Why does a girl seem interested but do things that imply otherwise?

[Anonymous]

It has happened to several people, both men and women.

1-This girl does things like telling me not to touch her and she walks away from me or removing my hand from her shoulder and then things like one time we were sitting across from each other and she leans forward until she is on top of my legs while looking at me and talking to me.
2-A girl started touching me in class, calling me baby and heart when I wrote to her on WhatsApp, once she came to the classroom and looked at me smiling for several seconds, noticing things I did for no reason, but the girl never writes to me, she doesn't join me in her social group and she lied about not having Instagram when I asked her

[ManOnFire]

For the first girl, if she's telling you not to touch her, just don't do it or put your hand on her shoulder even if it seems like she's being hypocritical about it. Even if she is wrong, people are still going to see you as being more wrong if she tells them. Just leave her alone, and you don't want to be that guy who gets seen as pushy.

The second girl is just a loser you don't want to spend any time on whatsoever. So she does conflicting things: touched you, smiles and watches you like she's interested yet never wanting you around her group. That's a bunch of stupidness you don't even want to date. Girls lie about not having IG or FB all the time. I remember ones I was interested in and already knew they had social media but I would ask them for it just to see if they would tell me a lie, which they did. Instead of just being honest and saying they don't give that out freely, they would rather lie and say they don't have it or "I don't use social media much."

In both cases, leave them alone and talk to other girls. These 2 are very likely trouble. And please, to both protect yourself and respect their space, do not be touchy unless they're touching you and okay with you touching them.

[Asker]

I understand, so it boils down to this: whatever the reason for the apparent contradiction, it's best to simply avoid problems, since it does me no good to look for reasons for other people's behavior. Thank you very much for your opinion.

[ManOnFire]

Correct. And in the end, you don't really want to pursue any girl who is behaving poorly and doing conflicting things. You want someone who is truly serious about you.

[SueShe]

Why would you touch a total stranger without being invited in the first place? One simply does not touch other people that have not indicated that they want to be touched. Touching a woman without express consent is like sexual harassment.

As to the 2nd. lady, you should have had the decency to tell her not to touch you as it may give off the wrong signals.

It could be that the 2nd. woman was simply just testing you to see how far she can go or how receptive you are to her.

Whatever the reasons were, you don't allow strangers to touch you or you don't touch strangers, mainly if those are women.

[Asker]

… human, I don’t know if I hinted at it (since from my perspective I didn’t), but when the hell did I ever tell you about touching a stranger? And I appreciate your suggestion to ask when things like that happen.

[Nikki1989]

It seems you both have internal struggles with intimacy, boundaries, or commitment. However, if a girl says don't touch, you don't touch. This isn't rocket science.

[Asker]

I understand that no means no and I respect that, but I'm asking because it's confusing when people do these contradictory things, since most physical contact is implicitly reciprocal and most people (if I'm wrong, you can correct me) would interpret that they can touch someone who touches them. I know I didn't include it in the post, but the first girl also did other things like playfully touching me and poking me in the ribs.

[In_Trance]

Your perception is off

[Asker]

I'm aware that it's a scientific fact that humans are bad at correctly attributing intentions to others based on their behavior, and that this could explain things like the second case. So how do you explain things that are very difficult to misinterpret, like the girl in the first case? How can I know what is what and what isn't?

[In_Trance]

Perception is not an attribute. It is a skill that you need to practice develop and maintain.
The only way you're going to do that is to interact with more women.