I was walking on campus today and made strong eye contact with a white blonde chick who was reciprocating the same eye contact and she's probably an 8/10 looks-wise (at least). But she seemed super self-conscious. Like she looked at me, then played with her hair, then didn't know what to do with her hands and seemed stuck like she was caught in the act of being flustered. I was really intrigued. It's only recently that I understand IOIs and that I'm actively looking for them, but what the fuck was that. I refuse to believe that she was into me. Like logically, it wouldn't make sense. Sure, I have the non-verbal confidence, the walk and all that other bullshit, but as a middle eastern guy who's a 5.25, and all she could judge me on was my looks and walk, no way. Could be low self-esteem on my end but I just refuse to believe it. In fact, I have a feeling she might just have social anxiety or be an abuse victim, so she's overstimulated around people. I'd feel disgusted to put someone in that position under even more stress. But it's just an assumption at the end of the day.

So in order to improve my ability to tell IOIs, how do you know the difference between a chick who's shy, genuine IOIs, or a person with social anxiety or a likely victim of abuse? The abuse victim thing comes from the fact that 1/10 women are sexually assaulted (usually by family) by the time they're adults. That's a high af statistic. And all these things lead to the same nervousness and non-verbal insecurity. Do you guys know how to tell the difference or is it just a gamble?