Signs That a Guy Likes You

What are the signs that a guy likes you?

• You ever wonder if that smile he gave you means he's interested?
• Ever curious if his last text was really as flirty as it sounded?

We’re always looking for signals and indicators from the opposite sex that says, “Hey, that person is interested. I'm safe to act on it...”

First, why do we look for these signals?

This is probably the most important thing to talk about first. I mean, why do we even need to understand the signal?

Well, for women, it’s extremely important because they need to know before they’re going to take action. You don’t want to risk exposing yourself or being vulnerable or getting hurt when he might not be interested.

You might have misread him or misinterpreted him.

So in a lot of ways, looking for these signals from men is a DEFENSIVE action.

Guess what? Guys do the exact same thing.

We try to find out by all the signals we can - body language, and any indicators - whether or not this woman is really interested in us before we act. We shouldn’t need to do this, of course, but we do.

Of course, it’s just a self-protection mechanism. What we need to understand is that we’re always trying to defend ourselves from harm.

But on the other side of the equation, we have to realize that we have to be willing to expose ourselves. You have to be a little vulnerable to the opposite sex if you’re going to allow yourself to connect and be connectable.

Again, most guys are trying to be cool. We don’t want to reveal our interest too easily, so you sometimes have to look for signals that a guy likes you.

One of them is simply wanting to impress you and trying to be cool.

That’s a sign in itself. If you see him trying to put on a bit of a show, it’s a good indicator he’s got some interest in you.

Usually, you can trust your instincts. But again many women will override their instincts with the fear of making a mistake, looking foolish, or possibly getting rejected.

Now, if it’s painful for a woman to even consider that, just imagine what it’s like for a guy. He has to walk up and approach you.

He has to take the initiative and that first risk of exposing himself as being the one who’s interested in you.

So there again is another signal that he’s into you and likes you: If he approaches and initiates contact.

That’s one of the most important indications that a guy is interested in you in some way.

Now, there’s a major list of categories that we can go into that indicate whether or not somebody is interested in you or likes you or has some sort of sexual interest in you. The primary two being his body language and his behavior.

Now, there’s a broad set of indications that fall into these categories. Pretty much everything we do is body language.

After all, if I was just thinking it, you’d never know it.

So it all comes out in our body language and how we act.

Body language being the subconscious or sometimes hidden cues that we give off in our body.

Behavior is the things we do that directly indicate our interest.

Sometimes this is when we try to cover up the fact that we’re interested.

Body language covers a wide variety of indicators. Areas like vocal tonality falls under body language.

Tonality comes down to how I talk to you, how I speak to you. It could be the very fact that I’m using a lot of uhs and urs and uhms when I normally don’t, or maybe I’m just a little tongue tied.

It could be how deep I’m speaking. When a man is interested in a woman, he tends to speak a little more resonantly from a deeper place in his chest.

On the other hand, if he’s nervous, that can totally counter this instinctual vocal change. We very often tighten up our upper chest.

Our voice gets tight and we start to talk more nasally and a bit higher up in the chest if we’re nervous.

So you have to be able to notice when a guy is nervous and what that nervousness is really from. Nine times out of ten it’s because he’s interested in you, and he’s working up to find out if you’re interested in him.

Besides vocal tonality, there are also facial expressions.

Facial expressions tell us whether or not a person has got some interest merely from eye contact and where his eyes go.

• Look at his eyes - is he making strong eye contact? Is he looking around your face?
• Does he occasionally scan your body?

These are actually positive indicators.

A lot of women are offended these days when a man takes in or appreciates a woman’s physical appearance - and you shouldn’t be. This is one of the primary signals that a guy likes you.

• What kind of facial expression is he giving off? Is he smiling a lot or smiling a little too much?
• Is he expressing interest with his forehead?
• Is he expressing surprise and curiosity with the eyebrows and with the upper part of his face?

There's a great television show you might to check out called "Lie To Me."

Tim Roth stars, and plays an expert in reading body language and understanding whether or not a person is lying or telling the truth. There are a lot of other emotions we’re giving off.

