The extend to which people engage in plausible deniable signals is culture specific.

I know a guy who's good with women who goes by the principle that whenever he would like more intimacy with a woman he voices that desire in the NVC way. For him not standing up for his own desire would be not respecting himself enough to believe his desire is important.

There are social circles where it works to say: "Hey, I would really like to interact with you and feel uncomfortable because at the moment I don't see a good way to start an interaction. I would like to cuddle with you today."

There are cultures and social circles where girls play hard to get, there are cultures where they don't.

I'm pretty sure flirting works more or less the same in most of the Western world. As a general strategy for gauging interest with plausible deniability, I imagine it's universal.