10 Sneaky Ways He’s Leading You On (Without You Even Realizing It)

Men can be sneaky. Women can be sneaky. Everyone is capable of leading someone on, I mean, hell, I bet you’ve even done it without realizing it before. I bet that you’ve led someone on and haven’t known that it’s happened. I bet that you went off and you made someone fall madly in love with you… that’s not the point. The point is that sometimes, it’s not accidental. Sometimes it’s flat-out malicious. Sometimes, a man (read: boy) will lead you on just for the hell of it because it’s “fun” or “entertaining”, or sometimes it’s just because he wants some kind of attention. Yes, I’m dead serious. He just wants attention. Let me repeat: Boys are sneaky, and they will lead you on for attention and an ego boost.

Remember, this is no fault of yours, but here are some tips on how to realize he’s doing it:

1. He forgets an important event or date – and then brings you flowers. Honey, he didn’t forget the event, he was with someone else, and brought you the flowers as an apology for forgetting it, actually, the flowers were to make YOU forget that he didn’t show. He

2. For all you know, the flowers could have been meant for one of the other women that he’s seeing, and she rejected them, because well, you know. He’s a loser and there’s a 100% chance that he’s “forgotten” something with her/them too. You know, because he’s oh so forgetful about everything, at one point or another every other woman is bound to snap.

3. He’ll take you on huge extravagant dates but can’t remember your birthday. Or in some cases an important thing that you’ve told him. Yes, we’re back to forgetfulness, but this is so important. If he’s taking you on huge extravagant dates but can’t remember your birthday? There. Is. A. Problem. A big one. He’ll spend all this money but can’t remember the day you were born whether it’s a huge deal to you or not, everyone likes to have their birthday remembered.

4. He “playfully” flirts with other women in front of you. He’ll touch them, poke them, tease them, joke around with them, tell them how good they look, tell you how good they look, he’ll practically throw himself at them in front of you! It’s just a joke though, and a lot of the time the woman will be your friend. Remember: it’s not her fault. Take a look at what he’s doing. He’s the one that’s touching her and she’s practically recoiling.

5. He always has an excuse not to commit to something, or when commitment comes up, he starts to run away. Dates, vacations, things that he’s mentioned in the past and even something small and simple. Titles. He won’t let you call him your boyfriend and oh no he certainly won’t call you his girlfriend. Why do there need to be titles? All they do is ruin things? All they do is make things more complicated, right? No, he won’t start to run away he’ll just leave you hanging high and dry, and you won’t know what else to do. He’ll put you in situations and then just not really care.

6. On and off again. Constantly. One minute he’s madly in love with you, crazy about you, you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to him. The next minute he’s not answering his phone and he’s treating you like you’re the complete scum of the Earth. You’re just smothering him, why can’t you just give him a break? Any of this sound familiar?

7. He doesn’t bring you around his friends. Conveniently, every time you’re supposed to meet them they’re always busy or something suddenly came up where you can’t meet with them. It’s also impossible just to get him to let you talk to them. It’s hard to get him to let you anywhere near anyone that he cares about or all these people that he’s with when he’s not with you.

8. If he won’t let you meet his friends oh God forbid, meeting his family? That’s a dream, isn’t it? You’ve heard all about them, you’ve asked about meeting them, you’ve talked to him about meeting them, you’ve been around him while he’s on the phone with them, but he always just says a generic thing about you “A friend”, “My girl”, “My sweetheart”, anything of that sort. Do they even know who you are?

9. He won’t show you where he lives. He wants to take it slow and he’s so gentlemanly, he always picks you up and drops you off at your place. So sweet. He doesn’t want to be the type of guy that lets you pick him up, but he’ll let you foot the bill. He’ll ask you for gas money at times. But it’s still sweet! He wants to make sure you get everywhere safely!

10. Finally, one day, you’ll wake up and realize that you know nothing deep about him. You know what he likes. You know his dogs name (even though you’ve never met him), you know all these superficial things about him that seem like just enough to keep things going and to keep things special and make you feel loved and like you’re his person and he’s your person, but what do you really know about this guy? Think about it.

Being lead on may also have many similarities to being in an emotionally abusive relationship. It would be very, very similar to having someone emotionally harming you to the point that you can’t handle anymore. He may do some super sweet things, but just ask yourself the question if you see these six signs – How many other women is he playing the same game with?