I know I suck at picking up on hints, unless it's someone I know very well - and even then I suck at it. I'm honestly just sorta scared that if I mistake a non-hint for a hint, then I'll ruin a great friendship or something.

However, there once was this one woman who made it fairly obvious she was attracted to me and, after a few dates, said something to the tune of "we're going back to your place now, or this isn't going to work out". So anyway, we're married now. Half the time her "hint" when she wants to have sex is asking me why I still have underwear on. Of course sometimes things still progress there naturally, but then she also makes it fairly obvious if she's truly in the mood.

Point of the story is, ladies, if you really like the man, feel like he likes you too, and he's not getting your hints, don't be afraid to be direct. Sure guys like the chase too, but to have a woman straight up tell you that she's really into you and feels a special connection with you that she's never felt before? It's just such a beautiful experience... There's just so much I'll never forget, even if our ways were to be parted one day.

I honestly cannot tell if anyone is flirting with me or not. I also cannot imagine that anyone would flirt with me in the first place, but if anyone did, I still wouldn't know. The only flirting I knew was when my wife called me up and lectured me for not asking her out. Apparently, she had been flirting with me and I didn't know. I am not bright.

It's true. I once played spin the bottle with one other person and didn't realize what the plan was after playing it. Thought it was just an awkward interaction until she asked brought it up a couple years later.

Later on in life, a girl invited me to a sleepover and we were joking and having fun shared a bed and went to sleep. I woke up to her crying because she took it as me finding her ugly and not being into her.

Needless to say neither went anywhere because I guess my smooth brain was not an attractive trait.

Too general, aka always wrong

I had a woman flirting with me yesterday at the bulk food store. Happened to be at the coffee grinder, and she was struggling with it, and I just spontaneously teased "you broke it I'm telling"!

This led to a little bit of banter and talking about recipes, which led back to how she likes to get her coffee here.

I told her how I like ro enjoy my morning espresso.

She smiled and gave me that flirtatious side look and mellifluously intoned "I'd sure love some morning espresso... Brought to me in bed..."

The words floated off my lips "is your kitchen floor cold? Should I bring my slippers?"

She immediately looked shocked, faced directly at me pie-eyed. "I should have known better. Typical response from a man."

I was fucking gobsmacked.

Don't ever tell me that men don't pick up signals, we have been trained... by women, to never pick up signals.

My sentiment is that men are in this horrible place where consent is king, and explicit communication is necessary, but too many women still want to play hard to get, or do these tiktok challenges to trick men into giving them a reason to be angry.

Some of us are just bad at picking up on hints, whether they come from women, men, or grizzly bears.

I've been married for 10 years and have two kids. I'm still not sure if my wife likes me. I haven't picked up any hints. I must've missed them all.

I mean, if men are bad at taking the hints of human women, maybe that means we are meant to take the hints of women of other species like elves, fairies, sexy space aliens or something else.

I was always terrible at picking up on hints, but even when I did get the hint I was generally either not interested in pursuing something, too cowardly to pursue it, or I had a preference to go about things a bit slower.

Sometimes women can be attractive and hint a lot, but once you've burned yourself once or twice you realize it's better to take things slow than to risk getting involved with someone more crazy than you can handle.

Amongst people I am closer to and actually like I am absolutely oblivious at times, but I would much rather err on the side of friendship.

I'm seeing a lot of "acting on a not-a-hint is way too dangerous" comments. I'm curious as to what you think acting on a hint is. They almost never mean "let's make start boning with no further communication".

Just ask "are you flirting with me?"

Seems like a way to foist off the responsibility for shitty communication on the supernaturally-supposed-to-be-recipient, in my opinion.

I know a girl who hinted so badly that she wants me to send her nudes but kept laughing afterward. Until one day I told her that I would send her then she said she was joking and acting like a horny man. That's one example of many I have in my life where a girl would tell me that we should be boyfriend and girlfriend, then when I proposed to go out with her and gave weeks to choose from where I know she had no work, she replied that she is a busy woman and keeps her day offs to her many friends. I was devestated and felt like a creep. I also had a female friend who had forever hinted that we should fuck, and when I went to her house she showed up to me covering her boobs behind the door of the shower wet covering her boobs with her hands , and I immediately apologized and said I didn't know she was in shower, and she said it's okay come in. So I go in thinking she wanted action, but guess what? After I kept pushing and hinting she said she was just being herself and never wanted shit. I can go on and on with such stories. They all made me literally too numb to give a fuck anymore and I wouldn't pick up a hint if a girl I'm with started masturbating in front of me unless she made it clear she wants me to join. Anyway, I gave up on this shit long time ago. I came to terms with the fact that females and males have different brains when it comes to sexuality

Well first of all there's no such individual as "men" so it's impossible to generalize. Some can and some can't. I think it's however safe to assume that on average we're not that great at it.

In my own case I think I'm quite good at reading the underlaying emotions of especially my girlfriend but then again I know her really well anyway. However this goes a bit against my suspicion about my autism because you'd think I had more trouble with that. Then there's also the fact that I'm tall and somewhat handsome if I may say so myself so I haven't really experienced the situation of a woman not wanting to talk with me but I can see when they don't want to talk with someone else.

Sucks to be someone who only communicates in hints, I guess.

I think the definition of a hint is communication that’s difficult to clearly receive.

It’s not just men, as an autistic woman I have a hard time with this too. It’s better if people are just straight forward and plain spoken

Women are bad at picking up men's hints.

Humans are just bad at picking up flirting because everyone's idea of the thing is different.

True in my case. When my wife wants a particular piece of jewellery for her birthday, the only way to make me realise is to slam my head down on the counter next to it and say "THIS. I WANT THIS."

There are multiple layers to this hornet's nest of a topic. But from a personal perspective, I know I was (still am?) terrible at reading such interest from women. Luckily, I'm happily married, so I don't need to worry about it now.

In the past I've literally had to have women launch themselves at me or graphically proposition me before I was aware that they were really into me. And even then it was often a surprise. And there were a few times I asked out girls who I knew and seemed to have done chemistry with, and they recoiled in alarm. And I'm a fairly average neuro-typical guy. So yeah, I think some of us definitely have trouble reading the interest of women in those one-on-one situations.

Quite a few of my make friends have run into similar experiences. While a few others assumed any woman who spoke to them must be into them. Which is, of course, the other side of the same 'unable to read women' coin.

But adding to all that, there are all the tricky social obstacles to navigate. Things like:

• a minority of women wanting to be chased off they said no to an approach (depending on who was approaching them, of course); or
• worries about making women feel threatened or distressed by offering an unwanted advance;
• or how it's sometimes difficult to differentiate between a purely platonic friendship, or a pure romantic friendship, or one that the woman wants to transition from the former to the latter;
• or just realizing a woman is into you but feigning ignorance because you (the guy) isn't into her and doesn't want to exploit her for sex or ruin a social group dynamic.

So yeah, it's a fucking (pun intended) mess.

Well I know I am. I don't like subtlety. Too easy to mistake from friendliness. Be direct and honest or go home.