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So straight out the gate: I don't ever really flirt (yes, even if I like the girl). And I'm not sure whether I should change strategies. So hence my question.
Note: I am a guy.
Edit: Thank you all for your input. I have come to the realisation I need to let the other party (better) know I am romantically interested in them. Either by means of flirtation or otherwise.
I get the whole "Just the be yourself" message. But right now things just aren't moving. Like, at all. And I do have plenty of hobbies. Even meeting women is genuinely not a problem for me. So I'm kind of stuck between the being myself and changing strategies. To be honest with you. If being myself means I don't ever find someone, which over the years have quite clearly proven to be the case. Then I say: "Fuck being myself."
If things aren't moving, then the people you're around just aren't interested.
You can't strategize your way into someone being into you without it being fake. And if it's fake, then you've not only lied, but you've wasted their time and yours because it's dead in the water.
Not saying you can't change yourself, you absolutely can. But if you're changing into someone that's fake and trying to bullshit you way into something, well, you'll eventually get what you deserve.
How old are you? It matters. If you're fifty and thinking like that, then there's only so many ways to go. If you're thirty, you have more options because you have more time if you're under thirty, you haven't been at it long enough to be worrying about "never" finding anyone.
For real, until and unless you stop thinking about it as some kind of challenge you have to chase after and plan out a strategy, you're going to fail more often than not. That whole mentality loses because the outcome of success is eventually realizing that you're in a dead marriage, or your wife realizing you aren't who she thought you were. Neither of which is a good place.
I've seen that shit so many times over the years. Friends, family, trying so hard to win the prize that they forget to make sure they want what they're chasing.
If you just want your dick wet, that's easy enough. Nobody, including the people you'd be fucking, actually care if you lie outright, much less if you just fake things a little. But if you want the kind of relationship where you look into each other's eyes when you're 70 and still feel that love, you gotta be real. You gotta be willing to strip away your preconceptions of what you're supposed to want, and figure out what really matters to you
My ass? I didn't find what I was really looking for until I was forty. Had plenty of girlfriends along the way, some long term. None of them worked. But you know what was great about that? Because I knew what I was really after, and I was open and honest along the way (barring some youthful stupidity getting laid just to get laid), when those relationships weren't going to work, we could end them before they got ugly, and stay friends mostly. Me and my wife hang out with some of my exes here and there.
If being you isn't working, then the answer isn't to play games, it's to start figuring out why it isn't working and work on that. It could be as simple as you being in the wrong place. If the place you're in has a culture, and that culture is such that who you are isn't seen as a positive, it isn't necessarily a thing that's wrong with it, it just doesn't fit.
Or it could be you, I don't know. Maybe you're an asshole. Maybe you're great, but horrible at telling when someone is into you, so you hit on the wrong ones. Maybe you have impossible standards. But I promise you, nobody ever gets happiness because they strategized their way into a relationship
Being you is important, but I have to disagree with the first paragraph.
I’m in my late twenties and never been in a relationship, I can speculate a lot of reasons but I think the bottom line is a mix of I was too afraid of rejection to ask enough girls out, and was hoping one will eventually approach me.
I recently started dating a girl I’ve known for a while (several years), and she actually asked me why it took me so long to ask her out, and said she’d have agreed to go out with me way earlier if I’d just asked. That’s despite the fact that she wasn’t expecting me to ask her out at all, and was actually surprised when it happened because she never thought about me that way and had no idea I was interested.
My point is, you should be yourself, but you also have to reach out, and be ready for failure, and still keep going. Someone not thinking about you romantically right now doesn’t mean it doesn’t have to change. And, at least as a man, it’s less likely a girl will approach you first (it does happen, and I think it’s great, but me seeing it happen to several of my friends made me think all I have to do is wait, which is a bad attitude to have). That’s my two cents.
There's a difference between 'faking' / trying to become something you're not and improving your communication style /skills. You're meeting women, not flirting, and not progressing into the kinds of relationships you want. You don't need to start 'flirting' (whatever that means to you), but maybe you can change what's happening after meeting people. I assume your speaking with people you find attractive? How do you build a connection with them? How are you letting them know you're interested in taking things further?
There's a big difference from A) meeting women, being pleasant, and hoping that one of them asks you out, and B) meeting women, having some friendly conversations, then asking if they want to start dating. Those are extremes, but the space in the middle can all be considered forms of flirting.
Flirting doesnt need to be some special way of making eye contact, or lame pick up lines. Having fun, making jokes and being silly can be flirting. Asking someone politely if they'd like to get coffee some time can be flirting. Flirting is just the process of letting the other person know that you're interested in them in a romantic / sexual way, and good flirting is letting them know that in a way that doesn't make them uncomfortable and makes it easy for them to respond without making things awkward for either of you.
Though I had a hot streak in my late twenties to early thirties, I was pretty lonely for a long time because I wasn’t finding anything substantial and then I couldn’t establish even short term relationships. I was pretty hopeless when a partnership sort of formed without my realizing it. Now we live together and we’re pretty happy. We are 100% genuine about who we are with each other and that’s great. Don’t give up hope. I wish you luck.