His ability to be a human lie detector is just part of a huge variety of people reading.

It’s an excellent show and it’s based on the work of Paul Ekman, a scientist who actually teaches how to read facial micro-expressions.

Micro-expressions are the small facial give-aways we make before we're able to regain control of our face. We very often give away our emotions and interest - what we’re thinking. We can't actually stop our face from exhibiting it.

Another signal that shows whether or not a guy likes you is by looking at his actions, his deliberate actions that he takes.

• Does he position himself protectively?
• Does he touch you at all?
• Does he try and lean into your space?

Well, actually, that leads us to proxemics.

Proxemics is the study of how we use space between us and exert not only influence, but control. It’s also another great way to figure out whether or not somebody is interested and how they’re responding to you in social situations.

Again, a lot of women overlook the obvious signs of a guy being interested because she doesn’t always know what signals men are giving off. Sometimes you can interpret them from women, but the signals that guys give will confuse or mislead you.

Don’t let it frustrate you, because it’s not that complicated.

Let me give you a few of the more obvious signals that you might be either second guessing or not really understanding.

The first one that’s really important is:

Is he keeping the conversation going?

Is he trying to keep the small talk flowing, if you will? Is he throwing in some chit-chat?

Is he asking a lot of questions to try and keep you talking?

These are very good indications that he’s trying to stoke the fires a bit. He’s trying to maintain the interaction between you and him so that he can get to the stuff that really matters.

Keep in mind that guys aren't typically rabid talkers, so when he puts a lot of effort in, that means that he's interested. Or else we'd let the conversation just die right there.

Another signal that a guy is interested in you is when he adds in a lot of what I call “me toos.”

“Me toos” are those times when he says, “Oh yeah, me too!” Or he’s looking for some kind of commonality.

So as you’re talking about your interest in surfing or even snow sports, he throws in an occasional “me too,” or something in his life you share.

He’s trying to establish that feeling of similarity so that you two feel there is something that you’ve got together.

And he’s hoping you'll use this to decide that he’s a good match for you.

Of course this isn’t always logical, but a lot of guys do it anyways. Just because you two happen to share an interest, that doesn’t mean you’re necessarily compatible or should be dating.

But what he wants to do is give you a reason to give him another chance, another opportunity to connect with you.

Again, a big signal is how he leans in and takes ownership of your space in some way. Especially if he behaves protectively.

He might put his arm around the side of you without actually physically touching you, like putting it up on the bar behind you if you happen to be at a club or a bar situation.

He might actually put on his hand on your back and move you slightly to avoid colliding with someone if you’re walking through an establishment. He might put his arm out to protect you from getting bumped.

Any kind of protective action on his part like this is actually a good signal that he’s digging you and he’s interested in you.

And a HUGE signal is that he approached you and he actually started the conversation.

Now, I know this is kind of a "duh" and a lot of women don’t see it for what it actually is. But for a man to actually walk up and start talking to you is in itself a very big indication of interest.

A lot of women don’t appreciate just how much energy it takes a guy to work up his courage to take the risk to not only walk over and start talking to you - to risk that kind of rejection.

It’s a huge investment for a guy, and sometimes it’s all he can afford to put out so he may not give you many more signals than that. You’ve got to be ready to spot it when it happens.

So, if he approaches you, if he starts talking to you, if he’s trying in some way to keep this conversation going ... that's enough of a signal of interest that you should take it and run with it.

Another signal a man gives is he offers to buy you a drink or maybe some food.

Again, guys have an instinctual need to offer up something to get a little bit of your time, a little bit of your attention. It's programmed into us.

This isn’t an obligation in some way. He’s not trying to make you obligated to give him sex in return for a meal, but he is trying to somehow offer up something of himself so that you’ll develop some interest in him.

Maybe even give him an opportunity - give him a chance.

It seems a bit transactional. It may seem at first to be a bit cold and disconnected from the emotional reality of attraction.

But for a guy, it’s the way he expresses interest in you a lot of times.

Another great signal: He asked you for your phone number.

I can’t emphasize this one enough.

