Transcription
The general rule is that if a man sends mix signals, the woman can better spend her time on someone who is sure about her. Mix signals are never a great sign. However, some men send mixed signals because they like a woman very much.
In an ideal world, when a man falls for a woman, everything is clear. He's open about his feelings and his intentions. There are no mix signals, and the woman feels like a priority most of the time and also very important. She doesn't think all of this clarity makes him boring and not exciting, which, let's be honest, is what some women may feel.
But let's face it, we don't live in an ideal world. We live in a world where someone ghosts you but then still follows your Instagram stories like a sniper. In our world, many women wonder what the mixed signals of the guy they like mean, and whether he should even be sending them if he really likes them. Because a mix signal is always a big red flag, right? Not always. More than that, in a minute.
Some women think, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, but if a guy is truly into me, he will not have any doubts." Well, usually, but there are exceptions. They also say things like, "If he wanted to, he would," which is wrong as well. In fact, the more he likes you, the more doubts he may have, the more things he will want to but may not do, which I will also explain in this video.
In our world, love is often imperfect, and some men will send make signals exactly because they like you so much. And I have have five reasons why this may happen. So let's talk about it. My name is H. I'm an author. I also use the pen name Brian Knox. I write about relationships, dating, and other topics.
And the first thing to understand is that although mixed signals are not good because they are a predictor of potential emotional roller coasters, they are not always a sign of him not being interested. Not a lot of men are perfectly in control of their emotions and don't carry any baggage and have never been hurt before. And this is indeed number one. He might be very interested in you while sending a ton of mix signals. He's afraid. He's afraid you will do what other women have done to him before. Other women will have broken his heart or made his life very difficult in other ways. Because, of course, men don't have it easy in their love life either. And he knows the more he opens up and falls for you, the more pain he will feel when you lose interest in him, when you eventually dump him, or when the relationship ends for other reasons.
And it's not just that the relationship ship may end. That's not the only reason. Men with an avoidant attachment style, a fear of commitment, or a difficult childhood, especially one involving a difficult relationship with their mother, usually have no problem at all dating a woman they are not interested in for the long term. She's no threat. But when they really fall for a woman, now the alarm bells go off. And please don't underestimate how loud that alarm can be. He can freeze because of it. And remember, it has nothing to do with the woman, aside from from the fact that he really likes her. The alarm is linked to experiences from his past.
Here are some signs that may prove he's falling under this first category: his body language. When a man is falling for you, even if his words and actions present Mak signals, his body cannot lie. He will try to be very close to you. He will make prolonged eye contact or find subtle ways to touch you. He will love spending time in your presence. And also, an interested guy wants to get to know you, and he will remember much of what you say, even very small details. And these are signs of emotional investment, which is something a non-interested guy will never do.
Another great example of the good kind of mixed signals are external pressures that are keeping a man from going all in with you. Things like his work, or perhaps his kids, or his wife. Yeah, hopefully not his wife. So that was a joke. What happens with these external pressures is the following: he meets you, starts to like you, goes out on a couple of dates with you, and now starts to really fall for you. And if all of this happens on an abandoned island, then you are good to go. He can go all in and spend a lot of time with you. But usually, that doesn't happen, and he's not living in a vacuum, of course. So he has a lot of things that demand his attention and his time.
Now, what happens here is that because he's very interested, you will get his full attention and affection at certain times, but other times it feels like you get none of it because he's truly busy with other responsibilities he has. And it's not that he doesn't want to be with you or that he's not interested. It's that he's trying to balance his growing feelings for you with the demands of his daily life that he created before meeting you.
The question is, how do you know the difference between a truly interested guy then versus one that's just treating you like an option? Well, it's pretty simple. The interested guy has a lot on his mind and has a lot of responsibilities, but that doesn't stop him from initiating contact, from asking to see you, from being fully present when he's on a date with you, and so on. The disinterested guy does almost none of this. He just gives you the bare minimum to string you along.
Also, with a busy guy, the things he's spending time on are serious, like his job, or his kids, or baking Christmas cookies for the whole town, which happens in some romantic Christmas movies, so that must be a thing too. Anyway, he's not busy because he prefers playing computer games all night, every night. He has serious things to do. And when you are with the busy guy, the time spent together will be quality time. He makes you feel special and valued. And when he's not with you, he still makes an effort to stay in touch, and he will make it clear he's thinking about you.
Reason number three is a very common reason an interested man may be sending mix signals: he's afraid of misreading your feelings and doesn't want to mess it up. He feels chemistry and likes you. He may give compliments, he may flirt a bit, but he doesn't take the next step, which could be the first kiss or starting a steady relationship. Whatever the next step is, he doesn't know how you feel about it and doesn't want to mess up what you both have going on now.
And a big sign here is that you get everything you can from him at the level you are at, but the next step is missing. For example, he asks you out every week, shows up on time, proposes to pay the restaurant bill, but then at the end of the date, there is no kiss and no holding hands. Well, of course not, because if you would say, "Oh, hey, what are you doing?" his dream explodes, gone. He may even have to remove the poster of you from above his bed, and he doesn't want to risk that.
Reason number four, another big one: he has never felt this way about a woman before, and that overwhelms him. Every guy remembers the first time it was real. Everything up until that point was just practice. We just didn't know it then. We thought that was as good as it got until we met that truly special woman, the woman who changed everything. And when we meet her, it confuses us, often also because we feel things we've never felt before, and we don't always know what to do with it. And the lucky men experienced this in their early 20s, sometime sooner, but the unlucky guys have to wait until their 30s or later. And some men that are in this situation will be going very hard for you, but others will get into their shell to process their emotions and because they may be afraid of what they are feeling now.
A great sign that he's falling under this category is when you have a very intense moment with him, but then he withdraws. But not for long, usually just for a day or two, and then he returns. And this may happen a couple of times. And each time he pulls back, he's processing his emotions and the overwhelm. And when he returns, he's always very eager to see you. He's very affectionate and very loving. But remember, his pullbacks don't last long, because if they do, that's a really bad sign.
Reason number five: he is reacting to how the woman is acting. He's very excited and into her, but he thinks he sees red flags here and there. For example, signs of neediness or jealousy, or behaviors similar to those of his ex-girlfriend, the relationship he never wants to experience ever again. And these make him think, "Ah, I really like her, but why is she doing that?" And so he hesitates. He sees good things, but also potential reasons it may not work out. Or it could be due to an incompatible attachment style. If you are with an avoidant man, for example, and you show a lot of love and affection to him, even though he may be very interested in you, he will pull back and send mixed signals. This is just how avoid and attachment works.
And if you think your situation might fall under this category, ask yourself, how have I been behaving lately? Have I been suffocating him, so to speak, by being jealous or very needy or angry, for example? Could I be giving him a reason to send mixed signals? And if the true and honest answer is no, then even if he's interested, his mixed signals are a huge sign of incompatibility. Because indeed, another important thing to remember is that even though my examples in this video were about interested men, if his mixed signals continue for weeks, or worse, months, that is not acceptable. He needs to figure things out and make up his mind. If it feels like he's not making you a priority and his actions show that for weeks on end, it's time to move on. Even if he's interested, he will keep taking you on emotional roller coasters, and you always deserve better than that.
And there you go. I hope you appreciated this video. You can visit Brian Knox.com if you want more content that I do not post over here, or you can head over to Amazon where you can search for my pen name Brian Knox to see a list of all of my books. And thank you for still being here at the very end of the video. Thank you for not sending me a mix and for committing to my video. I love it when you do that, and I hope to see you in another one.