Have you met a man you keep sending signals that you like him, and he ignores you? A question has popped into your head: “How does a man behave when he likes a woman?” Dating and starting new relationships is complicated, but some signs are more than easy to read. How can you recognise the signs that he is not interested? Or could it be a case of a man’s feigned indifference?
The short answer. A man’s feigned indifference is a tactic where he deliberately acts colder than he feels, either to make a woman want him more or to find out how much she wants him. You can recognise it because the coldness is not consistent. The man keeps coming back, seeks your attention and is different in person than in his messages, whereas genuine indifference is constant. You do not have to play along. Simply stop trying harder than he does and watch whether he makes a move himself.
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A man’s feigned indifference as an outdated pick-up technique
Perhaps you feel slightly disappointed after reading the heading. Women know and use this tactic too, making themselves unavailable to men. The world is changing, and so are the ways people start relationships and the individual pick-up tactics. Online, of course, you will also find advice on how to ignore a woman and deliberately feign indifference. Sometimes there is no serious interest behind the tactic, just an attempt to gain the upper hand. Answer this question for yourself: “Do you like a man’s feigned indifference and being deliberately ignored?” No woman wants to feel unwanted and not know where she stands.
Is the thought “But doesn’t indifference attract?” running through your head right now? Yes, it can sometimes happen that the more he ignores you, the more you want his company. Just remember that a lovestruck man will not behave like this for long and will soon stop the feigned indifference and the ignoring.
A man’s feigned indifference as a pick-up tactic can work when a woman already wants him. You like him terribly, but he acts as if you meant nothing to him. The aim of the tactic is to make you feel that he is not interested in you, even though he is. How do you think this will continue? How will you feel if you go on a date and he does not get in touch with you for a whole week? Is it a tactic, or is he simply not interested?
A man who is serious about you has no reason to play this game for long.
Why men pretend not to be interested
Psychologists Peter Jonason and Norman Li examined playing hard to get in a study published in the European Journal of Personality in 2013. They describe it as a tactic in which a person shows apparent disinterest so that the other person wants them more. According to a summary by psychologist Jeremy Nicholson in Psychology Today, both men and women use it mainly for two reasons. They want to raise their own value and, at the same time, test how much the other person wants them and whether they are willing to commit.
According to the same summary, the tactic is used more often by people who consider themselves highly desirable partners and by people with narcissistic or manipulative tendencies. However, coldness can also stem from ordinary insecurity. Someone who fears rejection shows interest cautiously, and aloofness serves as a safeguard so that they do not lose face if things do not work out.
Why indifference attracts
An experiment by Erin Whitchurch, Timothy Wilson and Daniel Gilbert from the University of Virginia and Harvard University, published in the journal Psychological Science in 2011, showed that uncertainty can increase attraction. It involved 47 female students. They looked at the Facebook profiles of men who, the researchers told them, had previously rated their profiles. One group was told that the men had rated them the highest, the second that they had rated them average, and the third was left uncertain.
The men were most attractive to the group that did not know where they stood, even more than to the women who were told the men liked them the most. The uncertain participants thought about the men most often, and the authors believe this is what increased the attraction. The experiment showed that uncertainty about how much someone likes you can increase attraction at the very beginning. However, it says nothing about coldness or ignoring.
There is also a catch. In 2014, Xianchi Dai, Ping Dong and Jayson Jia showed in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General that playing hard to get increases desire only in someone who already wants the other person, and even then it reduces liking. In someone who is not yet very keen on a relationship, it reduces both desire and liking.
8 signs of how a man behaves when he likes a woman
It is not rocket science to notice that a man likes you. A man who likes you usually sends clear signals.
1. Watch his body language.
- he wants to be as close to you as possible,
- he tends to be a little nervous,
- fleeting touches,
- he cannot take his eyes off you.
2. He looks for opportunities to spend time with you.
3. He does you favours.
- he brings you coffee,
- he arranges a lift home from work for you.
4. He tries to impress you.
- it can even be crazy things, but he wants to look like a hero.
