How a Girl Can Know if a Guy Likes Her

First, I'm a guy, so I have first hand experience with liking a girl and I know what I do (or did) when those feelings were welling up inside of me. Second, I've been an independent observer of my friends who are male, and a frequent contact with friends who are female when the question arose.

But one more reason to trust me on this question is that I'm the father of three daughters and I'm passing on advice they are likely to read some day, so I want it to be as truthful and helpful as possible to my readers.

Men are fairly well known to be transparent. Dishonest sometimes, unwilling to talk at other times, but transparent nonetheless. The point is, if a guy likes you, he isn't likely to keep it a secret for long. He will tell you.

More likely, he will ask you on a date, or to spend some time with him in ways other than just casually meeting where your mutual friends can be found all together. He wants to spend time with just you. By doing this, he's telling you there's something special about you.

But this is where it becomes more complicated, and the part about honesty and openness become important.

Because life teaches us all that a guy may show interest only in sex, and want nothing more than that. Of course, as a girl, you're not asking this question because that's all you're looking for - you want to know if a guy really likes you.

Every girl wants to be physically attractive, but as I would tell my own daughters, the answer to the question of a guy liking you is much, much deeper and one both people should take the time to understand very deeply.

Physical attraction is a great place to start, but what you really want to know is does a guy like me for all the right reasons. The physical part of the attraction is more obvious, the rest takes more time.

Don't let yourself be caught off guard. What I mean by that is most girls don't think much in advance about why a guy should like her. They may have a pretty good idea about what they like in a guy, but I see so many girls, even women in their 20's, 30's, 40's, who don't really think about what the guy should like about her. It's interesting because women are very good about evaluating whether other women are good for a guy, but introspection seems difficult for many females, perhaps because there's a tendency to be overly critical of themselves.

But what I'm talking about here is different. And it's important because it helps answer the original question. Don't make it a self-analysis, but ask yourself, OK, if you were in his shoes what would you be interested in that makes you attractive to him.

Once you've done what I suggest above, you will know what a sincere interest on his part would look like, apart from something nefarious. Then you can take the focus off yourself and go back to him. How do you know if he really likes you?

Again, guys are pretty transparent. They may not be as in touch with their emotions as you are, but they have a much harder time hiding them. Sure, in longer term relationships, men often "shut down", don't show emotion, or lose touch. This is really a different subject though, and for another time.

On the front end, however, guys can often be an open book - not always - but often. If a guy really likes you, he won't be able to keep you off his mind. And he'll have a hard time putting off calling you, or emailing, or texting, or coming to see you. He will want to see, hear, and be near you all the time. Love is a wonderful, mystical thing at times - it truly is!

But even guys cannot all be put into one nice category and left there. Some guys are different. The most confident are often very slow to give a great deal of attention - partly because they don't usually give their heart. Other guys overdo the attention, usually out of insecurity, but sometimes merely out of a poorly conceived sense of chivalry.

The latter often make great husbands, but in that case, both need to be careful that the chemistry is truly there before you get too deeply involved.