Infatuation can make fools of us all – but worse still is to be an ineffectual fool.  Nothing stings the ego quite like realizing all your efforts in flirtation have fallen flat with target of your affections: not only are you not more attractive, you’ve actually become unattractive.

I was recently talking about this with a group of friends, and I asked the guys in the group what were some tactics they’ve noticed girls employing for the purpose of attracting guys that only ended up backfiring.

We had ourselves a small discussion: there was some squabbling, some jokes, some exclamations of disagreements, and, finally, some points of consensus. Here is a short list of things girls sometimes do to attract a guy’s attention that my group of male friends all agreed – more or less – do not work in positive ways:

1. Going along with whatever the guys says or wants 

The “yes” girl, basically. She agrees a little too quickly with everything the guy says, suggests, thinks – she laughs a little too hard at his jokes, and she’s a little too eager to please or accommodate him in whatever he wants. 

“We like some push-back,” said one of the guys in the group. “I think maybe sometimes girls think it’s not attractive for them to disagree with a guy, but it’s not at all unattractive when a girl has a mind of her own and isn’t afraid to speak up, or even call us out on our crap from time to time.”

“But not in a public, ego-crushing kind of way,” he quickly added.

2. Being too aggressive

I was a little surprised by this one, but apparently, guys – or at least, the guys I was talking to – find it unattractive when a girl is too aggressive, or direct.

“We like some mystery and we like the chase,” one of the guys said. “It’s more exciting when there’s some game.”

I personally think girl-boy games were kind of silly, and if I were a guy, I think I’d only feel turned off if I knew some girl were playing some stupid hard-to-get game when it’s obvious that she’s interested. I said as much.

“That’s the thing,” my friend responded: “The guy can’t know the girl is playing the game. If the guy knows, then the girl is not playing the game right.”

I loled.

3. Badmouthing other girls to bolster her own image           

I think this was kind of an interesting one, mostly because I didn’t think most guys were socially astute enough to catch the myriad of nuanced ways girls can negatively interact with other girls. But one of my guy friends pointed out that he hates it when girls talk about their friends in a way that’s obviously meant to flatter herself in comparison.

“Guys know girls can be sly, and when we see it in action, it’s just repulsive,” he said.

I expressed my skepticism that guys could catch the subtle ways girls manipulate. He thought for a bit, and said, “We don’t always know, but the times we do notice it makes up for all the times we don’t see it.” 

4. Talking in a baby voice.

This one is pretty self-explanatory. All the guys seemed to agree pretty quickly about this particular one.

What are your go-to flirting moves that actually work?