Previously: A guide to flirting with plausible deniability.
The worst thing that could possibly happen to you is thinking someone is making a pass at you when they aren’t, full stop. There is no worse outcome. That’s the end of the line. Here is a handy guide for those times when you’re not quite sure whether someone’s trying to flirt with you or not:
If you leave the room, and don’t go home, but instead fling yourself into the dirt, burrow into a black-walled cave, and scrabble down through the foamy soil until you reach a gleaming crystal chamber, and they follow after you to bring you an everything bagel.
Check to see if you have any remaining dignity. If not: they just might be trying to ask you out. If so: gather your dignity up and leave immediately. Sew yourself a garment out of your dignity and shroud your face in it.
If he carefully removes his eyes and presses them into your hands with a fevered kiss, he might be available.
They aren’t, of course. My God. You very nearly put yourself out there. Set yourself on the first swan boat home and take a seven-year vow of silence. You could have lost everything!
Has she sobbed and sung:
Seven long years I served for thee,
The glassy hill I clamb for thee,
Thy bloody clothes I wrang for thee;
And wilt thou not waken and turn to me?
at you? If so, odds are good she’s interested. Proceed with caution.
At midnight, did they bestow the beautiful plum meant only for the night of greatest need in their life upon you? Because if someone else has it…you’re dreaming.
Can food and drink of mortal men pass their lips? If so, they do not love.
If you feel terrible, she probably likes you. At the very least, you should spend a lot of time worrying about how much she might like you, as this may push her over the edge, liking-you-wise.
If, when he took off his shoes at the door, he left them pointing in the direction of the town you were born in, you might stand a chance.
Turn into a sparrow. Do they turn into a hawk and follow you on th’wing?
Did he, the saucy minx, offer you a bite from his bread-basket filled to the brim with almonds and sweetmeats his mother gave him, even disguised as you were as an old crone by the side of the king’s highway? If not, he’s not interested. Curse him with leprosy, a harsh voice, and marriage to a cobbler.
Too complicated. Here’s how to do it in one simple step:
They aren’t. Go on with your life.
my Truth prescription isn’t high enough to ingest this large of a dose.
I accidentally took that much once, and ended up absolutely useless & crying on a beanbag.
that was literally one of the things I wrote in the piece though
“They aren’t, of course. My God. You very nearly put yourself out there.”
Have been doing this many years. Heart is now shrivelled to nothing but am A+ curser so you know, life’s a trade off.
If you feel terrible, she probably likes you. At the very least, you should spend a lot of time worrying about how much she might like you, as this may push her over the edge, liking-you-wise.
oh good thanks for confirming this
This is…uncomfortably close to my own approach.
This made me grin and well up at the same time and that’s how I know it is the truth.
I have read this fanfiction.
They aren’t, of course. My God. You very nearly put yourself out there. Set yourself on the first swan boat home and take a seven-year vow of silence. You could have lost everything!
basically how i choose to live my life, thanks for putting it into words for me
I am currently trying to convince my work BFF that this is no way to live, that the highs are worth the lows, but she is not really biting.
It is fair, really.
After you get too many of the lows, it starts to seem like it’s not even worth attempting to look for the highs.
highs are for other people. just as their lows are for me.
It also me
This…..has just happened to me. Thanks for letting me know my next steps, re: swan boat purchasing.
This is the Toast post I always needed.
Shoutout to my fellow Toasties so bad at reading flirting cues that we have “dated” multiple people without knowing it.
I was very polite to a stranger once only to find out, years later, that I’d married him 🙁
“I thought this would just be a chill afternoon of cake flights, why do you keep pressuring me to choose a favourite?”
YEP
I once “led someone on” for several months before it became clear we had very different plans for the relationship…
Actually true.
Once, as a teen, a guy at church suggested we “hang out like we used to”, and then proceeded to suggest we all (both our entire families) go to a children’s movie about robots. He sat next to me, fidgeting nervously, and insisted on walking next to me back to the parking lot. Seven months later, whilst talking to his mother on the phone for an interview for school, she informed me it had been a date. Both our entire families had known this, but neglected to mention it to me at the time. I had had a crush on him for no fewer than five years, and he never spoke to me again afterwards. I feel that this is typical of my love life, concerning the number of my friends who are dating me, and the amount that I am aware of this.
I also once texted a friend for three days, trying to politely counsel him on his feelings for me (he was engaged to someone else, and had been for ten years). I was later informed that this counted as cheating on his fiancee, and that as the only prudent course of action, he could never speak to me or see me ever again.
I have long been convinced that I am actually a character in a cheap novel.
Never pain to tell thy love / love that never told can be
All this is very nice, but it elides the fact that whether or not they’re interested in you, the appropriate response is always the same: do nothing and leave the room as quickly as possible.
SO SAY WE ALL.
The new Toast credo! (starts stitching a throw pillow)
Did he yell “I HAVE A GIRLFRIEND” in your face? Then he was flirting with you, you just weren’t supposed to acknowledge it. Go forth and feel paranoid and self-conscious about all future flirtations.
