Flirting or Friendly?

I feel the need to start out this post by pointing out the fact that I'm a dude. And because I'm a dude, like every other person who belongs to the male race, there's 2 things you need to know about me/us: 1) We were given 2 heads with only enough blood to flow to one at a time (and let's be real, 9 times out of 10 it's the one below the equator), 2) We're dumb in the fact that we don't understand hidden meanings...we're BEYOND stupid to that stuff.

That said, ladies -- do you realize how difficult it is for a dude to tell the difference between whether you're flirting with us or whether you're just being friendly to us? Well, I shouldn't say "us" -- I can't speak for every guy because there's plenty of douches out there that think their s**t don't stink who assume anytime a girl says hi to them, she wants the D. But for dudes who aren't gonna end up divorced at least twice by the time they're 40, it's a really tough thing to figure out. Case in point:

I host trivia on Monday and Wednesday nights. Well, my Wednesday night place closed for a bit, reopened a month ago under a new owner, and he brought on a couple new people to the staff, including this total KNOCKOUT of a bartender. I'll call her Paige (pretty much because that's her real name and I couldn't careless if she ever reads this). Normally she bails before the end of trivia so we never really get a chance to talk, but for whatever reason last night she hung around and had a couple beers and was there after I packed up. I was walking behind the bar talking to some of the staff at the end of the night, and we ended up bumping into each other and just shooting the s**t and joking around. I was obviously being kinda flirty, partly because that's just my personality, but also because she's REALLY pretty.

So bla bla bla, a friend was getting up to leave so I wanted to go say bye, I come back and Paige was somewhere else doing her thing...no big deal. Randomly one of my frequent returner teams every week leaned over to me and said they thought she was into me. Now I take stuff like that with a grain of salt, more or less because I don't wanna come across as a total self-absorbed douche like the guys I talked about 2 paragraphs up. But obviously I paid attention..and Paige actually walked back to me and we kept talking. And talking. And I was putting in time. And I was holding my own (look, I'm not trying to sound emo by saying OMGZ SHEZ OUTTA MY LEAGUEZ, but girl is a knockout. And not that I think I'm ugly, but I'm a pretty average-looking chubby dude. And before you even try and start pouring compliments onto me saying not to be so hard on myself, I'm not. I'm just a realist, and I'm cool with it.)

So she asks me why I never stick around for a drink after. So naturally in my head I'm trying to figure out if that's an invitation to start staying late to have drinks with her and spend some time. So we're talking, and 10 minutes into the convo, just out of habit of the convo (I think I asked her why she was staying late since I never see her staying after to have drinks either), she drops the bomb that she was just waiting for her boyfriend to pick her up. (Naturally, the wiseass I am, respond with "Well now I definitely have no reason to stay after for some drinks." I was proud..she laughed.)

So ladies, I'm throwing this over to you. HOW are we, as guys -- dumb, clueless guys -- supposed to get when you're flirting with us and when you're just being friendly. Better yet, how are we supposed to realize the difference between you being flirty with us but have a boyfriend, and when you're being flirty with us because you're actually interested in us and want to see what happens? Ready...GO!