signs a cancer man is playing you

Cancer men are known for their moods that shift like the Moon’s phases. This can be part of their sensitive charm, though. How can you tell when those slippery qualities cross the line into signs a Cancer man is playing you?

1. He doesn’t show his emotions

Cancer men are known for their propensity to become moody and withdrawn. If you have never seen the mopey, gloomy side of your Cancer man, he doesn’t trust you enough to let it all hang out yet.

Even in an ideal scenario, it will take a while for the Cancer man to feel comfortable opening up to you. It’s normal for anyone to put their best face on in a new relationship. Still, the Cancerian man can be hesitant to open his heart longer than others because he wants to protect his feelings.

If it goes on too long, though, a chipper Cancer man is a Cancer man to be suspicious of. Suppose he is trying to decide between multiple women he is playing. In that case, he can stay in new relationship mode seemingly indefinitely.

2. He’s too withdrawn

It is normal for a Cancer man to need his personal space, and it can be hard to tell the difference between that and something more.

If he doesn’t text you back regularly, or if he never seems to want to hang out with you, maybe it is not relevant whether he is playing you. If the Cancer man wants to be with you, he will act like it. Even if his reason does not have anything to do with any other woman, the fact that he ignores you to that extent shows that he may not want a relationship with you.

Your desire for a Cancer man can make you oblivious to the fact that you are being unwanted. Still, you need to listen to those feelings and find someone else who does want a relationship with you.

Even in an ideal scenario, it will take a while for the Cancer man to feel comfortable opening up to you. Click To Tweet

3. He’s not hungry

The way to a Cancer man’s heart is through his stomach. He is almost always up for some delicious comfort food. He might even have an exceptional talent for preparing it himself.

If you are hanging out with a guy who won’t eat something you have prepared, this could be one of the signs that your Cancer man is playing you. He might just say he’s not hungry, and while sometimes it can be true, he might have already eaten with some other woman before he met up with you.

4. You don’t go to his house

man and woman walking otdoors

The Cancer guy is proud of his house. Whether he shares it with others or has the whole place to himself, he makes as much of it as he can into his home.

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If the Cancer man tries to evade showing you where he lives, he could be a hoarder who is embarrassed to take you to his messy home. It sometimes happens with Cancers. Honestly, reforming a guy who is into playing women is probably easier than dealing with the more severe hoarding problem.

However, if he’s not a hoarder, he might be concerned that another woman left her personal items at his house.

5. You can’t find him on social media

Not everyone likes broadcasting their life online. If anyone is tempted to avoid social media, it might be the Cancer man, as he needs his privacy. While this sign alone does not mean that Cancer man is playing you, it can’t be ignored as a part of a larger picture.

How do you know that your Cancer man is not on social media? Is that just what he told you, or did you look it up for yourself?

Some people are on social networks under nicknames, which can make it hard to search for them. If you feel tempted to dig, be prepared to find his profile with his official girlfriend or wife all over.

Cancer man values keeping in touch with his close connections. If he’s serious about a relationship, he probably will want to acknowledge it in some way on social media.

If anyone is tempted to avoid social media, it might be the Cancer man, as he needs his privacy. Click To Tweet

6. He’s on his phone all the time

Is your Cancer man constantly on his phone messing around when you are trying to hang out with him? What is happening on the Internet that is more interesting than you are?

Playing you with other women might not be the only explanation for a Cancer man browsing on their phone too much. Cancer men enjoy their hobbies, which can include the arts and collecting. He may be hanging out in hobby groups online.

Even if there is not another woman involved, a Cancer man who spends too much of his time in an online world that you aren’t part of might not be right for you.

7. He acts cold in public

Cancer men can be very affectionate, and this is one of the sweet things about them. They are private people, so the best cuddling happens in more intimate settings, and that’s totally normal. Cancer’s life seems to be an ongoing tug of war between opening his heart and protecting his heart, and he does not always have an easy answer.

Cancer is one of the more innocent Zodiac signs overall, so whatever he would do in public would likely be pretty safe. If he won’t even hold your hand in public, though, what is up with that?

A Cancer man is usually proud of his relationship. If he tries too hard to keep the rest of the world from seeing physical evidence that he has feelings for you, this may be a sign he is playing you.

8. He is affectionate with other women

mans back and womans hands on his neck

Cancer men can find their tremendous emotional nature challenging. Some handle it by shutting down and becoming depressed. However, the Cancer men who embrace their emotional side can turn out to be cuddly and huggy with the whole entire world.

