A while ago a reached out to a girl I talked to a little bit, at the time she was probably very into me because of a variety of indicators, but my dumb ass didn’t notice, I messaged her because I noticed a violin in the background and wrote something along the lines of “you play the violin or is it just cleverly placed there on purpose?” (Note - sounds more cocky and playful in the language that it was written in, emojis were included to make it even more obvious), to this day I haven’t received a response, her loss and I had a laugh regardless of the response or the lack of one.

Another older example would be asking a girl to hang out, first time she says she won’t be able to but maybe next weekend, so the few days before I ask and she says she’ll be busy - her loss, thought nothing more, didn’t invest too much apart from just casually talking.

Now why am I writing this - because I see the huge difference in my mindset compared to the 16 year old me who was legitimately saddened about a girl (who in my defence led me on in hindsight) didn’t feel anything towards me after I’ve essentially been friend zoned from the get go.

Ive decided to have more fun in the interactions, still a long way to go when it comes to putting myself out there, but I needed this confirmation that I can still function in terms of some level of flirting and teasing

Edit - I’ve left out one example that’s fairly recent for confidentiality just in case, but it would clarify the conclusion to this post, same story though but not directly asking out, rather responding to something that sounded like a hint to meet up in a specific way