I’ve had so many women asked me, “Carlos, if he asked me for my phone number, does he really want to call me? Does he REALLY want to talk to me because sometimes I give up my phone number and they never call?”

Well, let me be very clear about this:

If he ever asks you your phone number, he’s interested in you.

He obviously likes you in some way. It’s one of the most important signals that a guy likes you.

What you can’t do is second guess it if he actually didn’t call later on.

You never know why a guy doesn’t call. It could be anything from losing the number to having some weird situation come up in his life that he can’t focus on getting back to you or anything like that.

So whether or not he asks you for your phone number, again a lot of women will look at the situation and reverse engineer it to give it meaning for her.

If he didn’t call or for some reason wasn’t able to call, she interprets that as meaning, “Well, he’s only ASKING for my number. He doesn’t really want it.”

Trust me when I say this, when guys ask for a phone number, we never do it because we’re just asking for a phone number.

We almost always do it because we want to reconnect with you.

Sometimes we just can’t get back to you. Or the memory fades. Or something bigger comes up.

So if he asks you for your phone number, it is a guaranteed signal of interest. What he does with it afterwards... well, that’s his own thing, and you can’t control that.

Nor can you go back in time and reverse engineer what he really meant.

Remember, when a man does something, it’s never because he felt obligated to. It’s almost always because he wanted to.

Guys don’t do things as much out of obligation as you might think.

Women, on the other hand, do this very often. A woman will do something even if she might not feel like it, hoping to get turned down.

Like when you make an offer to a friend to help her out, you may do it just wanting the extra points of her approval and her appreciation without really wanting to follow through.

That sounds kind of horrible when I say it like that, but it’s true. Even men do this on some occasions.

Women are still more likely to want to put up the front or the appearance of being helpful, friendly, and nurturing.

This isn't a disparaging comment about women at all. In fact, what makes women so strong is their ability to be so self-sacrificing when it’s a matter of need for somebody else.

And one last signal: When he jokes about you having a boyfriend in some way without really knowing as to whether or not you actually do.

He might say something like, “Oh, I don’t know about that. I don’t know how your boyfriend would feel about something like that.”

If this is the first conversation he’s having with you, you can almost bet that he’s trying to mine to get some information about you. Very often this is how a guy will do it.

He’ll put it out there in a way that you’ll either have to confirm or deny what he stated - without asking directly.

If you let his statement go or if you don’t contradict it, he makes the assumption that you do in fact have a boyfriend. So keep that in mind.

One more important thing: Sometimes he’s also trying to find out by your reaction how you feel. As in how quickly and vehemently you deny or confirm having a boyfriend.

The way you do it tells him if he has a chance.

So he’s not just looking for you to say, “No, I don’t have a boyfriend right now.”

He’s looking for you to say:

“No, oh, my gosh, no, I don’t have a boyfriend. Why would you ask something so silly like that? I mean, geez, I would not want you to think I have a boyfriend at this point in time. No sir, not at all. NOPE.”

Now, that sounds a little bit silly like that, but that’s what he's looking for. He wants to find out on some level by your reaction and how you phrase it whether or not you’re interested in him, so he knows whether he’s got a chance.

He needs these signals. Again, guys are putting up a lot of effort just to initiate, and we want some sort of promising signal that we’re on the right track.

Men don’t want to have their time wasted any more than you would, so we’re putting out those signals that we want you to see

Now, again, there are so many signals, so many possible ways that a guy can show that he likes you that it will be almost impossible for me to list them all right here.

Everything from the body signals to the things he says, to the ways he might even tease you, because teasing is actually one of the more likely ways that a guy can show interest in a girl. It can also be very confusing and sometimes inadvertently offend you.

If you want to learn how to read a guy’s signals, I have got something fantastic for you.

Go on over to this page and read the article there.

You’re going to find out the seven telltale signals that all men give off that show you if he’s in love, or if he’s interested.

And of course, you'll quickly and easily make almost any guy confess his true feelings for you because you need to know what he really wants from you, what he’s REALLY thinking and what’s going on inside.

Go on over to discover How To Read His Signals...

 

UPDATED 10/1/2021