You’re at the bar with your buds when you see a woman across the room.

She’s your kind of hot. When she bends over to pick up a lipgloss she’d dropped, you see that her rear could make angels sing. “Damnnnn,” you think.

She meets your eyes after she’s straightened up, and you slap your buddy’s arm and say, “I’m gonna be right back.”

You get over there and start chatting with her. Everything seems fine. She’s nodding along to what you’re saying. She’s smiling and holding her beer.

“You want a drink?” you ask.

“Sure,” she says.

You strut to the bar and order two more drafts. You silently congratulate yourself for nailing it with this gal.

But when you bring it back to her, her friend is now at her side chatting with her.

“Here’s your beer,” you say.

“Thanks,” she says and gives a little smile.

You chat with both of them for a few minutes, but then she says, “Thanks for the beer. Nice talking to you,” and she slips away. What the hell just happened? you’re left thinking.

You go back to your buds.

“How’d it go?” one asks you.

“I don’t even know,” you say. “I thought it was going well, and then she left.”

Studies indicate that men often overestimate women’s sexual interest. It’s a problem that gets into the dark underbelly of sexual differences and into the realm of sexual harassment and assault.

You cannot focus on how physically attractive you find a woman to sense whether she’s interested. You have to focus instead on her subtle nonverbal cues, including facial expressions and body language, to assess that.

Let’s go back and look at the same scene paying attention to nonverbal language.

You walk over there and say, “Hey, how’s it going? I’m Brad.”

“Sara. I’m good,” she says. She’s holding her beer in front of her, in between the two of you. She’s sort of leaning back.

“Come here often?”

“Not really,” she says. “My co-worker wanted to celebrate her promotion.”

“Where do you work?” You lean forward, and she takes a tiny step back.

“A financial firm. We’re both CPAs.” She cuts her eyes around the room.

“Me too. What firm are you both with?”

She tells you. You tell her what firm you’re with.

“You ever hear some accountant jokes?”

“I mean, a few. They’re always terrible.”

“I heard this one last week: ‘Did you hear about the cannibal CPA? She charges an arm and a leg.’”

“Funny,” she says without laughing. She looks down at her nearly empty beer.

“You want another beer?”

“Sure,” she says.

You skip (not literally) off to the bar while she’s thankful for the opportunity to get you away and gesture to one of her friends to come over.

If you’re a man, you might be super angry at this injustice. You’re spending money on her, and she just wants you away from her! Why couldn’t she just tell you?!?

In the landscape we live in, politely rejecting you isn’t always a woman’s safest bet.

She might tell you that she’s not interested, and you might make a scene, which is the last thing she wants when she’s out with her friends. You might call her a “bitch” and shuffle off.

She might tell you she has a boyfriend or is married, and you might say, “I wasn’t fucking talk to you to get in your pants. I was just chatting with you!” Even though, let’s be real, that wasn’t honest. You were hoping, mister.

She might tell you that she’s not interested, and you also might ignore her rejection altogether: “Come on. We were having a nice chat, weren’t we? Don’t you want to wait to see where this goes?” Then she has to re-affirm what she already told you, and thus worry about one of the above reactions again.

And there are worse reactions women fear. You might try to grope her. You might follow her out to her car. You might wait outside and try to assault her.

These are things women have to think about.

You might be thinking, But I’m a nice guy. I’d never do that. That’s other dudes.

It doesn’t matter.

A woman has no idea how you’re going to handle a rejection, and the worst-case scenarios always flit through her mind because those things have happened to her before. Those things have happened to nearly all women at one time in their lives.

Let’s play the same scene over again a little differently. Pay attention to the difference in body language.

You walk over there and say, “Hey, how’s it going? I’m Brad.”

“Sara.“ she says. She shakes your hand and smiles at you. “I’m good. You?”

“Come here often?”

“Not really,” she says and leans toward you. “My co-worker wanted to celebrate her promotion.”

“Where do you work?” you ask.

“A financial firm. We’re both CPAs.” She bites her bottom lip.

“Me too. You ever hear some accountant jokes?”

“I mean, a few. They’re always terrible,” she runs her hand along her hair and meets your eyes.

“I heard this one last week: ‘Did you hear about the cannibal CPA? She charges an arm and a leg.’”

She laughs and touches your arm. “That was a terrible joke! The last one I heard was: ‘What’s an accountant’s favorite book? 50 Shades of Grey.’ A little inappropriate, but still funny.”

You laugh and ask, “You want another beer?”

“Sure,” she says.

Not only is she throwing off plenty of nonverbal cues that she is in, but she’s engaging with you. You’re not the only one carrying the conversation, and you have her full and undivided attention. From her body language, she is clearly not being just pleasant.

Some things you can look for: