In a perfect world women would turn neon red when they like you or immediately give you a time and location to meet for sex. Unfortunately there's no one clear sign that a woman you meet at a party or a club is into you. Even if she says she wants to have sex with you, this could just be a way of testing to see how desperate you are, or a ploy to make her nearby ex jealous. Some natural ladykillers describe their ability to tell when a woman is interested as a kind of sixth sense. In reality they are simply practiced at recognizing a woman's indicators of interest (IOIs). By themselves, no one of these below signs is a dead giveaway that the woman you just met is interested in you. As a general rule, three IOIs is your cue to take things to the next level: get her number, move her to a more isolated place to talk, or see if she wants to dance. How much she likes you, or how much she is willing to give into her desires is another matter. In the end, developing romantic liaisons with strangers always carries some degree of risk, which is what makes it fun. As always, none of these rules apply to strippers or bartenders. In fact, to learn IOIs you could study what strippers and cocktail waitresses do to convince you they genuinely like you: they touch you, they ask about your life, they laugh at all your jokes, they give you nicknames…
This article appears in Nov 10-16, 2011.