How do you know if someone’s actually flirting with you, or if the person you’ve been seeing for months is starting to get serious? 

It’s not always easy to tell the difference between friendliness, playful affection, and genuine romantic feelings.

In today’s compilation video, I dive into the psychology of attraction to share 31 subtle (and not-so-subtle) signs that can reveal someone’s intentions. Whether you’re flirting with someone you’ve just met, or wondering if the person you’ve been dating for a while wants to be more serious, this video will help you decode how they really feel!

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Matthew Hussey:

Hey everyone, welcome. I hope you enjoy today’s video.

Before we get into it, remember the Love Myths movie premiere is coming up fast. If you have not gotten on board yet, this is your chance.

This is a livestream global premiere of a movie that we’ve been making for years. So excited for you to see it. And here’s the best part: You can get a free ticket to The Love Myths world premiere digitally streamed, plus the live Q&A that’s happening after the event and forever access to the film afterward—all by pre-ordering a copy of my brand-new book, Love Life.

You can do it over at LoveMythsMovie.com. Just pre-order your copy and you’ll get access to this one-off event.

Don’t miss it. LoveMythsMovie.com is the link. And now on to the video.

1. They’re Looking Over at You

Here are the seven subtle ways that guys flirt with you that you may never pick up on.

Number one, he’s looking over at you.

Now, you may say that’s not so subtle, but the reality is most women when they see a guy looking over, think it was just by chance. They don’t think, “Oh my God, he thinks I’m attractive.”

They think, “Well, he was probably just looking around the room. He’s not really attracted to me,” and they give it all of the wrong meanings.

Think of it this way: If you caught a guy looking at you once, chances are he probably looked at you three or four times before that and you didn’t see it.

So quick tip, if you catch a guy looking over at you twice, feel free to flash him a little smile.

2. They’ve Moved Closer

Number two, he was far away and now he’s close.

So this is a guy who maybe you first noticed when he was across the room. Now all of a sudden, he’s a few steps closer and then before you know it, even though there are five empty seats at the bar, he seems to be right next to you.

Now, it may not be as extreme as that, but the point is when somebody likes you, you can see them on the other side of the room and all of a sudden, five minutes, 10 minutes later, they are closer to you. Chances are, that wasn’t an accident.

3. They Find Excuses to Walk Past You

Number three, he finds excuses to walk past you.

Now, it might be that he’s sat at a table with his friends and he can’t just get closer to you. So what does he do? He decides to go to the restroom three times in the space of 20 minutes. He finds an excuse to be in your general area walking past you.

This doesn’t mean he’s actually going to do anything when he walks past you. It just means he’s hoping that by walking past you, there’s a greater chance that an interaction is going to happen.

4. The “No-Tooth” Smile

Which leads me to number four, the no-tooth smile.

This is when a guy doesn’t actually smile and show teeth. He walks past you and instead, not wanting to give too much away, but still hoping something’s going to happen, he looks at you and does the no-tooth smile.

5. The Drive-By “Hi”

For the man who’s not quite ready to say “Hello, how are you?” in a stationary and audible fashion, he’ll go for number five, the drive-by “hi.”

He’ll walk by you and sort of mouth a little “hey.”

Now, before you judge this too harshly, for this man, it’s actually more than he’s giving to anyone else in the room. He might have just walked past 20 people and barely given them eye contact, and to you he feels like he’s doing more.

6. Trying to Look Cool

Number six, he’s in your eyeline.

He knows you can see him and in this moment he’s doing the “I’m doing something cool and important, but I’m really looking at you, but I’m not really because I’m doing something cool and important” moment.

He looks like he’s sending an “I’m a big boy, important businessman email,” but what he’s really doing is trying to look cool and distracted at the same time as getting you to notice him.

By the way, if he’s overreacting to what he’s seeing—it’s a bit too funny, he’s smiling a bit too much, he’s speaking a bit too loudly to his friend on the phone—then you definitely know he’s trying to flirt with you.

7. They Say Literally Anything to You

Number seven, he says literally anything to you.

For example, he walks up to you and says, “Hey, is the restroom this way? Oh, it is. Oh, okay, thank you.”