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You are definitely better off with the emotionally open type of Cancer man than you are with the repressed type. If the hugs he gave you as a friend were what got you craving more, it might be hard for you to watch him act that way with other women.

Not every hug a Cancer man gives to some other woman means he is playing you. If you read too much into innocent interactions, your paranoia will push him away.

It is still definitely possible for a Cancer guy who is more physical than others, to begin with, to take it too far. When he is hugging your rivals in a way he wouldn’t hug his aunt, he might be playing you.

9. He won’t define the relationship

Cancer men can get serious about their relationships sooner than men of other Zodiac signs. They like security and domesticity, and marriage can definitely be a way for them to achieve that.

If a Cancer man manages to weasel out of any defined relationship talk that you try to initiate, he is definitely playing you. Some men are oblivious to their own feelings, but it’s not the case with the Cancerians.

The Cancer man knows what he wants, and he is smart enough to spin the situation so that he gets what he wants. If he wanted an exclusive relationship, he would let you know.

If a Cancer man manages to weasel out of any defined relationship talk that you try to initiate, he is definitely playing you. Click To Tweet

10. You haven’t met his mother yet

Cancer men are notorious for their attachment to their families, especially their mothers. Any woman who will be in a Cancer man’s life for a long-term relationship has to be able to get along with the first woman in his life.

If the Cancer man has real feelings for you, you will meet his mother before things go much further. Even if she is dead, you will probably have to go to her grave, and you had better bring flowers.

Would your Cancer guy want his mother asking him whatever happened to you if he wasn’t planning to bring you around again? Of course, he wouldn’t want that.

The Cancer man wants to impress his mother. He knows his mother would not be impressed with him if she knew he was playing women, so he is wise enough to keep that hidden from her.

11. You haven’t met his friends yet

A Cancer man keeps his circle tight. He generally gets his friends and his family acquainted with each other. Introducing someone else to that group is a big step, but it’s a necessary step for things to move any further.

If a Cancer man is playing a few women simultaneously, none of them will meet his crew. He likes to maintain his wholesome image as the sweetheart of the group. Even if he knows all his friends are players, he does not want them to think of him that way.

Also, Cancer would not want one of his friends to blurt out something in your presence that would alert you to the existence of other women in his life.

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12. Everything is blamed on his childhood

defensive man

If you have raised your suspicions about one or more of the previous items on this list to your Cancer man, what kind of response did he give you? If he was willing to talk things out with you in a reasonable fashion, that is a good sign.

If he tried to make you feel bad for even bringing up your concerns, that is a bad sign. Cancer men are definitely capable of using their knowledge of the emotional realm for good. If they are immature or lacking in ethics, they can use it to harm people too.

A Cancer guy who wants to distract your attention from something naughty he did could tell you a sob story from his childhood that supposedly explains everything. The idea is that you won’t push further because you feel sorry for him now.

13. He is passive-aggressive

The Cancer man is often a genuinely nice guy, but this can also be a role he gets trapped in. He likes how people react to him when he is nice, so he never learns to assert himself.

As a result, the Cancer man can have a hard with tough decisions that might not make everyone happy. If he has been playing multiple women for a while, it can be hard for him to stop even if he wants to. That would require telling at least one of them something that she does not want to hear, and he doesn’t like to make anyone sad.

Therefore, the Cancer man might passive-aggressively try to provoke you into dumping him, so he does not have to be the bad guy who left you.

The Cancer man is often a genuinely nice guy, but this can also be a role he gets trapped in. He likes how people react to him when he is nice, so he never learns to assert himself. Click To Tweet

14. He claims his family or friends don’t like you

Does the Cancer man claim he can’t commit because his family or friends don’t approve of you? Have you ever interacted with them enough that they would have an opinion of you? If not, he might just be trying to make someone else look like the bad guy, so he doesn’t have to admit that he is not serious about you.

Even if you don’t believe what he is claiming about his family or friends, dumping him would be a reasonable response to behavior this silly.

These signs a Cancer man is playing you come together to make a picture of trouble, though one or two of the signals by themselves might not be a big deal. The most important thing is your own feelings. Whether or not the Cancer man is a player, if you don’t feel like you are getting the relationship you need, you should look elsewhere.

Valerie trained in journalism and spent a decade as an administrative assistant in an accounting firm. Astrology has always been her passion, and her career goal is to work in financial astrology.

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