How can you tell a girl is flirting?

It needs you to be awake. That’s all.

What an open question! Don’t ponder it, just ask the girl out. Games games games!

If she is paying you attention that is not strictly necessary then she is probably flirting.

The problem with a lot of men is that they decide that flirting is a sexual invitation. It isn’t. It is just a pastime, a preparation not unlike a kitten sharpening its claws on the furniture. It is just her preparing for life. If you have trouble deciding if she is flirting, then you are probably just a part of the furniture.

If her tongue is down your throat, there’s a better than average chance she’s flirting with you.

i’m pretty daft with reading women, so i dont even try to figure out if they’re flirting or not.
there are exceptions of course where i suspect she’s flirting; more eye contact than necessary, unsolicited touching/stroking your arm, brushing her leg against yours, leaning over while watching you, etc.

i’d recommend just playing along, and never assume a girl is looking for anything more than banter. @Midnight_Blue has a pretty dramatic way of summarising it all but i quite agree with it.

In most cases, I think if there is enough of a signal being given, that a guy is asking others this question, then she is definitely flirting. Even if she’s just “sharpening her claws on the furniture” there’s no harm in asking her out. If she says no, move on.

My one exception to this rule happened in college. A very socially awkward guy had sort of attached himself to my group of friends. I had nothing against him except that he never bathed and had terrible body odor. I noticed him staring at me sometimes, but he stared a lot at all the girls, so I just thought he was a little girl crazy and I didn’t really pay him much attention. I was nice, so I might have smiled at him once or twice.

Fast forward to Valentines Day… my very small college had this annual carnation ritual/fundraiser. An anonymous white carnation turns up for me, with a note: “I’ve been thinking about you.” I had recently gone through a heartwrenching breakup, so I thought it was one of the guy friends trying to make me feel better and proceeded to question all of them. Nobody had a clue. Then I get a phone call from smelly guy, fessing up, who then asks me if I’d like to accompany him on a viewing of the film “Roots” at the lecture hall. Wha??? I said, “Um, that’s very sweet of you, but I don’t think that would be a very good idea.” Silence on the other end. Then he says, “But, you smiled at me that time and I thought you were interested…” Oh. Ouch. It all turned out fine for smelly guy, as he got a girlfriend the next year, and I have no doubt he told her all about how I’d led him on by SMILING at him. Every time I passed her on campus… boy did I get the Stink Eye. All that is just to say… sometimes we’re just smiling because we are nice people.

How many times has this question been asked already?

I don’t think you can actually. It is a very mixed-up game. That’s the stuff of relationship self-help books, i guess.

Somehow, I’ve gotten into my head that flirting is just another display of sexual politics. That’s how it comes across to me, from what I’ve observed. It’s about displaying dominance whether from the guy’s side or girl’s.

But that’s just my view of it.

There’s no one good definition of flirting that covers all flirtatious behavior. So you can’t always tell if someone is flirting. Everyone does it differently. @Midnight_Blue‘s definition is pretty good, but, as that “probably” indicates, there are circumstances where undue attention means something else. Her warning, also, is well taken. A lot of very obviously flirting women just do it because that’s their nature. It’s funny how they are surprised when men come on to them all the time. Oh well.

I guess what I’m saying is that it doesn’t really matter if you know whether a girl is flirting or not. The level of uncertainty about her true feelings for you doesn’t change based on this knowledge. If you want to really know what she thinks, you have to ask her to do something—maybe ask her directly what she thinks of you, or ask her to do something with you, just the two of you, or with a group.

Being flirtatious is a way that women can also test what a guy thinks, without actually asking. Of course, it often doesn’t work, since guys don’t always see what they are being asked. A lot of women have no clue about how to flirt, so just because they don’t flirt doesn’t mean they don’t like you. Or, to put it a positive way, a woman who doesn’t flirt may like you a lot.

Communication between men and women, or between potential lovers of all sorts, is just hard to interpret. If you are afraid of making a fool of yourself (and who isn’t), you are likely to miss a lot of opportunities. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. If you pursue a lot of opportunities, you might not get deeply involved with any of them, and you might have a hard time learning to get deeply involved. I’ve found, on more than one occasion, that a woman who flirts a lot really has a hard time trusting, or being intimate. Flirting is actually a way of getting attention while keeping her distance.

If you want a lot of fucking, then sure, flirt with everyone who flirts back. Push the envelope. Move fast. If nothing happens, on to the next. If you want a relationship, then pay attention to the whole person, not just their presentation, flirtatious or not. Be willing to open yourself up, slowly, as trust builds. Flirting can open that door, or shut it. Non-flirting can open that door, or shut it. Being able to tell if someone is flirting hardly helps you at all.