He could have asked anyone that question. By the way, it doesn’t have to be sexual, it doesn’t have to be flirtatious. It could be the most innocuous, boring question in the world, but he chose to ask you.

Now to that last one, or to any of the seven, you may be saying, “Just because he did that, it doesn’t necessarily mean he likes me, and wouldn’t it be kind of arrogant and narcissistic for me to assume that every time a guy does one of these things, he’s secretly interested in me?”

See, I would argue that if you went through life always assuming that one of these seven things, when a guy does it, is a sign that he’s attracted, you have everything to gain from that and nothing to lose.

Because you are not going to, as a result of one of these things, walk up to a guy and say, “I like you too, by the way.” No, what you’re going to do is you are going to give him a little bit back in response if you like him.

So if a guy looks at you, you might give him a little smile. If a guy walks past you and says, “Hey, how are you?” You might actually respond to that and say, “I’m fine, thanks. How are you?” If a guy asks you something like, “Where’s the restroom?” You might take that moment to say, “It’s over there. I like your shoes, by the way.”

In other words, you can give 1% more than you would normally give back. That’s what creates momentum in the right direction if it was already there, and sometimes even when it wasn’t.

Let’s just say for a moment he wasn’t flirting with you, but in that moment when you are a little warmer to him, he suddenly decides to look at you a little differently. So it can even pay dividends when he wasn’t flirting with you and you were wrong about it.

You’re not going to take giant risks because of these seven signs. You’re just going to do a little more than you normally would. You’re going to have your own subtle signal to throw back at him.

So you have two realities to choose from: One where you assume that no one is ever attracted to you, no matter what little sign you get, and you shut opportunity down before it ever begins. Or the other road, where you assume that when a guy does one of these seven things, there’s actually a chance he might be attracted and as a result, you give a little more back to him.

That’s creating opportunities everywhere you go.

8. They Show They’re Impressed by You

Seven signs that a guy likes you.

Number one, people often say that if a guy’s trying to impress you, that means he likes you, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he likes you. It might mean he likes himself.

See, narcissists give great first dates because they want you to fall in love with them and reflect their glory back at them.

But the person who actually likes you shows that they are impressed by you. They are someone you have made an impression on.

9. They’re Not Afraid to Be Affectionate

Number two, he’s not afraid to be earnest about his affection for you, even if it gets him teased.

We’re often worried that our friends or our family are going to taunt us for being too affectionate with the person we like.

When he stops caring about that, you know he’s really started caring about you.

10. Sending a Photo When They’re Looking Good

Number three, when he has to get dressed up for an occasion when he’s looking his best, he’ll find an excuse on that day to send you a picture.

He may not take a selfie and send it to you, but he’ll take a picture of him with his brother or his mom and be like, “Hey, look, we’re having a great day.”

What he’s really saying is, “Look at me. This is the best dressed I’ve been all month and I want you to see it.”

11. They Call to Tell You About Their Day

Number four, he calls you around six o’clock after work to tell you about his day because you are the one he wants to share his news with.

I’m not talking about the phone call he makes to you at midnight where he says, “Hey, I have some news. I have a boner. Where are you right now?”

I’m talking about the guy who actually wants to talk about his day.

12. They’re Prepared to Wait for Intimacy

Number five, he’s prepared to wait for intimacy.

Doesn’t mean he doesn’t want it. It doesn’t even mean he won’t maybe try to have it early on, but when you delay him and you say, “That’s not my speed,” he still wants to see you again and he’s more than prepared to wait.

13. They Find Time for You

Number six, he finds time to see you even when it’s not convenient.

Now, I’m not saying he finds a day to see you or even three hours to see you, but when someone likes you, they will cobble together whatever time they have from the scraps just to be able to get 15 minutes to say “hi” to you.

Not talking about the hookup right now, I’m talking about his desire just to see your face. When someone likes you, they make it happen.

14. They Want to See a Movie With You After Sex

Number seven, and let this one sink in, he wants to go to the movies with you AFTER sex.

Most guys will take women on dates, go to movies, go to dinners before they have sex, and then they wake up and they’re like, “Okay, now leave, please. I want to go and be with my friends.”

When you wake up with the guy and he’s like, “Hey, you with the crazy hair, let’s go see a movie,” he likes you.

