Spotting the signs of unspoken attraction can be difficult. After all, there is usually some reason that it is unspoken – some obstacle that prevents the truth from baring itself.
But the signs are always there. You need to know what to look for. So if you are looking for a rundown of the signs of unspoken attraction, you are in luck.
Unspoken Attraction Between Two People
Sometimes in life, we find ourselves in that most frustrating of situations:
We are attracted to someone, but we aren’t sure if they like us back. Most of the time that is fine. The best advice in most cases is to give it a shot, float it out there and see how they respond. The worst that can happen is that they say, “No.”
The worst that can happen is that they laugh, ask the room to pay attention, then tell you to repeat it for the amusement of the gathered crowd. Fortunately, this only happens during bad dreams. But there are certain instances where putting our feelings forward is riskier. Perhaps we don’t want to risk a friendship, make a workplace colleague feel awkward at work, or any number of other valid concerns.
In these situations, we need to know in advance if our advances will be welcomed gladly or swiftly rebuffed. Luckily, there are some signs that we can look out for to see if the person we are secretly attracted to feels the same way about us. Let’s jump in and find out what they are:
Closeness Comes Naturally
They are two related signs melded into one because when we talk about closeness we are talking about both the physical and emotional parts of our interactions. First, the physical closeness. When people are attracted to each other, we can see that they often sit and stand closer together than they otherwise might with other people. We feel comfortable with each other, even with physical contact.
Our personal space is being invaded, and we don’t mind one bit. Then there is the emotional closeness. In the same way that we don’t mind sharing physical space with them (and them with us), we also find ourselves quite comfortable sharing our emotional lives with them.
Perhaps we gloss it up a bit, sand down the sharpest edges, but nowhere near as much as we might with someone else. Both types of closeness are a sign of intimacy and interest and is our first non-verbal cue of attraction.
Overstaying
Remember when you were a kid and you were out with your friends and your curfew loomed? Remember the feeling? That dreadful sense of knowing that your good time was almost at an end. It felt like you were missing out, that if you went home, you wouldn’t be around to enjoy all the endless adventures and teenage drama that would inevitably ensue the moment you left. Well, as adults we feel a lot less strongly. We have perspective. We can see our friends again tomorrow.
But love makes us young again.
When we find ourselves spending way too much time with someone, when we blow off our other commitments to hang out with them, when we volunteer for things that we actively hate just because we want to spend an hour in their company – that is attraction. And if you pay attention, you’ll probably find they have the same attitude to spending time with you.
Pulling Pigtails & Calling Names
As long as we’re harkening back to youth, there’s another sign of unspoken attraction that becomes more clear on the playground.
Little boys and little girls tease each other when they like each other. Did any of us grow up?
We’re talking about playful teasing here, the kind that both of us are happy to be a part of and thoroughly enjoy. It isn’t mean-spirited, it’s all in good fun and, most importantly, it is an exercise in building intimacy. What we’re doing when we tease each other is demonstrating closeness (see #1).
If a stranger were to say the things we say to each other, that stranger would be incredibly rude and devastatingly mean.
But because we are close, because we have intimacy, because we share an understanding there is no harm done, no offence taken and only laughs to be had.
We call names and pull pigtails because we know that it won’t break us down.
Unspoken Attraction Between Friends
Of course, these signs are also signs of friendship, so are of little use if we are already close friends with the person who we suspect we might share an unspoken attraction with. Luckily, we can look for a few things that might point to an underlying attraction in our friendship. There might be an unspoken attraction with your friend if they:
Start joking about the two of you getting together. There is a reason they have been thinking about you in a romantic context, and it’s not to craft the perfect “If we’re single when we’re…” joke.
Show signs of jealousy when you are dating someone. This might be a reluctance to talk about your love life or an unjustified negative opinion of people you are seeing. Change their style to match your stated preferences. If you mention one day that you find a cocked trilby and half a moustache irresistible and the next day they show up looking like a wonky hipster, chances are they’re vying for your affections.
Unspoken Attraction At Work
The situation can be a little more tricky if the two of you are work colleagues. After all, in today’s climate office romances are often strongly discouraged, so when people who work together are attracted to each other, they might try extra hard to hide it.
If a work colleague is secretly attracted to you, they might:
Try to work the same shifts as you. Any excuse to be around you is taken, including doing tasks they hate. Complain when you take time off. For them, going to work is a miserable endeavour if you aren’t there to brighten their day.
Always want to spend time with you after work. Perhaps they always suggest the office going out for drinks, mostly aimed at you. Or they wait for you at the end of the day, even if you are still finishing up work.
Prolonged Eye Contact (And Why It Almost Always Means Attraction)
It’s often said that the eyes are the windows to the soul, and we can tell a lot about what someone is thinking by what their eyes are glued to.
And if they’re glued to you, knowing what they are thinking might make you blush. If there is always a lot of eye contact, it almost always means attraction.
No matter how personable and sociable we are, our attention is very rarely focussed entirely on the person we are speaking to. We usually are thinking about other things – what’s for dinner, where to go tonight, is there a new episode of our favourite show out?
It’s not rude. We’re listening, but our attention rarely needs to be entirely on the person we are speaking with or even the conversation.
But when there is an attraction – unspoken or not – the attention focusses. We are there, in the moment, connected by our most intimate of senses and connecting in a visceral, chemical way. Nothing else matters right now. No distractions can encroach on this beautiful moment. That’s why prolonged eye contact almost always means attraction – and why it is the most important sign on this list:
Our attention is only grabbed so readily and so intensely by the things – or person – that we want the most.