched onto him.

Sometimes it does take a third party to point it out. Our men are always going to find us to be biased judges because of our status of "girlfriend", and we then get labeled as jealous crazies for trying to point out their behavior. This is why I had the Facebook problem. My guy seems to do fine in person, but he's a bit skewed on what sorts of things he should not being saying to other women via text-only conversation. It sounds harmless to him of course, but I'm more than happy to remind him of what I will and will not accept.

Now that I mention it, Giga, got any advice for how to combat that? It seems he regularly inadvertently flirts with women via text-only conversations (Facebook wall, photo comments, etc). How does I make him understand that some of it can be seen as disrespectful, or is it just a case by case thing? I do attribute part of the problem to my overt overuse of Facebook itself. That's my bad. Then again, my boyfriend has been away since January... What do you think?

[Gigabitch]

I think I'd have a hairy canary if my guy crossed the line like that. Yes, I'm a pain in the ass, but I'm not miserably putting up with crap that makes me nuts.

[lahnnabell]

I agree. I think this is one of the hang-ups to this otherwise really awesome relationship we have. For the most part, I don't care. Once in a while though I get sick of reading all the cutsie wall messages these chicks leave him. He insists that all these girls are friends and nothing more. I explained to him very plainly that the only reason these women aren't being more aggressive is because I am in the picture (and some of them are still pretty aggressive). I look at pictures of him with all these girls, traipsing around Mexico together and I can tell those chicks are just lovin' it. Some girls are leaning on him in pictures, or touching him in some way. I absolutely trust that he would never cheat on me. Things would have to be very bad between us for that to happen, and I know we'd break up before he'd cheat on me.

He thinks I sound a bit nuts sometimes (but he's a good guy and doesn't say so ), but I told him, "I've played all the games these girls are playing and I'm not stupid." Been there, done that, over it. He wants to believe that he's not as attractive or desirable as he is because he doesn't feel that way about himself. Perhaps another reason he "puts up with" these girls' behaviors.