15. They’re Responsive to Your Needs

I’m here today with none other than my brother Stephen Hussey.

Stephen Hussey:

Hello, YouTube. I wrote an article on “The Sure Signs that You’re Dating a High-Value Man.”

Matthew Hussey:

I think this is useful as a video concept because when we’re actually looking at what a high-value man is, it not only gives you ladies a chance to discern whether the guy in front of you is any of these things—it might give you a very quick test to see if you should even carry on with someone—but it also gives you a way to educate someone.

So that if you’re with someone and they’re not some of these things, but they have the potential to be and they have the willingness to change and to grow, then this might actually give them some direction in doing so and you can be the conduit for that.

Stephen Hussey:

Yeah. And I think some of these traits are going to be a little unexpected. Because they’re ones that you might think go against what you want, but they actually are what you want in some way.

Number one, he’s responsive to your needs; he doesn’t anticipate all your needs. Maybe it’s when you’re chilly, you think, “Oh, it would’ve been really nice if he offered me that coat right now.” Or he forgot to send your mom a birthday card or a birthday text message and you thought, “That would’ve been really nice if he did that.” But if you actually tell him something where he dropped the ball, what you really want is a guy who responds to that.

He might not get it all right straight away, but he’s really responsive when you tell him somewhere he kind of fell short of your standards.

Matthew Hussey:

But you don’t want to have to tell him every time, right?

Stephen Hussey:

No, you don’t want to have to tell him every time, but it’s like . . . I used to row and they said the best people who were coachable are the people who would be responsive to changes.

So they tell you, “You need to make this change,” and then they go, “Good response,” because you’re really responsive and started trying to do that thing even if you don’t get it right.

Matthew Hussey:

Good analogy.

Stephen Hussey:

That’s what I do.

16. He Makes It Clear You’re His Woman

Matthew Hussey:

All right. My one. He makes it clear you are his woman.

Like you’re out and a woman says something a little bit flirty to him and he grabs your hand and locks fingers with you, or he puts his arm around you, or he walks over to you and gives you a big kiss. But I think it’s really sexy to a woman when a man makes it clear in front of other women that he’s with you.

Pretty good that one.

Stephen Hussey:

I like it.

17. They’re Not Afraid to Confront Tough Truths

Stephen Hussey:

He’s interested in growing with you instead of just pleasing.

So what I mean by that is it’s a guy who’s not afraid to confront the tough truths.

Matthew Hussey:

So because he’s honest now, you’re able to avoid earthquakes in your relationship later.

Stephen Hussey:

Yeah. And sometimes you’ll be annoyed that they’ve brought it up. You know, sometimes if you’re with a girlfriend and she brought something up that is something you do wrong, or if you are always late or always disorganized and you think, “It’s annoying she brought that up, but it is a true thing I’ve got to work on.”

Matthew Hussey:

And it’s better you work on it now than it destroys the relationship later on because no one’s talked about it.

Stephen Hussey:

Yeah, exactly.

Matthew Hussey:

Okay, so he can confront the difficult things.

Stephen Hussey:

Yeah.

18. Their Gifts Reflect You, Not Them

Matthew Hussey:

Okay. I like that.

My one is: His gifts reflect you, not him.

A true gift that reflects someone else might be something we don’t even understand why they want it or what’s good about it, but we do it for them anyway because it’s about them.

Stephen Hussey:

It’s sometimes really hard to buy them gifts if you don’t get why someone likes something so much, but you go, “I know they’ll absolutely love this even if I don’t.”

Matthew Hussey:

I actually think that that’s the key to having more empathy with your partner is when you get into, on a visceral level, what they might like and you have to do it for them, you then can connect to that thing as well and understand more about your partner.

Stephen Hussey:

And that’s a sign the guy’s listening as well to what she’s really into.

Matthew Hussey:

Your turn.

19. They Invest But Don’t Lose Themselves

Stephen Hussey:

Okay, careful, Twilight fans, because you want a guy who will invest in the relationship without losing himself in it.

Matthew Hussey:

Why is that a Twilight fan thing?

Stephen Hussey:

Because everyone thinks they want Edward Cullen, okay? Or a good percentage of the book-buying public apparently do.

