There are moments when their body language indicates interest. To gauge it, I start flirting, they flirt back. Sometimes they start the flirting. But the moment tension builds up, I flirt further, they deflate the whole tension bubble and do these small actions to indicate, "Nope, not going further than this".

I am decent in verbal flirting and escalation but pretty bad in physical escalation(working on it tho).

So how should one deal with the mixed signals? Or how should one send mixed Signals back? A few scenarios as examples would be really appreciated :)