Hello, I'm a woman who is alive in the world. Occasionally, when I am out and about minding my own business, I will accidentally catch the eye of some guy. You'd think I'd hit him with a taser. Dude, I was not looking at you. I was looking around my world, and our gazes intersected. Please sir. I am just trying to buy celery and bleu cheese dressing.
Ask them, if you don't believe me. They are 100% sure you are into them, just because you SAW them. And if you actually go so far as to SAY anything? Oh boy. Then they are 1000% convinced, and nothing you could ever do or say would convince them otherwise. They really, truly think any form of verbalizing from a woman is a sure sign of seething sexual interest. If their guy friends ask, they will say, and believe, with their full chest, "Oh yeah, she asked me to please move my chair a little so she could get past, she was SO obviously SO into me."
What?
By way of contrast, let me tell you a story about a time I really WAS signalling sexual interest. I was out having a drink with a platonic male friend of mine, in my early 20's, and we were laughing about something and having a good time. At the pub, I noticed a man having an interesting conversation with his friends about the emperor Charlemagne. I dunno. The well-read ones are attractive to me, and the more I glanced at him, the handsomer he seemed to get. The two beers I'd consumed probably had something to do with it, but no matter.
I managed to catch his eye. Now, I cannot account for what my face did in that moment. I did not see myself in a mirror. All I know is that it was fleeting, genuine signal of honest sexual interest, it was completely unscripted, and he saw it. Then my friend said something amusing, my attention was arrested, and soon we were laughing and talking again.
To my astonishment – and the next few seconds are a bit of a blur – Charlemagne-guy leapt out of his chair, tackled my friend off his bar stool, and before I knew it, fists were flying. It took me a long time to realize that our poor friend Charlemagne thought were were *laughing at him.* So much for honest signals.
And another thing. I know that you guys love going to the gym. I also understand that working out is good for you, I applaud you for taking care of yourselves, and I do understand that there are only a limited number of things you can do to make yourself more attractive. Further, I do believe that there are some number of women who are super into gym bros.
So with those caveats, and acknowledging that I have no idea how many women I speak for when I say this: I think there are some diminishing returns here, fellows. Not obese? Able to take a walk on the beach with me? Fits into normal pants? Terrific. That's where the line is. I just don't react to the male body in the same way that you seem to react to female ones. Maybe it's because dudes are constantly jogging around shirtless and sending dick pics all over creation. Maybe we are just inundated with the male form, and we're a little bit desensitized to it.
Sure, we both have bodies, but I confess that never once have I thought "I'll show you mine if you show me yours" felt remotely fair or reasonable. It's a false equivalency. Nor have I have never in my life thought, "What a good-looking random stranger. I'd like to see him naked."
Never. Not once.
So what's attractive to me? Conversation. If you want to attract a lady like me, converse about something other than sports or your job. It can be literally anything, even the Roman Empire. We are interested. I know you are sick of talking to us, and you don't want to do it anymore, and when you think we aren't looking you make the little talky-talky chatty hand behind our backs, but let's be real: If you expect us to get on board with the stuff YOU like, you could at least make the concession of doing stuff we like sometimes, and maybe even skip the gym sometimes to do it.