Guy's Perspective: Should I Let him Know that I Like him?

{by Michael Vuke}

Editor's Note: This is not an article on courting vs. dating, y'all. This is not an article telling you when it is "ok" for you to start dating or how that process should look for you. This is simply one cool guy's perspective on a topic that a reader asked about, basically: how do guys feel when a girl lets him know if she's interested in him? So apply your own personal standards and glean whatever wisdom you can from this post. Okay? Mkay. :)

“Girls are so confusing…I wish they would just let us know when they liked us!” When I was in the first few years of high school, this feeling seemed to be universally shared by guys. Even though we say we want girls to tell us, do we really mean it? Do guys like it when girls let them know they are interested in them?

I was one of those guys who wished that girls would just tell me if they liked me or not; I was nervous around girls and, like every guy, I didn’t understand them. I wanted the easy way out. Well, a girl that I was acquaintances with told me that she liked me—in fact, she had been having a crush on me since we met (a year or two before this); she wanted to know if I was interested in being her boyfriend.

Boom. My wish had been granted.

What was the end result? Well, I wasn’t into this girl, so I politely told her that I was flattered that she was attracted to me, but I wasn’t ready for a relationship at this point (which was true), and since she had moved out of state several months back, it really wouldn’t work. She wrote back asking me to reconsider. Long story short, we ended up cutting off communication. I’ve talked to her a couple of times since then (it’s been several years now) but even now I avoid interacting with her when I can.

I learned a lot from that situation. I didn’t like the fact that a girl was pursuing me. When I had been saying that I wanted girls to tell me if they liked me, what I meant was I wanted the girls I liked to tell me if they liked me. Shallow much?

Here is a good rule of thumb: if a guy wants to be in a relationship with you, yet doesn’t have the fortitude to ask you out, maybe he doesn’t want to be in a relationship with you as bad as he thinks he does. When a guy wants a girl to ask him out, he is looking for the easy, no-risk approach. Almost everything worth having is worth taking a chance on.

So, how does this apply to y’all?

If you are interested in a guy, it isn’t a problem to send signals. Spend time with him, talk to him, find out about him. Don’t smother him. (See my post on Mother Hens) Don’t come on to him or ask him out, but spend time getting to know him and his interests.

Conversely, if you aren’t interested in a guy, don’t let him monopolize your time! The amount of time you spend with someone is a HUGE signal, and it is the easiest way to start developing feelings for someone.

So, if you do the above, the ball is now in his court. If he wants to date you, shouldn’t you see if he thinks you are worth the risk of asking when he isn’t 100% sure what the outcome will be?

Think of this as the first way to weed guys out. If he isn’t willing to take a risk (however small) to enter into a relationship with you, the odds are that he isn’t going to stick things out in the long run. You owe it to yourself to not tell him.

Have you ever told someone that you liked them? Tell me about what happened in the comments!

Michael Vuke is a 20 year old writer from the South with a love for nature and art. He loves finding vintage treasures, and they help inspire some of his musings which can be found at www.michaelvuke.wordpress.com. Got a topic you want him to talk about? Comment with it below or tweet it out to him @WriteandDream.