This is way too real.
Too. Real.
This has happened to me countless times and now I know why … for real. Wow.
If a woman yells that to a man (that she has a girlfriend or boyfriend), he certainly interprets it as flirting.
WELLO OK this article feels like a personal attack.
Honestly, I just came here to have fun.
Are you flirting with us? I can’t tell!
Did he, the saucy minx, offer you a bite from his bread-basket filled to the brim with almonds and sweetmeats his mother gave him, even disguised as you were as an old crone by the side of the king’s highway? If not, he’s not interested. Curse him with leprosy, a harsh voice, and marriage to a cobbler.
This is the standard I hold all men accountable to.
If you can’t handle me at my crone, you don’t deserve me at my ethereal blessed warrior princess.
Amen. I’ve always said if you can’t handle me at my Alec Baldwin street rage then move along because that’s pretty much all you’re going to get.
I mean, let’s be real, most dudes deserve to be turned into deer and then hunted by their own dogs.
Aww I always felt bad for the dogs though. They’re orphans now! I guess Artemis would adopt them. Win win win, really.
Um except. The dude who gets torn to pieces by his own hounds. I know he deserved it for peeping at naked ladies in the woods, but still, he himself would consider that a lose, surely?
If you feel terrible, she probably likes you. At the very least, you should spend a lot of time worrying about how much she might like you, as this may push her over the edge, liking-you-wise.
NOT HELPING
WOW THIS DOESN’T RELATE TO MY LIFE.
The best adolescent dream I had was being kissed by Tuxedo Mask. I felt that needed to be out there if Mallory is going to keep using his sexy-to-15-yo-me visage.
“Sew yourself a garment out of your dignity and shroud your face in it.”
But my dignity is thin and I haven’t thread fine enough for it. Can I use interfacing? Heat N Bond?
Maybe more of an eye mask than a face shroud…
Use hair pluck’d by the root from the head of a maid not yet reached her sixteenth year, at a crossroads under a full moon.
A little stabilizing spray should help. Stabilize your dignity with aerosol starch.
I lost my dignity in a tragic childhood accident; this technique is not available unto me.
I hemmed mine with hot glue.
“Can food and drink of mortal men pass their lips? If so, they do not love.”
Ah, the Bertie Wooster method– pass up Anatole’s delicious cuisine, so you can show your beloved that you’re pining away.
I died. This is best.
Just make sure no one else has the same idea…
Foolproof.
Yes good perfect
Did he, the saucy minx, offer you a bite from his bread-basket filled to the brim with almonds and sweetmeats his mother gave him, even disguised as you were as an old crone by the side of the king’s highway? If not, he’s not interested. Curse him with leprosy, a harsh voice, and marriage to a cobbler.
What if you’re a cobbler, though? Wouldn’t that backfire?
Marriage to a different cobbler who possesses LESSER SKILLS tho
Peach cobbler. A peach cobbler. #problemsolved
But I like peach cobbler! I don’t want some man, especially this man, to get ideas about my delicious treat.
I thought getting yelled at was the worst possible thing that could happen to a person. I can only assume that getting yelled at as the direct result of mistaking a friendly gesture for a flirtation would be so horrible that you would self-combust with the fire of a thousand suns.
There was a 72 hour period where I had decided that my husband and I were going to date, but he was not aware yet.
He says that he eventually figured out I liked him because I kept sitting on increasingly precarious and uncomfortable surfaces so I could be near him, chatting gaily.
“They have chairs over there?”
“Oh no, I’m fine here.”
“On the concrete floor/with a power strip poking into your back/ on a chair with a broken seat?”
“It’s actually pretty comfortable!”
Very glad he figured it out before I hurt myself.
It’s a very modern sort of perilous quest.
Having won his favor, I am now fighting dragons to maintain our kingdom.
The dragons are his parents.
I climbed into a sink for my wife. She didn’t know it was flirtation then and she still doesn’t even really understand it now. But I sure knew what I was doing.
I found an excuse to talk to my unavailable but entertaining work crush today, and immediately upon getting his attention I walked backward into the wall. Think he suspected anything?
That is actually the perfect flirtation. You obviously obviously like him, but the wall thing is totally something you can be like “haha I’m so clumsy” if it doesn’t go well.
They aren’t, and the fact that the thought has even entered your mind is proof that you are getting ideas above your station, you presumptuous unlovable fool. Endure this well-deserved humiliation silently and berate yourself later. Have a great rest of your day!
This is me!
Me too!
One time I thought the teller at the bank might have been flirting with me and I spent the entire rest of the day dwelling on the implications. Terrible business.
It me *wails*
If you’re a female over 45, no one is flirting with you. Ever.
On the other hand, now is a good time to start arriving places in a flaming chariot pulled by monstrous cats, brandishing the Staff of Destruction and Regeneration, so there are advantages.
