How to Date Gay Girls: Part V of V
What Do I Do? Find Your Flirtation Style
If you missed the first four parts of this series, find them here, here, here, and here.
Now that you’ve conquered the Three Horseman of Sexless Doom, you are ready to find your flirtation style.
Today’s Table of Contents
I. The Gutsy Style; For the Bold
II. Partial Plausible-Deniability Style; For the Sort-of Bold
III. Full Plausible-Deniability Style; For the Shy
The Gutsy Style: for the Bold
If you already know you’re shy as hell, skip this section.
The Gutsy Style doesn’t have to be, “Hi, I like you, do you want to hang out Thursday?” It can also be an unambiguous joke, strong energy, going in for the kiss, etc. It makes it completely clear that you’re romantically interested.
Pros
Find out if she likes you sooner.
Signals high confidence. As long as you still come across sane, this is fucking attractive.
If she doesn’t like you, it avoids the weird situation where she knows you like her but you haven’t said it yet, so she acts weird around you. Men have put me in this position and I find myself wishing they’d just ask me out so I can say no and we can move on. Bold flirting is clean.
Cons
Possibility of direct rejection. Painful! Embarrassing!
You can come across a little aggressive, mis-attuned, or overwhelming if you don’t execute it well.
Hard to predict who will love or hate this style. Some of this is culture (East Coast vs West Coast, etc).
How To Make Bold Flirtation Less Overwhelming
Your potential date is probably not sure if you’re confident or overconfident, inviting or putting pressure on, because she barely knows you. Build your script by imagining you are her and an unknown girl is approaching you; what makes it easy to say no? What would make you want to say yes?
Let her get a read on you before you ask anything. We see guys in movies just walk across a room and ask a girl out cold, but I don’t like when people do this because I have no idea if this person is even sane yet. Don’t ask out a stranger without letting her speak to you for at minimum ten minutes, ideally more.
Give her an easy way to say no that will not force her to embarrass or insult you. So, don’t say, “I’d love to buy you a coffee, but if you’re not into me, it’s totally fine,” because she isn’t going to want to say, “Yeah, sorry, I’m not into you.” It feels too mean. Instead, give her a specific script that lets her say no without making it about you, like, “If you’re not looking to date right now in your life, I won’t be offended.”
Give her an easy way to think about it without you standing there. “You don’t have to answer right now; here’s my number. Just text if you wanna grab coffee.”
Acknowledge the strangeness. I’m not sure why this works, but cracking a joke about how weird it is to ask out a stranger always seems to make both of us more relaxed. “If you want to grab coffee with a total stranger, I can assure you I’m not an axe murderer” is something I’ve said many times.
Also try, “I mean, I dunno, we’re total strangers lol but you seem cool?”
Be chill. If she gets awkward, you gotta stay relaxed— even if you’re faking it. If she signals any hesitation, micro-”no,” disinterest, uncertainty etc, don’t freak out and apologize for existing. This doesn’t take the pressure off, it actually amplifies the pressure. It’s easier for her to be honest if you seem like you’ll be fine either way. It’s okay if you blush or seem a bit vulnerable, but if you’re signaling that your whole world will crumble if she doesn’t say yes, well, that’s not very considerate to her. Nobody likes to hurt somebody’s feelings. Cry into your pillow later.
Examples
“So listen…I think you’re super cute, and I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to make you feel weird if you weren’t into it. But then I thought, fuck it, I’ll just see if you want to grab a coffee?” (“Oh. Um….wow. Okay.”) “Oh you don’t have to answer right now. How about I just give you my number— text me if you want to hang out some time!” (“Sure. Okay.”) “Cool. And if you don’t text me, I hope you know I won’t be offended.” This might work for an acquaintance in your social circles.
“Damn cutie, if you’re ever on my continent I might have to pin you down for a proper dinner date.” Not a cold pickup line— more appropriate if you see a cute picture of a girl on the internet who you’re loose acquaintances with. Someone said this to me once and I was into it.
Partial Plausible Deniability Style: For the Sort-Of Bold
Don’t use this style if you’re not particularly comfortable being funny, but humor is a great way to create plausible deniability through the question, “did she mean that or was she just joking?”
