Have you ever had the feeling that someone was flirting with you but you just couldn’t be sure about it?
There are plenty of folks who’ve not realised they were being flirted with until the penny dropped years later with an awful realisation.
But apparently there’s a thing called ‘micro-flirting’ where someone employs all sorts of little hits and moves to scuttle around the main point that they’re interested in someone.
Sometimes people’s attempts to flirt with you can just go over your head (Getty stock images)
If you really want to get the message through, then micro-flirting may not be doing the trick, but conversely for some people who think they shouldn’t be overtly flirting, the micro side of things helps keep some plausible deniability.
There are many reasons why someone might not want to speak aloud their feelings or make them too clear, but honesty is often the best policy in matters of the heart.
To help with that, TikToker @baldiyadi – as well as a few dating experts – has decided it would be better if you could spot when someone is micro-flirting, so you can actually work out what to do.
Touchy-feely
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“She’s touching my arm for some reason, what could this mean?” (Getty Stock Photo)
Number one on the list is apparently that ‘they find any excuse to touch you’, and this could be pretty much any form of contact as she said it might involve them ‘bumping into you’ or ‘sitting super close to you’ in a social setting.
Basically, when you’re together they’ll find some way of getting up close and personal with you and establishing physical contact.
She also explained in another video that this was one of the ways someone might try to flirt with their co-worker, so if there’s that one person at work who seems to be getting very close then you might want to think about whether you’re their office crush.
Dating coach, Kimmy Seltzer, told HuffPost in January that closer proximity could indicate a desire to create a more ‘inviting space’, adding: “In addition, when you are closer to someone, using open body language and light touch on the arm or shoulder conveys receptiveness and interest, creating a more inviting space.”
Eye contact was also given as another indicator of attraction, as well as micro-facial expressions like raising eyebrows, winking or smirking.
Consistent contact
“I’ll send her 27 TikToks I found decently funny, then maybe she’ll like me.” (Getty Stock Photo)
Ok, so they’re interested in getting close to you when you’re together, but even when you’re apart, another sign of micro-flirting is that the link between you is never really severed.
The TikToker explained that they would ‘reach out to you almost every single day’ whether that be through texts or phone calls (if anyone still does those these days) or just by liking content you’ve posted online.
Another way to maintain contact is regularly sending over content, so if you’ve got that one person who keeps sending you funny TikToks, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts or whatever the kids these days are into there might be a reason beyond them finding it funny.
Writing for Forbes, psychologist Mark Travers said that these moments ‘create effortless connections’. He also cited a 2017 study which highlighted ‘imagined togetherness’ through social media interactions where people craft ‘hypothetical future scenarios to subtly express romantic interest while maintaining ambiguity and reducing the risk of rejection’.
On the other hand, they might genuinely be the sort of person who sends people lots of videos they find funny.
Everybody knows
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“You think you’re so subtle because he hasn’t said anything, well I know what you’re up to.” (Getty Stock Photo)
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Micro-flirting might seem subtle to the person doing it, to the point that the intended recipient may not be picking up what they’re putting down.
However, for some people, this sort of thing might be very f**king obvious indeed and an outside observer may be able to pick up on micro-flirting a lot better than you can.
The explanation here is that your interpretation of someone else’s actions is going to be clouded by how you see them, so if he’s ‘like a brother to you’ then you might just think that closeness is some quasi-sibling friendship when they perhaps want it a different way.
If you think something might be going on but you’re not quite sure, then don’t be afraid to confer with your nearest and dearest to get their take on the matter.