But you don’t want Edward Cullen, because you don’t want a man who just falls obsessively in love with you to the detriment of everything else in his life.

You want a man who you see in the early stages, even when he’s falling in love with you, he still invests in these other areas of his life, even if that doesn’t mean you’re always spending 100% of your time together, you have that intense period, but he still does care about going and having that dinner with his friends. He cares about going and working on that project. He doesn’t just suddenly let everything else fall apart to having this singular focus.

Matthew Hussey:

I’ll do the last one, shall I?

Stephen Hussey:

Finish her off, Matt, take her home.

20. They Don’t Threaten the Relationship

Matthew Hussey:

He doesn’t threaten the relationship every time something goes wrong.

You know that thing people do where they say, “I don’t know if I want to be with someone who blah, blah, blah.” “I don’t know if I can keep going in this relationship if blah, blah, blah.”

Stephen Hussey:

It’s in the language they use when you have a fight.

Matthew Hussey:

Yeah, it’s like the relationship is so conditional all the time on everything. Not everything is a matter of “relationship or no relationship.” And too often we threaten the relationship, and when we do that, we threaten the security of the person we’re with and we also rid ourselves of the opportunity to be honest about problems.

Stephen Hussey:

You’ll make them scared. They won’t wanna say anything.

Matthew Hussey:

Every time there’s a minor problem, that person is freaking out because they’re going, “Are they going to break up with me over this?”

So a man’s job is to make his woman feel safe and secure in the relationship, then you can actually talk about what’s wrong. You can talk about what you need to change, because she knows he’s not going anywhere, but there are things we need to fix. I think that’s a powerful place to start.

21. They Brag About You in Front of Other People

The signs that someone is actually getting more serious with you, and we came up with 11.

Number one, he brags about you in front of other people.

It’s a particular kind of compliment, isn’t it, when someone doesn’t just compliment you in private, but they do it in front of others: their friends, their family, strangers that you just met together . . .

It shows a particular kind of respect and admiration. So if he starts “bigging you up” in front of other people, that’s a pretty lovely sign.

22. They’re Willing to Mix Your Lives

Number two, he’s willing to mix your lives in a way that might be inconvenient to him.

Whether it’s going to see your friends in a different part of town or going to something that your family wants you to go to—things that ordinarily might seem like sacrifices, but he doesn’t treat them as sacrifices. Instead, he just sees them as things that will make you happy, and therefore it makes him happy to do them.

23. Your Happiness Becomes More Important

Which leads me nicely to number three.

Your happiness is more important to him than his tastes, or he listens to your music in the car. You have no idea how many times I have listened to the Encanto album.

24. They’re Willing to Adjust the Temperature

Number four, he’s willing to adjust the temperature of his house, which as Jameson will tell you, I didn’t do for years when Jameson was here, freezing his little balls off in the icy tundra. Jameson literally came in today and remarked with some venom and resentment at how warm the house is now.

25. They Plan a Trip With You Months in Advance

Number five, he plans a trip with you months in advance.

Anyone can take you away for the weekend this weekend, but for someone to actually say, “Let’s plan a trip for a few months from now.” You know at the very least, they’re planning on being with you longer. They’re actually looking at investing and building something in the meantime.

26. They Respect the Things That Are Important to You

Number six, he respects the things that are important to you.

I do Brazilian jiu-jitsu and there was a woman in this class who had just gotten her black belt, and when someone gets their black belt, they get to give a speech.

And it was very beautiful because while she was giving her speech, all of us were lined up listening and her husband was off to the side of the mat watching with their dog in his arms and just his eyes watering at watching this person he loves achieve this amazing thing.

And there was something profoundly beautiful to me about that—that he both respected and admired her for something that mattered to her and was part of that with her.

27. You Fight Differently

Number seven, the fights have fewer ultimatums.

You know when you’re in the beginning with someone and just sort of every fight is relationship-threatening? It doesn’t matter what you argue about, it’s always a question in that moment of: Is this all too much? Is this worth it? Maybe I’ll just storm out and never come back.

Well, hopefully over time, the threats on the relationship become fewer. You don’t walk away so easily.

