People solve this problem by making bigger and bigger signals at each other, until either one side stops making the bigger signals or until the signals are so big you can't ignore them, (also known as "flirting")
Is that so? If yes I'd like to really highlight that because at least for me that would be new and valuable information (introvert speaking here). Or is this a culture-specific 'protocol'?
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.
If you have a crush on someone you usually want to find out if they have one on you too. In my opinion outright asking them is often not a good solution, because if they don't have a crush on you yet it decreases the chance of this ever happening if they know you have one. This believe is based on what I read about love psychology. Hovever I don't really want to discuss the option of outright asking them in this thread, therefore I have not elaborated further how I got to this believe.
The alternative to asking them is trying to interpret signals that they might give you. However to know how many signals you need before you should believe that they are in love with you, you would need the prior. I have not been able to find anything about the prior of someone being in love with you. Therefore my Idea is to do a survey in order to find out how likely it is that a person you know has a crush on you. The plan is to ask the person taking the survey how many people they know well enough to possibly have a crush on them and how many people they actually have a crush on.
I have created a Survey for this and would be really happy if you would participate.
The next stepp would be to discuss how certain signals a person can give you raise the probability of them having a crush on you. That part is quite difficult. I think probably the best way would be to check how your friends react to certain situations and what body language they show you and then, if you find out someone has a crush on you, to look up what he did differently from people who are merely your friends. I am currently not in a good position to do this experiment but if someone wants to try or has results about this to share please do so. However I think this part is less important than finding the prior, because most people have at least a general idea about what certain signals mean from personal experience while at least I have no idea at all what the prior might be.