What Do Men Really Think About?

Back when we were twelve, it was easy for you to tell when we’d crossed the line from finding girls repulsive - mainly because our reaction to the strange stirrings we were feeling down below was to tease you and pull your hair. And while you may still make us go stiff at the most inconvenient of times, more likely nowadays it’s with fright. But fortunately for you women, it’s a lot easier to read our body language than it is for you to read maps. There are always tell-tale signs. And if you suspect that we may be interested in you, don’t always leave the first move to us boys. If you do, you might be waiting a long, long time…

The guy in the bar
Let’s face it, when we’re out on the town, we eye up any girl who walks past, so how do you tell if that **** faraway look in our eyes is because we’re lusting after you, or just due to the fact that we’ve put away one pint too many and can’t focus on anything? Well, once you’ve ascertained that we’re looking, which will be easy because we’ll be making such a bad job of not looking, the trick here is to watch where we’re looking. Whenever we think we can get away with it, our eyes will be roaming all over the various (obvious) parts of your anatomy, but if we’re really interested in you, the area of flesh that we really want to see bare is the ring finger on your left hand. Then, if you do manage to engage us in conversation, we’ll ask you questions about yourself, and actually listen to the answers. If we offer to buy you a drink, chances are we’re being more than just polite. If we let you buy us one back, even more so. And when we need to go to the loo, if we apologise for it, then nip back with such indecent haste you’re nervous about touching our hands, you might want to think about booking the church.

At the gym
Ever wondered why us guys always work out in front of the mirrors? Well, it’s not so we can keep an eye on our form. A classic hunting ground for the male of the species, the gym is a tricky one to read, as more so than in the bar, given your lack of clothing we absolutely don’t want you to catch us staring and think we’re a perv. Instead, demonstrating twisted bloke logic, we’ll position ourselves so we can keep tabs on your reflection, thinking this doesn’t therefore count as gawping. And it’s likely that we’ll try and mirror your behaviour, too - watch to see if we cut short our session on the treadmill just as you finish your run, then hang around to see where you go next. We might take the machine next to you, even when there are plenty of others free, or if there’s a bank of three stretch mats/bikes/steppers, we’ll get there first, occupying the middle one just to ensure you have to take the one next to us. And the proof of the pudding? If, despite our workout programme finishing, we don’t until yours does. It took my mate Mike hours of Stairmaster stalking before he finally managed to ask gym-babe Julia out. But not only did he gain a girlfriend - he lost half a stone in the process.

Your neighbour
The days of us hoping you’ll pop round to borrow a cup of sugar are over, particularly because by the looks of you you’re a sweetener-only girl. So how do you tell when - to paraphrase a certain Aussie soap - good neighbours might become more than good friends? This can be a hard one to work out, as everyone’s generally neighbourly, and helping you to take out your bins doesn’t necessarily mean we want to take you out too. But if you see our curtains twitching every time you pass, don’t be fooled into thinking that we’re just doing our Neighbourhood Watch duty - there’s only one thing in the neighbourhood we want to keep our eye on, and that’s you. Here, the Rule of Coincidence applies - if you notice that we always seem to be leaving for work at the same time as you, or when you’re sunbathing in your back garden, we’re ‘coincidentally’ mowing the lawn. Similarly, when you’re outside washing your car, we pick that moment to wash ours, even though you’re sure you saw us do it yesterday. Remember - once is luck, but more than once is lust.

Your brother’s friend
Back when you were growing up, you were our mate’s little sister, so of course we didn’t fancy you. Instead we’d look after you, buying you drinks, and frightening off any spotty oik who’d dared to glance over in your general direction - behaviour that nowadays would have you convinced we were crazy about you. Now you’re older, we’re still not technically allowed to fancy you out of loyalty to your brother, so how do we show that we, in fact, do? Well, by ignoring you, of course. But although we might not even acknowledge you when you walk into the bar, we’ll surely be watching you out of the corner of our eye. The giveaway is when we do eventually deign to talk to you, we’ll know much more about you than we should, especially considering that we ‘ignore’ you most of the time. And when you ***** a joke, we’ll be laughing the hardest, because it’s ’safe’ to laugh at something funny, and we’re desperate to make some sort of contact with you despite ourselves.

Your friend
Sadly, the days of letting a girl know we liked them by chasing her around the playground are over - for most normal people, anyway. Instead, our mature, sophisticated approach will probably be to insult you, or even to try and chat up your friends, when really it’s you we want to ask out. You’ll notice a subtle change in the way we look at you - or rather, don’t look at you. And when you’re alone with us, if we constantly question you about your boyfriend, tell you what a jerk he is, and how you need to go out with someone who treats you like you deserve, you don’t have to guess who we’re referring to. But be careful - you’ve got to get this one right, as the last thing you want to do is ruin a beautiful friendship.