5. He gets jealous of other men.
- he seems nervous when you are in contact with other men.
6. He behaves like a gentleman.
- he seats you in a restaurant,
- he helps you take off your coat.
7. He tidies up his appearance when he is with you.
8. You receive small gifts, and he showers you with sweet compliments.
These 8 signs are a kind of hint to help you find out whether he likes you. However, any man may also surprise you with a far more romantic gesture, making you even more certain that he wants you. What is more, if he starts conversations, tries to find out what you like and shows interest, things are on the right track.
Show interest, or what attracts men
Simply meeting someone and being asked on a date acts as an aphrodisiac, so the man will seem more attractive to you. You can win his attention through physical movements and show that you are interested. Charm him on a date with specific body movements such as playing with your hair, licking your lips, tilting your head, smiling and keeping eye contact.
Tip. Many men find loose hair attractive.
And which qualities win men over? Physical beauty is certainly the first thing a man notices. But building a relationship requires much more than nice photos on Instagram and looking perfect in every situation.
Qualities in women that attract men.
- kindness,
- a positive personality,
- honesty,
- a sense of humour, including for their jokes,
- showing interest, including through physical movements.
Tip. Liven up getting to know each other by asking each other spicy questions or personal questions. You will learn what you want to know, and it will take you another step further.
Signs that he is not interested
Have you tried just about every tactic on how to drive a man wild, but it still looks as though he is not interested? Assess these signs realistically.
- he never gets in touch of his own accord,
- he has no time for you,
- he overlooks you,
- he makes no effort to look well groomed in front of you,
- he does not enter your space or try to be close to you,
- he does not follow you with his eyes,
- he does not use flirty lines,
- he only gets in touch when he needs something.
If you feel that he is not interested in you and you have given it everything, he may not be the right man for you. Do not hide behind a possible tactic, a man’s feigned indifference. You can still ask him honestly and find out whether the attraction is mutual.
How to tell feigned indifference from the real thing
Feigned indifference has cracks. A man who is only playing cannot keep up the coldness for long and alternates it with moments when he clearly wants you. Genuine indifference, on the other hand, is tediously constant. He does not seek you out, does not respond and gives no hints. Pretence is shown mainly by these signs.
- He watches you. In company he looks indifferent, but you repeatedly catch him looking at you, or you see that he watches your stories on social media.
- He comes back when you go quiet. As soon as you stop getting in touch, he reappears within a few days.
- He is different in person than in his messages. On a date he is attentive and funny, but in writing he is brief and distant.
- He remembers details. He knows what you told him, even though he acted as if he was not interested.
- He gets jealous. He claims he does not care who you talk to, but he gets nervous when another man is near you.
You can recognise genuine indifference by the opposite. He does not get in touch even when you go quiet, he responds to an invitation with an excuse without suggesting another date, and his body language stays closed. We look at how to read non-verbal signals in the article body language: how to tell if someone likes you.
If you are not sure, a simple test can help. For a week, stop being the active one: do not message first and do not suggest meeting up. A man who wants you will make a move himself. If he does not get in touch even after a week, it is more likely a sign of disinterest, although with a shy man it may also be fear of rejection.
When it becomes manipulation
Occasional aloofness does not necessarily mean anything. The game becomes manipulation when coldness and warmth alternate over and over again and you live in constant uncertainty. The two most common patterns have English names, hot and cold and breadcrumbing.
Hot and cold, alternating warmth and coldness
One week he messages every day, plans where you will go together and calls you. The next week he is distant, replies with one word and has no time for anything. Then he comes back as if nothing had happened. Meanwhile, you wonder what you did wrong and try all the harder.
We believe a similar mechanism to the one in the experiment by Whitchurch and her colleagues may be at work here too. Uncertainty keeps you thinking about him constantly, and that is easy to mistake for love. Someone who repeats this pattern for months is not playing a dating game but keeping you in the role of the one who has to fight for him. You can find more signs in the article how to tell if he is just playing with you.