And in fact, someone who’s serious about you has a desire to make up with you quicker because the health of the relationship is paramount to them, and simply walking off and being at odds with you and having the problems of the relationship fester becomes a less and less viable option.

28. They’re Less Affected by Friends’ Teasing

Number eight, his friends teasing him about how in love he is—how much he’s investing in the relationship, how much time he’s not spending with them—is no longer something that affects him in the same way as it would have before. It’s not his kryptonite anymore. He’s not made weaker by these teasings of his bros.

I remember when I posted my engagement announcement, there were was lots of lovely, lovely comments—thousands, it was unbelievable and so touching—then there was just this one bloke in the comments who went, “Another one bites the dust.”

When we’re happy and when we feel like “I know this is right,” we are not, A) weakened by the comments that, in relationships where we were less certain of our own decision, we would have been affected by, and they would’ve needled us. Not because someone was so important necessarily, but because it struck at an uncertainty that we already had.

29. FOMO Starts to Fade

Number nine, when he stops worrying so much about missing out on other plans because he’s happiest when he’s spending time with you. FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) becomes FOMU (Fear of Missing U).

Oliver Burkeman talks about the problem of FOMO in his book Four Thousand Weeks, where he talks about this idea that we’re all worried about missing out on things, and by definition, we are always missing out on everything all the time.

And when someone’s not particularly happy in a situation, or when they’ve got one foot out of the door, they’re acutely aware of all of the things that they’re missing out on in that moment: The party that their friends invited them to, the boys’ trip that they could have gone on, the family event that’s happening, or just the myriad things that he could be doing that aren’t being with you in this moment.

But that fear of “I’m missing out on everything” becomes irrelevant in the context of someone you are building something with, someone who makes you happiest when you are with them. The everything becomes the feeling that you have when you are with them, so you’re no longer searching for the everything that’s on the outside.

30. They Start Collecting Mementos

Number 10, he starts collecting mementos from your time together.

Could be a trip you went on, it could be an evening you had together where they gave you something in a restaurant, but these little knickknacks that are the milestones of your relationship, he keeps because it matters. It becomes part of the fabric—the history of your relationship together.

Not everyone is sentimental like this, but you know what it’s like when you care about someone, you are more likely to hold on to something as a symbol of your time with that person—as something that reminds you of that person or a time in the relationship.

If he starts getting sentimental about things from your relationship together, that counts for something.

31. Their Associations With Commitment Change

Number 11, his associations with commitment itself change.

I know that for most of my life, it always felt like commitment was giving something up. It always felt like a sacrifice.

There was always some glorification of “the other,” whatever the other may be. Some idea of freedom, some idea of single life.

But I remember thinking, “With this person, I am ready to actually build something. I’m excited to build something.”

And with that, my entire associations around a relationship, around commitment, all the things that felt scary about commitment didn’t feel scary. They felt natural. They felt like home.

That becomes true, doesn’t it, of anything in life that we develop a kind of positive addiction for. If we’ve spent our life being really unhealthy and then all of a sudden we discover good nutrition and exercise and we start feeling really good, it doesn’t feel like a sacrifice anymore. Instead, it feels like, “This is where I want to be. This is what I want to be doing.”

Our associations change. I’m not sacrificing something really exciting for this thing that’s really good for me. The thing that’s really good for me feels like the thing that’s really exciting.

There are many, many ways that a person could show you that their associations have shifted: The way they describe their relationship, their time with you, what it represents to them, and the way they talk about their past or the other life unchosen.

Do they talk about it with a sense of melancholy and heaviness and “I’ve sacrificed so much,” or do they talk about it with a sense of calm and peace? A feeling of “I know that where I am is where I want to be”?

The Love Myths

I hope you enjoyed that.

Remember, before you go, grab your ticket to The Love Myths movie by pre-ordering a copy of the Love Life book at LoveMythsMovie.com.

Don’t wait. If you forget about it . . . I’ve done that with concerts where people have literally come and gone and I really wanted to see them and I forgot about it, and then they’d already played (looking at you, Blink-182).

So here’s your chance. Don’t be that guy or gal. Come to The Love Myths movie, pre-order your copy of the book at LoveMythsMovie.com, and I will see you there and in the next video.