Pros
Gives her the option to flirt back, which can start to accumulate into evidence of her interest.
Gives her the option to stonewall the joke by not commenting on it or bantering back, which can reveal disinterest.
Cons
Hard to toe the line unless you’re good at being funny.
There can be a lot of noise— some people freeze up when they’re being flirted with even if they love it; some people just aren’t very funny, and lack the skills to respond fluidly or in the moment. Some people are so happy to be connecting in our atomized world that they’ll react extremely positive to flirtation even if they aren’t sexually interested.
Examples
She says something self-conscious about what she looks like or is wearing: “Yeah, it’s really distracting, how bad your shirt is….first thing I noticed about you. I definitely wasn’t like Jesus Christ that girl is beautiful, or anything.”
She talks about something she’s interested in: “Well, that’s it, I’ll have to become an expert at crocheting as soon as possible to make sure we hang out again.”
“Wait, you’re a lawyer? That’s kind of inconsiderate. You’re not allowed to be both pretty and smart, you’ll make the rest of us feel bad.”
Saying, “Omg you’re so cute,” literally at any point, for any reason. “Omg your laugh is so cute!” “Omg you’re so excited about this subject, that’s so cute,” etc. Straight girls say this sort of but….it’s pretty flirty.
Personally, this is my favorite style!
Full Plausible Deniability Style; for the Shy
Use the guise of a budding friendship to gather info. If the outlook looks good, strike, but only when the iron is hot and victory is all but assured. If the outlook looks bad, skulk away quickly. Schedule something that’s officially a friend hang. Then, gradually dole out pieces of information about yourself calculated to get her talking about herself, thus revealing a) her sexual orientation, relationship status, and eventually her interest in you.
Pros
Nobody get embarrassed.
Easy to keep the relationship as a friendship because you never officially changed the frame to be anything else.
Cons
It takes longer to figure out if she’s queer or interested.
Much more noise in the signals; some ambiguity may be hard to sift out, depending on the girl.
Escalating to romantic relationship will still eventually require some boldness.
Examples
“That’s funny you say that about your roommate…I haven’t had much trouble with boys’ cleanliness but maybe that’s because I never date them!”
After she tells a story in which she says “we.”— “Who was that with, your partner?”
“Yeah, the cooking gets overwhelming. I’m single right now so it’s particularly stressful not to waste food.”
“Omg, love the Mean Girls deep cut! My best friend from high school always says that line ‘too gay to function’ is about me. When I meet a girl I like I am totally deer in the headlights.” Great way to signal that you get nervous around girls, and subtly ask her not to read that as disinterest.
Hopefully, something here speaks to you— and if they all suck, tell me why in the comments so I can improve this post, lol.
A Few Notes On Your Responsibilities
Sex with women comes with responsibilities that we often aren’t expected to take on with men (even if maybe we should).
If you get to the sex stage, it probably need not be said that you want to be considerate and caring. Check in with her, make sure she’s feeling safe as things escalate, and generally put your care for her as a human being—even if you just met her—above your desire to hook up, and even above your own nervousness. We all wish more men did this, and we have the opportunity to be the change we wish to see in the world. If you make her feel like she can genuinely say no to anything, she’s going to love you forever (or at least really appreciate and feel safe with you). Also, focusing on her well-being will get you out of your own head.
I think most women know this; the reason I include it is that women who’ve dated men aren’t always used to attuning to anyone’s boundaries except their own, because men often appear not to have any sexual boundaries (of course this can be a very dangerous assumption, but nonetheless many straight guys come across as enthusiastically down for anything, which influences how women behave). There’s a slightly male-coded type of attentiveness here that’s good to cultivate, in which you actively take responsibility for creating a space in which she can feel completely comfortable. The willingness to play that role early on is awfully generous to you both. Notice your own needs and boundaries first and foremost (always, in all situations, across eternity), but remember that she’s not a stereotypical man, sexually; take care of her. Don’t make assumptions.
Go Get ‘Em, Tiger.
The Horsemen are dead! The Kingdom is yours! You now possess all the jewels and gems from 20 years of my most embarrassing dating mistakes and wildest success stories— and babe, you are ready for action.
Thanks for reading. Go make the world a gayer place!