I have some terrifying news to you: some of them were flirtatious, some of them were friendly. No way of telling them apart.
Well, you can with the science of negging!
Negging?
Ugh, negging... Negging is a tactic used by pick-up artists to help try and make girls sleep with them. The basic concept revolves around slipping subtle insults into the conversation that chip away at the target's self-esteem until they feel so pathetic and hopeless that they'll latch onto any horrid wretch nearby for emotional support... Which the person negging is happy to provide, of course. In exchange for sex.
Nah, that's not a correct understanding of how negging works. It's about convincing the other person that
you aren't interested in them.
This is from wikipedia, from the creator of the concept:
A neg is not an insult but a negative social value judgment that is telegraphed. It's the same as if you pulled out a tissue and blew your nose. There's nothing insulting about blowing your nose. You haven't explicitly rejected her. But at the same time, she will feel that you aren't even trying to impress her. This makes her curious as to why and makes you a challenge.
Point being that if you
insulted them then that is an explicit rejection, which is clearly the opposite of what you want. Maybe if some insulting bastard is talking to her she'll seek emotional support, but it will be with anyone
except the insulter. Cognitive dissonance will be overcome by merely labeling the insulter as an idiot.
This is from the other main proponent:
Neil Strauss, in his book Rules of the Game, also stresses that the primary point of the technique is not to put women down but for a man to disqualify himself as a potential suitor. On this account he refers to negs as "disqualifiers", although the technique described in the book is recognisably the same as von Markovik's. Strauss is equally clear that negs should not be used as insults: "a disqualifier should never be hostile, critical, judgmental, or condescending. There's a line between flirting and hurting. And disqualification is never intended to be mean and insulting."
The key phrase here is "a man to disqualify himself as a potential suitor". It really just boils down to males appropriating cliched women's "hard to get" tactics. The key psychological aspect here is that people most want what they can't have.