I have a question that sounds increasingly ridiculous as I list the evidence: how does a guy know whether women find him attractive? Unless he looks like a model, I mean. I assume those men get some sort of welcome packet.
Women smile and say hello to me in public fairly often. People of both genders strike up conversations with me at gas stations and in grocery store lines. This seems encouraging, although a conversation while waiting to buy groceries is not exactly a formal declaration of attraction.
The women I’ve dated or been involved with have been attractive. My female friends are pretty, too, and some of them touch my hand or arm while we’re talking or joking. Women at work do that as well. But maybe they’re simply affectionate people. I don’t want to turn somebody’s conversational habits into evidence she never intended to submit.
People tell me I have good energy and that I’m fun to be around. I like hearing that. Still, I find myself trying to work out where being enjoyable company ends and being physically attractive begins, as though everyone else received a diagram.
Part of my uncertainty comes from being brown and bearded in a very white part of the country. I wonder how I’m seen here. I’m also not especially muscular, which apparently remains relevant to the private evaluation I keep conducting.
Then there’s the wording. I get called handsome much more often than hot. Handsome is a perfectly good compliment, yet somehow I’ve made it sound in my head like a respectable second-place finish.
Women have asked me to hang out. Some have bought me dinner. Nobody is exactly throwing herself at me, but I’m aware that expecting that might be setting a peculiar standard for an ordinary social life.
So here I am: getting compliments, having dates, enjoying conversations, and still wondering what would count as a clear answer. When a woman buys me dinner, how much more evidence am I waiting for?
