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It can be hard to see the signals when they’re exploding right in front of your face.

Sometimes appearances can be deceiving. It’s easy to fake looking busy studying or pretending to be a Japanese old man, and apparently it’s not that hard to accidentally fake being a gentleman too.

That’s what happened to Japanese Twitter user @nonozineko when they recounted a story of how they unintentionally became one woman’s knight in shining armor.

Here’s the original tweet: (translation below)

“A little while ago I drove one of my female coworkers home, and today at work she told me how I acted so chivalrously. She said that I slammed the brakes at one point, and when I did, I put my arm in front of her to protect her. But in all honesty, I’m way too much of a bachelor brute to do something like that. The passenger seat is usually just where I put my shopping bags.”

(continued below)

“What really happened is I just put my arm in front of the passenger seat out of habit, since that’s what I do to stop the bags from going flying whenever I hit the break normally. Honestly I didn’t care about her one bit, but I still told her, ‘But of course,’ keeping the pathetic-sounding truth to myself.”

…wait a minute. I mean, yeah sure, that’s a funny story and all, but dude, seriously? I think you’re missing the point: she likes you, bro.

It doesn’t matter whether or not you acted like a gentleman on purpose, all that matters is that she came up to talk to you the next day. She probably didn’t even really care what you did, she was just looking for an excuse to talk to you again. And then you just… let it go? Did you not hear the signals blaring?!

As a guy myself I can sympathize with not understanding the intentions of women sometimes, but this seems pretty clear-cut. He even said he was a bachelor. Maybe the woman was married? Or maybe the man just didn’t want to admit he was already in a cardboard relationship?

Either way, it went right over the head of the rest of the collective Japanese Twitter too. Here’s some other reactions:

“Oh man, I accidentally do that all the time too.”
“My mom does that to me all the time.”
“This is why you should buckle your bags in.”
“Why don’t you just put your shopping bags in the trunk?”
“(In response) Because if they’re in the trunk I can’t protect them with my arm.”

Am… am I missing something here? Is there some sort of cultural gap I’m oblivious to? Because I thought that making small talk with someone about something you did together is the universal sign for “please ask me out on a date.”

Whatever. We’ll never understand woman. Anyway, it’s time to go make some jokes about “balls” online. Tee hee!

Source: Twitter/@nonozineko via BUZZmag
Featured/top image: GAHAG