Of all the baffling aspects of human connection, flirting might be one of the most baffling of all. It’s defined by author Stings Custom as “a socially coded way of asking, ‘Hey, I like you. Do you like me back?’” and indeed, its “social codedness” can make it confusing for lots of folks, myself sometimes included.

However, there’s a concept from psychology that has helped me a lot with this. Couples’ therapist John Gottman coined the idea of a “bid for connection,” defined on his website as “any attempt from one partner to another [to seek] attention, affirmation, affection, or any other positive connection.” Reaching out to hold your partner’s hand is a bid; telling them they look hot is a bid; it can even be a bid to comment on random stuff you see while out and about (e.g. “Look at that cute dog!”). With all of these examples, you’re ultimately asking for a moment of intimacy and connection when your partner hopefully responds positively to your bid.

While Gottman’s work focuses mostly on established couples, I have also found “bids for connection” to be a helpful framework in trying to understand how my crushes might feel about me. As a teen, I consumed a lot of media which suggested you had to “decode” a crush’s behavior, looking out for unconscious body-language cues and the like – but I always found that stuff somewhat amorphous and hard to parse. Bids for connection is a much simpler concept to grasp, and it has helped me enormously.

When a friend is struggling to figure out whether their crush likes them back, I’ll often advise that they pay attention to actions, not words – patterns of behavior and effort moreso than patterns of speech. (Words are important too, and should always be respected if someone sets a boundary, etc., but most people won’t come right out and say “I like you,” so for that type of assessment, behavior is king.) For instance, if someone texts you a funny meme they saw that relates to one of your interests, it’s possible that they genuinely just thought you would like it – but IMO, it’s more likely that they also wanted to connect with you. They wanted to delight you, to make you laugh, to invite further conversation, and/or to demonstrate how well they know you. They’re not saying that, but it’s observable in patterns of behavior over time.