Breadcrumbing, crumbs instead of a relationship
Breadcrumbing means tossing out crumbs. A man sends you a message now and then, likes your photo or writes that you must go for a coffee sometime, but an actual meeting never happens. The crumbs are enough to keep him on your mind, and they cost him no effort at all.
Psychologists from the University of Castilla-La Mancha (Navarro and colleagues, 2020) surveyed 626 adults aged 18 to 40. Those who had experienced breadcrumbing in the past year were less satisfied with life and felt more loneliness and helplessness. They found no such link for ghosting alone. If you recognise other patterns in your partner’s behaviour, take a look at the most common types of manipulation in a relationship.
How to respond to feigned disinterest
The best response is not to play along and not to try harder than he does. When he slows down, slow down too. When he gets in touch, reply in a friendly way, but don’t apologise for not getting in touch sooner and don’t reproach him for his silence. If your main concern is that he reads your messages and doesn’t reply, we look at this in detail in the article he is online but not texting.
- Don’t text him more often than he texts you.
- Plan your own activities and don’t cancel them just because he might get in touch.
- If he suggests a date at the last minute, feel free to say no and offer another time.
- After a few weeks of uncertainty, ask him directly what he wants. Knowing how to set your own boundaries will help.
When your partner shows disinterest in a relationship
If disinterest appears in a relationship that is already established, it is not a dating tactic. Your partner may be tired, stressed or drifting away, and that calls for an open conversation, not a game. Choose a calm moment, not during an argument or in the evening after a hard day. Talk about yourself, for example “I miss us spending time together”, and ask what he is going through right now. Work, worries or health can also be behind the distance.
Don’t bring up old grievances, don’t compare him with others and don’t demand a promise that he will change straight away. Give the conversation and any change a few weeks. A sign that it is over is when the disinterest lasts for months, he repeatedly refuses to talk and nothing changes. You can find tips in the article what to do when a man loses interest in a woman and guidance for making a decision in the article how to tell when a relationship has no future.
When a woman plays hard to get
It is not only men who feign disinterest. Aaron Ben-Ze’ev, who commented on the research by Jonason and Li in Psychology Today, points out that women manage their own availability more than men do, but he himself considers the game a deceptive form of manipulation. So the old advice to keep him waiting describes what people commonly do. It does not follow that it reliably works.
According to a study by Dai, Dong and Jia, playing hard to get increases desire only in a man who is already interested in you, and even in him it also reduces liking. If he is only just sizing you up, coldness is more likely to put him off.
Being selective works better. Elaine Walster’s team showed this as early as 1973. The men in their experiment chose from fictional women, and 59% of them preferred the one who was available to them but had turned down other men. Neither the woman who turned everyone down nor the one who wanted everyone scored as well.
In 2020, Gurit Birnbaum, Kobi Zholtack and Harry Reis explained why this works. Someone who chooses a partner carefully and lets themselves be won over a little comes across as a more valuable partner, and so others desire them more. So it is not about being cold, but about not being available to just anyone. Jonason and Li also found that for a serious relationship, people most wanted partners with moderate availability, not those available to anyone, nor those who were out of reach.
If you do play hard to get, a man will often see through it thanks to the same cracks we described above in men. These signs in particular will give you away.
- You reply slowly, but at length and eagerly.
- You turn down a date but immediately suggest another.
- You are reserved in messages, warm on the date and laugh at his jokes.
If you want a relationship, not just a flirtation, you don’t need to pretend anything. It is enough to have your own life and your own plans, and not to push.
Don’t push, talk
Don’t be afraid to show that you like him, for example through the physical movements and gestures mentioned. Be yourself. If you feel you don’t know where you stand, simply talk to him about it. However, the conversation shouldn’t feel as though you are putting pressure on him. The early stages of dating aren’t always easy, as you are still feeling each other out. Let yourself be guided by what you feel. What do you think about a man’s feigned disinterest? Do you feel that your new crush is using this dating tactic?
