Maybe you’ve been locking eyes with someone in a crowded room, but you’ve never actually spoken to them yet. Perhaps you’ve recently become friends with someone but you already want to be something more than friends. Or maybe you have been talking to someone but you have not entered into an official dating relationship with them yet.
In situations like these, and many others, it can be hard to know how someone really feels about you. You want to stay open to the possibility of being in a relationship with them, but you also don’t want to get hurt by getting your hopes up.
Therefore, here are 4 biblical steps you can take that will help you gain more clarity about their feelings for you.
1. Prayerfully Reflect on the Facts God Has Already Shown You
Throughout the Bible, there is a principle that goes something like this: Before God will give you more, he first wants you to steward what he’s already given you (Luke 16:10, Matthew 25:23). Thus, if you want God to give you more information about how this person feels for you, you should first make sure you are stewarding well the information he has already given you.
Sometimes we overlook the signs God is showing us because they are not the signs we expected or wanted. For example, perhaps you have been asking God if you should wait for a man to pursue you; but in reality, this man has already been pursuing you without you realizing. Is he calling you regularly? Is he spending time with you? Is he trying to be kind? Perhaps this man is getting mixed signals because he’s been trying to pursue you but you seem distant. Maybe you thought he was just going to say, “I like you. Will you be my girlfriend?” By praying and reflecting on what’s been happening already, you will see God is giving you a different sign than you expected to help you see how this man feels about you.
Or perhaps you are a man who has strong feelings for a really good female friend of yours. You’ve been asking the Lord to make his will clear to you. However, in the past, you’ve already told this woman you like her but she said she just wants to be friends. Nothing is changing. In fact, it seems like she is very content to never date you and only be your friend. By reflecting on these types of details and praying about them, you will see that God has already shown you how she feels about you. But since you want her to like you as more than a friend, you may be ignoring the clear signs that are saying this is not the case.
2. Do More
Sometimes you can pray and reflect and pray and reflect and pray and reflect . . . but no matter how much you pray and reflect, you are still in the dark about how this person feels about you.
Many times people are confused about how someone feels about them because they have not done anything that will provide them with the necessary evidence they need to draw logical conclusions. God has created this universe to operate with certain laws. One such law is that when there is an action, there is always a reaction. It’s cause and effect. The Bible uses the language of “sowing and reaping” (Galatians 6:7). This law that we can see in the physical world around us can also be seen in relationships.
Whenever you do something that involves another person, that person will always give some sort of response. Even if they completely ignore you and seemed completely unaffected by your action, there non-reaction is in fact a reaction.
Therefore, if you want to know how someone feels about you, one of the first things you must do is interact with them more. Every time you interact, whether that be through talking in person, spending time together doing an activity, or engaging them from a distance through technology, you are going to gain evidence about how they might feel about you.
However, little interactions are not going to provide you lots of evidence when taken in isolation. One pleasant conversation doesn’t mean much. But if you have good interaction, followed by another good interaction, and so on and so forth, now you are accumulating real evidence that perhaps this person has positive feelings for you.
Most people know what I’m saying but they won’t do it because they are afraid. They know that if they actually do something to interact with this person they like, they will get a very clear answer one way or the other. Thus, in fear of it not going well, they often sit passively so they cling to the hope that maybe they will be with this person one day.
I say this is a bad way to live. Life is risky. The only way to avoid risk is to stop living. Wouldn’t you rather know this is not the person for you rather than just waiting and waiting and never knowing? And besides, you never know, perhaps your efforts will be rewarded and you two will realize you do like each other.
All that to say, if you are still confused about how someone feels about you, do more. Call more, text more, try to hang out more. The more you do, the more evidence you will get.
3. Do Less
After you’ve done more, the next option is to do less. I believe you should start with the proactive method because the “do less” approach doesn’t really work without first doing something.
For example, if you want to know how someone at church feels about you but they don’t even know who you are, doing less isn’t going to help you. However, when you’ve been approaching someone at church for a few weeks in a row and trying to small talk with them, but you still don’t know how they feel, it could be wise to then do less. By not approaching them for a few weeks, this person will either notice your absence and seek you out or they will not seek you out.
When you’ve been putting in effort to see if someone likes you but there is still a lack of information, the safest thing to do is to assume they don’t like you. By then pulling away, if they do like you, they will seek you out and this will be evidence about how they feel for you.
Is this manipulative? Is this playing games? No. It’s not. It’s requiring someone to treat you with respect and love if they want to be in your life. But endlessly putting in effort with someone who is not doing the same, you will either waste your time with someone who doesn’t like you or you will attract manipulative people who just want to be served rather than mutually serving you two (Philippians 2:4). Things need to be mutual for biblical romance to occur (Genesis 2:24, 24:8).
4. Just Ask
In the vast majority of cases, there is plenty of evidence present to know how someone feels about you. If you don’t have enough evidence to know how someone feels about you, I don’t recommend that you just ask. They will probably just tell you they don’t like you because if you don’t have evidence from spending time with them, that means they don’t know you that well. So why would they like you if they don’t know you.
Thus, I don’t think you should ask how someone feels about you until you absolutely need to. If things are not going well with someone, you don’t need to ask how they feel. You have your answer already. However, if things are going well with someone, but the relationship has not progressed into dating, then it could be time to just ask something like, “So how do you feel about me?”
If you do ask someone this, I think it’s best to say how you feel first. If you’re a woman and man is taking it too slow for your liking, you could say, “I do like you but I’m confused about how you feel about me. Do you see us dating or do you just like me as a friend?” I don’t recommend you do this as a woman unless you absolutely need to. Ideally a man should be leading in this area.
If you are a man and things are going well with a woman but you’re not sure if she would ever date you, eventually you will need to verbalize your feelings and just ask her on a date or ask her to be your girlfriend.
Speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15).
Related Article: Christian Dating and the “Define the Relationship” (DTR) Talk
