You’ve been pals for a while now but lately you’ve been feeling a little more than platonic and you want them to know. If you’re both single and you suspect there may be some romantic potential between you, here’s how to flirt with a friend without being awkward. Play your cards correctly and you’ll either wind up in a new relationship or at the very least, with a friendship that’s still intact and untouched by your crush.
- Engage in a bit of teasing. If you have a solid friendship, chances are there’s a fair amount of laughter involved in your relationship anyway, so this shouldn’t be a huge stress. In order to flirt with your friend, just turn up the heat on your teasing a little bit. Maybe you joke with them about something a little more suggestive than just the shoes they’re wearing or the way they’re eating their pizza. Get a little bit more romantic about it without being too obvious.
- Spend time together alone, away from a group setting. This person is your friend, so you likely hang out with them fairly regularly. However, if that’s always happening with a group of your other friends, though, it’s going to be hard to go down the path to romance. In order to flirt with your friend, you’ll need to get them one-on-one, away from others so that their attention isn’t being pulled in all different directions.
- Highlight your connection. What are the things that bond you as pals? Are you both into sports? Do you both really love cooking and consider yourself major foodies? Whatever your commonalities, you can flirt by bringing those shared interests into the limelight. The more they realize how compatible you are, the more likely they might be to consider you as a partner, not just a friend.
- Take it slow and keep it light. While you want to put the moves on your friend, you need to make sure you pace yourself. Don’t lose your cool and start going in too hard, too quickly. You not only run the risk of embarrassing yourself but also of alienating your friend if it happens that they don’t feel the same (or they simply haven’t had time to digest the idea of you in a romantic light). Slow and steady wins the race, as they say.
- Increase physical touch. Unless you and your friend are super anti-touching, you probably don’t think twice about hugging them or being close to them. If you want to flirt with them, you can increase how often you touch them and maybe be a bit more direct about it. Of course, you need to be aware of personal boundaries and not do anything to make them uncomfortable, but read their body language and adjust yours so that it displays a more flirtatious vibe.
- Go above and beyond the calls of friendship. Friends are there for each other through thick and thin, of course, but there’s a clear difference between what you’ll do for a friend and the lengths you’ll go to for a romantic partner. If you want to show them how much you like them, go the extra mile to make their lives easier/happier. Do something for them you normally wouldn’t and they’ll likely get the message.
- Be confident. At the end of the day, confidence speaks volumes. You’re an amazing person with so much to offer a partner, whether it’s this friend or someone else, so you need to know that. Put out good energy and if it’s right, it’ll work out.
