Asperger's and Flirting

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Does anybody else here find flirting incredibly hard to understand? Have you ever had any times where someone was clearly flirting with you, but at the time you had no idea what was happening?

For example, back in in high school there was a girl who I didn't know too well, who always took the time to say "Hi" to me. I just took it as general friendliness until her best friend had to walk up to me one day and blatantly point out that the girl liked me.

Another example was just a few months ago. I was in a KFC waiting for my order, and two girls started talking to me, one talking to me more than the other. When we got to the topic of travelling, she seemed particularly interested in knowing who I travelled with. I didn't realise until 2 hours later that she was probably trying to find out whether I was single or not

Honestly, i'm not too good with flirting.




It's not that I don't understand flirting, it's just that I don't know how to respond back to it so everybody thinks that when they're joking around with me, I take it seriously when I really don't.

I'm pretty bad at picking up the kind of flirting you described. Definitely been times where I looked back and realized I was quite oblivious. When I was in my early 20s there was a girl in her late 20s who I had becomes friends with. One day when we were talking she asked me if I liked older girls. When she said older I was thinking women twice my age with kids and said no. Months later found out she was pretty bummed with my answer.

I'm pretty good with playful and suggestive flirting though. Innuendos and double entendres and that kind of stuff. I think it's because I find it funny and I do get humor. I'm also fairly perverted.

I found watching tutorials by pick-up artists to be somewhat useful, inasmuch as it can help you figure out when a NT is being deliberately and overtly flirtatious. Also having a NT friend who can sit with you at a pub and describe what interactions other people are having with each other is something that helped me a lot. Left to my own devices though, I generally forget to think about putting myself in other people's shoes and so I end up missing flirty remarks completely. Hope that helps.

On average, it takes me about 10 years to figure out that someone has been flirting with me.
I find the domination games some guys play incredibly offensive. Apparently, this is supposed to be attractive.

People tell me I'm flirty, though. I have no idea why.

(I hope I could give men a little help showing a lady's perspective on this matter. And it's only my subjective view even though I use "women/men" in following content. So you guys don't need to be offended by any sentences.)

If a woman is kind, friendly, playful with you, while you're not that close to each other(don't know each other well enough)..she feels highly possibly comfortable and safe being around you..it's possibly far from thinking you as a dating partner yet.

Most women are shy in front of her crushes. It takes times for her to break this shyness..like men do.

Online where people are faceless and nameless..women can get bolder..which means even little knowing her partner, she can be kind to you, joke around with you skipping the step of breaking her shyness..because there is no face to feel shy…means again, no need to take times to break her shyness. Therefore she's possibly not flirting with you.

If a woman feel comfortable being around you, it's possible someday suddenly she would start to see you as her serious dating partner.

I recommend men not to consider being kind as flirting in the stage before knowing her at least to some extent.

Yeah, I can't tell when someone is flirting with me. I'm sure it's happened but I can never tell.

I got no idea usually...

I have also watched many tutorials, informationals and even joined an (online) PuA seminar to at least learn what to look for.

One example, by a woman even, on such an occasion, she'd show a classic, "obvious" flirting move, and everyone in the room was laughing that noone would ever be that obvious.
At the same time, i was just sitting there, still waiting for the example to start...
Later, she'd come up to me and show it up close, and it terrified me, i had never expected a woman to look that... evil, for lack of a better word, but is was supposed to be the boldest "take me right here and now" that anyone could ever give...

At that point, i gave up and went for online dating

I like the way rdos thinks.

In my humble opinion, the definition of flirting is simply to verbally or non-verbally express your physical or emotional attraction to another person.

And there are no 'rules' of flirting - anyone can flirt, so long as it is attempting to make the other person aware of how you feel/what you want.

And also, everyone flirts differently as well. My way is usually a very subtle and sneaky way - usually the female has no idea, but people who are observing might question if I am or not. With my ex-girlfriend it was more playful and hidden (e.g. her friends asked her who she liked and she didn't answer, then they left us alone, and I asked my ex in a playful way 'Yeah, X, who DO you like? " and another time her friend asked her if she had a boyfriend, she said yes but didn't reveal my name due to us having the relationship private, and I went up and said "Yeah X, who's your BOYFRIEND? ")

I'd say even if you're an aspie and too shy to talk to a girl, but instead become the sweaty, nervous, shaky guy, that's still 'flirting' in a sense, because it expresses your feelings. Some women even like that kind of stuff and find it 'cute', so if she likes you back then yeah it's not a bad thing.

OP gave a good example of what I mean. A nervous girl even just shyly saying 'hi' is 'flirting' (by definition and by personal opinion).

So yeah, I'm good at flirting, my own ways, my own methods, so long as all 'rules' for flirting are broken and instead only defined as 'expressing your attraction to another person'.

Yeah, I can't pick up on most of that stuff either. Looking back now, I can see that there were a few females that were probably flirting with me back in my 20s and early 30. Wish I had known it was going on then and how to respond. Why did I have to have this stupid disorder?

Nope I just assume it's never flirting . Lots of things people say are flirting are also just being nice for most people so there's no way to tell.

Flirting is just a completely different language for me, I wouldn't recognize it in real time and I sure as hell have no idea how to do it. I'm not a person that takes or compliments well I guess, it makes me uncomfortable so maybe I just project my own belief onto women cause I can't imagine not looking like the worst kind of creep.

Last year when I was in 9th grade I was eating one day at the cafeteria I was eating then this sweet girl came to me and started talking to me but I can't remember what she said but anyways she was with some friends of her so I kept my usual non-emotional face. Then she sighed and went away. I thought at them time that she was just sick of not being able to get a laugh at me. I finished eating and waited alone on a bench as usual.

I used to be really naive, but through experience I've gotten pretty good at spotting it when it happens to me, but I've never done anything about it.