I posted this as a disagreement on a thread where a girl talked about how she hated being flirted with at work and that it never works. I had one instance a few weeks ago where a waitress repeatedly hinted that she was into me.

Also, if you find this post interesting, follow me here on reddit. This is my game reddit account. I'm making constant progress in my dating life and genuinely enjoy sharing my thoughts and my content.

Things to pay attention to in this post: Slut-shaming culture, verbal politeness, non-verbal intent

It was around 8 pm at a pizza place and I was eating alone. When she first came to my table, I just flirted jokingly but made light-hearted conversation and gave intentful, non-verbal cues (looked her up and down, smiled with my eyes, spoke slowly and in a flirty, teasing kind of way, etc.), but never verbally complimented her for being cute or anything overt that might make her feel either creeped out or slutty and judged by her coworkers if she were to engage in front of them. Basically, I was verbally polite and non-verbally intentful. She then would find excuses to come to my table, start up conversation, and then when I'd end the conversation or look at my phone (because I was freezing there and genuinely wanted to leave), she'd leave, and come back and repeat. She refilled my water cup three times for reference, even though I'd only drink through about half of it.

Eventually, I'd left my tip, and right as she was about to leave and after we had talked for a little, she said "is there anything else you want to ask me?", which is basically feeding me her number on a silver spoon. My dumbass said "no, not that I can think of" because I was taken aback; I've never had a girl be so up front with me, and she looked kinda put off and confused, and just stood for a few moments looking at me not budging, but I snapped out of it and said "well actually I'm looking for friends to hang out with since I'm new here as well, and you seem like a cool person. What's your phone number?", and she perked up and wrote her phone number down on the customer receipt.

Granted, the phone number didn't turn into a date either because (A) I flaked on the first date (she tried to set it the very next day and I had to turn in a few job apps that were due, so I politely denied it and rescheduled right after she asked), or (B) I tried to set it up for the day after too quickly (which could have been the killer because she basically made such an overt first move, and I didn't take the time to get to learn more about her over text because I thought "she's already interested in me, why put in the effort to meet over text when we can just do so in person", so there's a chance it may have made her feel slutty by me trying to make the first date move as quickly as I did and not leaving the ball in her court). I can provide screenshots with name/phone number blurred out if you guys would like.

That being said, I was still happy that a waitress came onto me, something I previously thought was indisputably obnoxious on part of the customer. I believe that, in the experience of women in customer service that get flirted with a lot, guys aren't usually good at flirting with them, or their jobs don't allow them enough time for an interaction with a guy for him to fully contextualize himself and leave a good impression. Thus, it comes off as uncalibrated and aggressive to try and close too quickly.

In summary, if your social skills are good enough though and you non-verbally show interest, and the context allows for some conversation (e.g. if you've got some privacy and time to actually have conversation), I think you can ask for that phone number. But a good rule of thumb is verbally polite, and non-verbally intentful. Even if a woman is interested in one of her customers, she will probably be judged and seen as slutty by their coworkers if she's seen flirting with you (e.g. "Damn, Rebecca's flirting with a different guy today, didn't she get rejected by the last one/get with the last one/ justbreak up with her boyfriend/etc.?"). So, to solve this as an example, trying to make it as discrete as possible for them to write their phone number down can be extraordinarily useful.