So, I'm thinking of an idea for a short fantasy or medieval romance story, but I have a question -- mostly for guys, but if any girls have insight, they can of course share.

I've read in so many stories where a girl thinks that she is just being friends with a guy and it turns out later in the book that he thought she was encouraging him to love her. I suppose that must mean that guys see these things different from girls -- anyway, I wanted to have a situation like this, but wasn't sure how exactly to do it.

So question -- what are some ways you think a girl might act or behave in a friendship with a boy that might lead him to think she was interested or encouraging him, even though she didn't mean to?

The trouble is that guys like me don't need encouragement to fall in love; simple kindness, common courtesy, and so on is more than plenty. (Though I'm dense and obtuse enough that I'd need a great deal of "encouragement" to think my feelings might be returned and thus take this any farther than writing bad melancholy poetry about it.) I find this quote from the novel The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold rings very true with my own experience:

On the other hand, how much of my fortune or misfortune (to quote Shakespeare's As You Like It: "The greatest fault you have is to be in love" / "It is a fault I would not change for your best virtue") of "falling in love" on so little provocation is due to our culture's fixation on romantic love to the exclusion of all other kinds, I don't know, so it's quite possible that a young man in a different culture would function differently. (But on the gripping hand, I highly recommend reading the first---or is it the second?---anyway, the chapter on the history of courtly love in C. S. Lewis's The Allegory of Love. It was an eye-opener for me.)

Thank you, jon! That is helpful -- a very good observation about our culture, I had not thought of that. I will try to look into that book as well, C. S. Lewis is always good.

For the record, some girls are likely to fall in love with any young men who they are often in contact with. All he has to do is smile at them a few times.

Yep, I definitely know that's true. I was just wondering though how things might be different for a guy character.

Eh, not sure. It would depend on the character.

I think it goes both ways that if she is the only girl that treats you like a human being (or vice versa) feelings can be established because it opens up a world of contact that hormones don't always know what to do with. If you've never had good relations with the opposite gender before then I can see this happening more so.

I love this kind of thing...
It depends on the type of people you have, but this might be the situation you're trying for.
Girls are more emotional and more expressive than boys. Just as this shows when they are angry, it shows when they're happy.
For example, if the boy does something nice for the girl -even if he's just been a shoulder to cry on -said girl might give him a hug. As guys dont usually do hugs, this would be seen as a sign of extreme affection from the boy's point of view, whereas the girl just sees it as a thank you. See?
Or a kiss on the cheek, or shared smiles for no apparent reason. Even a possible I love you, in a friend kind of way. Many girls I know wouldn't throw around I love yous in way of thanks, but I know some who do. "Oh, thank you, thank you, I love you, you're the greatest, thank you so much." That could be confusing to boys. Or using I love yous to get something, like the old fall-back "Hi Daddy. I love you..." to which my father replies, "What do you want this time?"
Okay that was a joke. But it's a possibilty.

Thank you, Aldara! Good thoughts. I'll be back later to give a few story specifics, if that might help.

This shouldn't be so very difficult, just make your character like you. You don't know the answers, neither does she, and so you're good.

Sorry, not helpful, I know... I'm not going to be very helpful since I think that it varies from person to person and that the most innocent things can be a cause of that, and vice versa.

My thoughts... *ponders* Hm... I think Aldara said my thoughts quite nicely.

However, it all depends on the person. I'm fine with hugs, but I don't do it much because I often don't know how the other person will take it. So you could just make the character act how you want the character to act.

Of course, all of this varies significantly with context. My sophomore year of college (after a very lonely freshman year) I got drawn into a group of friends that we call "the fam", within which "hugs all round" are de rigeur (albeit with a few awkward moments on first meetings between members, as they're never required). But yes, what Aldara describes is more or less true from my perspective (a hug as "extreme" affection might be going a bit far; I'd say that a hug is "affectionate enough to be possibly-ambiguous").

*nods* Hugs are annoying that way.

Jon already got most of my thoughts in pretty good so I will just second his comments

Andrew

Okay, I think that's probably all I need, unless someone has other thoughts -- basically, the story is between a girl of one royal house and a boy of another. Their families want the houses to join, but the boy is a lot younger than the girl, and very short and not very attractive or outstanding in any way. So they get married because of the royalty thing, but she doesn't respect or care about him.

However, I wanted him to be a really amazing guy on the inside, so I didn't like the idea of him marrying her even though she didn't want to do that -- so I thought perhaps if she tried to be kind to him beforehand because other people were unkind, it might help make him feel that she would be okay with it.

Basically, I'm wanting to show that a good marriage is not based on feelings but choices.

But I wanted to find out what things she might do to try to make him feel better just to be kind that he might take as interest or at least that she liked him fine.

Oh, that's easy. She just has to be nice to him. If she hated him and hated the marriage and hated the idea of spending the rest of her life with him then it would come out in her behavior. She would be cold and aloof and reserved and withdrawn and positively hostile. If she doesn't like the idea, but is more or less reconciled, but doesn't want to make him feel bad about her situation then... she'd be nice to him. Smile. Talk. Listen. Be his friend.

Well see, she can't stand the idea of being married to him for the rest of her life. It's not that she hates him, she is just young and romantic and doesn't look up to him or respect him or care about him that way.

She was trying to be nice to him before she realized he was the guy she was supposed to marry.

How's the story coming?

'Tis actually on back burner now, Elly, though I wrote one scene. Thanks for asking!