Complimenting someone is not flirting!

[Sadana]

He does not.

Even more amusement. XD

OP: Yeah, sadly this sort of thing happens irl as well as in game. And I'll agree with the aforementioned trust issues. :/

[Eye_Gore]

Probably just joking around with you, didn't know what else to say, maybe felt awkward and wanted the situation to to go away fast.

[EpicCid]

Sounds like an attempt to make a joke.

[Elusana_Celah]

Oh boy I had some guy in a duty finder once start like hugging me and talking about how cute I look and asking me what server I'm on and how he's going to make a character on my server...

But I'm married to someone in game who I love very much so I just linked my eternity ring in chat as a reply and he immediately stopped talking to me LOL.

[dekal]

He does not.

Heh I do the same. It is fun throw off some players with some goofy behavior =P.

[Kemiko]

From the sounds of things it appears to be a trust issue in his personal relationship though very well could have been him having bad experiences in DF or his server with compliments leading into more and him just reading that as a flag to pre-emptively shut down any attempts. I personally welcome compliments on my play style, skill in a class, dungeon, job, role or trial or on the aesthetics of my character or the glamour I have. I spend a lot of time trying to be the best I can in this areas and probably more time and gil than I should on glamours alone. It's a shame, SayuriHime, you aren't on Faerie because I'd welcome your compliments and would hopefully give you some in-turn.

Now, that's not to say that all compliments aren't flirting - because they very well can be. If I were to compliment a man on his physique that could be entirely harmless (some men just deserve it when they obviously work to look the way they do) but if done a certain way it could be misunderstood as me coming on to them (this has happened before).

Emoting, however, is more straight forward I think. If someone is flirting with you using emotes I think it'll be pretty obvious if they're flirting with you or not. For obvious reason if I'm using /wave or /bow I am not flirting and anyone thinking I am has no excuse for it. However, if I emote certain positioning, stances, eye-batting, or other obviously flirty gestures then, well, I was flirting. Some people aren't as affectionate in-game just like IRL so /hug could come off as something people aren't comfortable with. I generally feel a person out or just ask them if they have an issue with it. Some do, some don't but for the most part people don't particularly care - its a game after all.

Though the couple internal trust issue is a real. A friend of mine doesn't even have a Skype account because his significant other doesn't want him to have one because they're afraid of what he may do with it. Mind you, they have a Skype account. Its mind-boggling to me - as the only time I ever agreed to stop any form of communication with anyone at the request of my significant other was when it was obvious that the party of interest was actively flirting with me.

tl;dr
Compliments can be misunderstood as flirting but in most cases no. Emoting generally isn't flirting unless intended to be. People have issues.

[Krazymagic]

Consider your source.....Youre dealing with, often times, a lot of people who don't have much of a life outside of gaming, and thus have very poor social skills. In my 15+ years of gaming Ive seen a lot of really weird stuff, and when you get to know the people you start to understand why... A lot of emotionally and psychologically challenged folks tend to flock to gaming Ive noticed. I think its sort of an escape from reality type of thing. You have little or no social life but you can log into an MMO and have thousands of people and interactions, and many ppl let this become their reality. When someone is relying on an MMO social structure to meet their many psychological needs, you get a lot of wierd "stuff". Ive been a guild founder and leader in several mmo's over the past 10 years, and I got to where I tried to screen for this type of stuff in my recruitment process. On the time availabilities for example - if for every day of the week the applicant answers "All day" I denied the application. I tried to focus on people who had career's, owned their own house, and/or had a family....you end up with much more quality membership when you do, and little to no drama.

[Skivvy]

Probably just joking around with you, didn't know what else to say, maybe felt awkward and wanted the situation to to go away fast.

My guess as well. :3

[Altijacek]

So much drama ended up happening irl because of stupid issues like this >_> lost someone extremely important to me that I dated for years. That said, I flirt with dudes in my FC all the time for fun lol :P P.S. I'm a straight dude lol, it's just funny to play around with FC mates, like saying "hey stud," or whatever lol.

[Eye_Gore]

So much drama ended up happening irl because of stupid issues like this >_> lost someone extremely important to me that I dated for years.

I hate to say it, and I'll apologize upfront if you take this the wrong way. If someone got all up in arms over a video game chat and left you because of that, that person has some severe insecurities and you're better off.