I just had a great chat with one of my roommates around attraction and signs of attraction: How do we know when somebody’s into us? And it’s one of the most common questions that I get from guys, and they’re often disappointed with my answer, because the answer is most the time “I don’t know.”

This used to be this obsession factor for me, like “How do I know? How can I tell if someone’s attracted to me?”

I did so much research on it. There’s so many theories out there as to the body language signals and everything else that somebody portrays when they’re into you, and then I realized there’s something very insecure about my approach.

Why did I need to know what the signs were? Why was I so obsessed with this?

It wasn’t until I had my discussion this morning with my roommate Mike that I realized that whole search for signs of attraction is really about avoiding rejection. When we’re obsessed about how to tell if someone’s into us or not what we’re really saying is “How do I know it’s safe for me to express attraction? How can I get some sort of signal that gives me the green light, the okay, so that I don’t get hurt?”

There is only one way I’ve found that gives you an accurate measure of how attracted someone is to you, and that is for you to express attraction towards them FIRST!

It’s the only consistent method I’ve ever found. They’re playing with their hair, or they’re looking deep into your eyes, or they’re touching you – maybe they’re attracted to, but there’s no guarantees. Sometimes people do that because they’re feeling friendly; sometimes that’s their way of expressing how they’re upset with you; you have no idea.

There’s been so many times when I’ve been with a girl and thinking that she’s flirting with me but the whole time she had no attraction for me whatsoever, she was just being friendly. I couldn’t tell the difference because she’s behaving just like girls had slept with me had behaved.

What I’ve come to realize – particularly because I was practicing being bold and being giving – the kind of BROJO motto – is that: Here I am waiting for them to give me a green light, when if I’m the leader I should be giving THEM the green light! I should be the one taking the risk.

There is only one SURE sign of attraction and that is you express attraction towards them and they don’t leave. That’s the only guaranteed measure of attraction in my book.

You tell them “Hey, I’m into you” in some way and they continue to want to remain in your presence. They might not have the courage to say it back – they might not have the ability or the language to express their attraction towards you – but what you’ve clearly said to them now is “OK, I’m attracted to you. If you don’t like that you need to go”and sometimes you can actually use language that strongly.

If you’re really unsure whether or not they’re attracted to you, you can actually say “Look I know you want to be friends but the way I see you, the way I feel about you, we’re never going to be just friends, so if that’s not cool with you now’s the time for you to bail.”

Now they might not say “Yes I’m attracted to you” back, but if they don’t leave you now have a very clear sign that they are most likely attracted to you (and still not a hundred percent guarantee).

The point here is if you’re out there searching for a reason why people are attracted to you, this is more about your insecurity than learning how to read body language.

There is no real consistent body language from humans that applies to a hundred percent of all of us. I used to work with criminal offenders and trying to figure out whether or not they were lying was different for every individual.

I will give you a more practical tip that can help and that is: to look at how someone’s behavior CHANGES in your presence.

So rather than trying to look for general signs, like ‘Do their eyes look there?’ or ‘Do they touch or whatever?’ ask yourself “How did they behave before they got here and how are they behaving now that I’m here? How do they behave with other people versus how they behave with me?”

Even that is not a reliable sign of attraction. Those changes you see might actually be more of a negative; they might be behaving that way around you because they’re trying to protect themselves from you, or they’re trying to impress you but they’re not actually attracted.

The only way that you will know that they are attracted to you is when you go first and you say “I’m attracted to you” and you just leave that space open for them to reject you, and if they don’t you know you’re probably on to a good thing.

So I want to say that that tormented me my whole life, and now all I do is simply let them know first – give them the green light, make it safe for them – and in doing so be the leader.

That will continue on throughout your relationship, giving you a sense of security in yourself, knowing that any time you want to generate attraction all you have to do is show attraction.

Enjoy! I’ll see you guys next time