There is one time that sticks out in my mind where I grossly misinterpreted the nonverbal messages that I was being sent. I was hanging out with a couple friends and they told me their other friend, Josh, was coming over to hang out. I had never met him before, so when they introduced me to this tall, gorgeous man, I was very happy that they had invited him over. The entire night while hanging out, he would touch my knee, or my arm, or make very flirty gestures toward me. At the end of the night, I was very intrigued to get to know him, sans my friends. I asked him for his phone number and if he wanted to get dinner sometime. His response was "Oh sure! And you have to meet Terry, he'd love you!" and when I asked him who Terry was, he gave me a funny look, and responded "My boyfriend." Apparently Josh was gay, and his touching me was just him being flirty, not friendly. It was quite a shock to me!
If I were in this situation again I would certainly rethink what message was being sent to me when receiving physical touch. After the Josh incident, I don't take it to heart that someone is interested in me if they are being "flirty".
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Wow, very funny post. Definitely reminds me of what I posted this week for misinterpreting someone's flirtacious gestures. He did sound like to be really flirting with you, though. Maybe he could be bi, too? I guess he was just being touchy feely in the girlie girl sense or something. I once had one of my friends do the same kind of flirtacious gestures toward me, except I unfortunately did not misread it. Turns out my friend was bi and was coming on to me, and I had to break it to him that I was straight.
ReplyDeleteSo there's another instance where nonverbal (or maybe verbal, too?) communication got misinterpreted. My friend probably got the sense I liked him that way, too, for whatever reason and decided to make a move.
You say you need to rethink what messages are being sent to you; maybe I need to think about what messages I am sending out to others. Hmm.