A girl that is dropping hints of interest makes eye contact with you, and does so time and time again.

Regardless of how busy she is, she finds moments to look at you and stare.

Should you so happen to catch her gaze, she either holds the gaze for a few extra seconds, or looks away.

A girl that is confident holds the gaze for a few extra seconds.

A girl that is shy looks away quickly the moment you turn towards her or make eye contact with her.

When a girl consistently makes eye contact with you by either means, she is dropping hints of interest.

Additionally, a girl that is dropping hints of interest wants to be in your physical vicinity or direct line of sight.

If she is across a crowded room from you, she works a path towards where you are physically situated.

In spite of having friends with her, she steers them towards making a path towards you.

She uses these friends for cover.

Basically, she is pretending that she is talking to them wholeheartedly, when in fact, she is pinning her hopes on you noticing her as she talks to them and they systematically move ever-closer to where you are positioned.

On top of this, she has her friends glance in your direction every so often.

This is for a reason.

She wants her friends to keep a watchful eye on you and tell her whether you have glanced in her direction.

There are brief moments that you observe these friends look in your direction, as they get ever-closer to you and your group, while the girl herself pretends that she is unaware of what they are doing.

Purposely, she isn’t looking in your direction as they are.

She is acting as though she is oblivious to what they are doing, leaving it to them to tell her whether you made eye contact with any of them, which would let her know that you were looking in their direction.

In the event that they all get close enough to you, and someone in your group initiates a conversation with them, a girl that is dropping hints of interest isn’t immediately obvious about her interest in you.

She lets her friends do the lion’s share of the talking as she quietly observes you to see whether you look at her from time to time, given how physically close she now is to you.

In this moment, she is paying attention to the questions that her friends are asking of members in your group, so that she gains information about them, and by extension, you.

She wants to learn all she can as her friends interact with your group, so that she gets a better idea of whether she has common interests with members of your group, and by extension, you.

When she finally chimes into the conversation, she is inquisitive, inquiring about information that gives her further insight into where your friends are from and their backgrounds.

These are all strong hints that she is interested in you, even though she isn’t directly talking to you.

This aside, it isn’t particularly hard to tell when you are reading into things with a girl.

This happens when you are too premature in how you interpret her fleeting gestures, immediately assuming that she is dropping hints of interest.

She glances at you once, and you interpret that as a sign of interest.

She smiles at you once, and you convince yourself that this must be because she likes you.

In this scenario, being that you already like her, you are doing everything in your power to make yourself believe she likes you back, by reading too much into one-time gestures she makes in your presence.

When a girl isn’t consistent in showing signs of interest, you are reading into things.