Reciprocating?

When we all begin to develop feelings for someone how do we know if they are reciprocating them back? To me, that's one of the most difficult steps when entering the world of a new relationship. Back in the 1950's a guy would walk up to a girl and say, "Damn Betty, you're a fox!" At that point it was obvious how he felt, he had the courage to say something completely outside of the box just to satisfy his curiosity. Modern day most people flirt with a group of people making it more difficult to decipher how they feel for you. So maybe we could ask? Maybe we could wait? Or maybe we could just walk up to them and kiss them? There are ways of finding out the truth, unfortunately situations like the last one don't happen too many times because we are all afraid. Humans are just simply, and easily afraid of rejection.