I’ve always loved that idea but really, who on earth can get cats to work in tandem harness? I realize one is a goddess but that’s still going a bit far.
I think Freya’s cat-harnessing power is proof she is Most-Powerful.
At first I was like, Ouch! But then I realized the chariot’s a better deal.
I’ve already got the monstrous cats; where do I get the chariot?
This is actually a huge relief to me; as a divorcee I intend to make my way as a kind of reborn spinster.
OK but literally all of this happened to me in the last 72 hours and honestly I’m just waiting for the big earthquake to come and for the San Andreas Fault to swallow me whole in its gentle depths.
ETA – Did you know that sometimes if you talk to an ex and you guys agree to a friendly meet up, they will try WAY too hard to communicate clearly that this is just platonic… so much so that it starts to sound like they’re proposing a date? And then, even though you were all about the cool, casual friend thing, suddenly you are reconsidering your position on all of this?
And then miscommunications run WILD and things get DEEPLY embarrassing? I mean, I certainly I have no experience with this. Oh no. Not me!
(She said, from the depths of a cave beneath the sea.)
What’s even better is when you are meeting an old friend who lives out of state, and the two of you have not only never had sex, but never went on a single date, and they emphatically state and restate, completely out of context of the conversation, that they have a very good thing going with their new fiancee now, and are no longer having casual sex with friends. It inevitably happens every summer, to me. August just isn’t August if there isn’t a man I haven’t spoken to in three years, with whom I’ve never had any relations, insisting he cannot under any circumstances have casual sex with me while he’s away from his fiancee, even though she would never know, because he’s so devoted to her. He will say this as we eat lunch, interrupting me as I talk about how school is going and my career plans, and again as I ask him what beer he would recommend, again as I point to an item I have from the local gift shop, explaining how funny it is, and yet again after he insists on walking me to my car, which naturally is parked right outside, as he stands slightly too close to me, as I attempt to give him more room (he steps forwards again, repeating that he simply *cannot* have casual sex with friends anymore). He will insist on telling me about every interaction he has had with his fiancee, and describing each affair in detail. I am expected to counsel him on this, because of my expertise in being both female, and a human who has had a relationship on more than one occasion. This is the subject the conversation will always turn back to, no matter how much I try to talk about my interests, or relate to his.
But truly, it must be me giving these mixed signals. I spend the next month replaying ever interaction I had with them as friends before they moved, questioning, analyzing, looking for the eye sex I surely must have been having at them, in order for this to make sense. This will happen again next August.
With so many Toast posts that make you laugh at/analyze yourself, it’s nice when one like this pops up and you (or, I, rather) can think “Oh, but I’m good at that. Yes, yes, this, at least, is a skill that I have. Forget about executive functioning, let’s think about how great I am at flirting.”
Teach me your secrets?! Only so I can savely avoid such situations, of course.
It’s really all the things that any flirting how-to will tell you! Eye contact, particularly looking up through your lashes/raising and eyebrow, innuendo and joking, compliments, moving closer, little touches when you get to the part where it seems to be working for both of you. The art of conversation is, of course, huge – asking questions about the other person and being honestly interested in the answers, dropping facts about yourself to give the other person something to ask you questions about. And the whole thing is a ramping-up game, of course. It’s really something better learnt in person than by reading though.
I have never mastered “looking up through your lashes.” It just looks like I’m rolling my eyes at them.
Apparently, I have this expression where I dip my head slightly and glare at people over the top of my glasses (I do that to convey a sarcastic note, but people have Been Offended by it). That’s the closest I can imagine this “looking up through lashes” would work. I think I should stick to sarcasm.
it has to be accompanied by a little smile, like… like this:
*goes thither, forthwith*
Wait, so my basic mode of “I like you, therefore I will tease you mercilessly” might be misunderstood as… flirting? Good grief.
Also you can take it too far and in attempting to tease flirtatiously you actually look like you are starting a genuine argument
That’s as complicated as dance choreography! I can’t follow choreography, nor can I flirt or understand being flirted at. Where does one learn these things? This is like the fishtail braids post where everyone was wondering how girls learn to do hair and girl things. They should have taught us flirting in home ec. or Girl Scouts.
I still wouldn’t know how to do it; I avoided Girl Scouts in favor of reading alone, sometimes under the bed.
Like you’re good at flirting at people or good at knowing when you’re being flirted at?
Because I would argue that I’m pretty good at the latter (which is to say I am pretty confident I have not been flirted at).
I think this is one of those instances where being pretty sure about something ensures that the opposite is true. 🙂
Okay so – what do you do if you’re mid-flirt and they say something and you are just like, nope this is not for me after all? Is there a flirting take-backsies?
Yeah, you just leave. Like maybe you say “oh there’s my friend over there” or “I’ve got to make a phone call” but the glory of flirting is that it’s in a sexually liminal place, easy to escape.
Okay that makes a surprising amount of sense. Huh.
Thanks for the update.
Uff, where are we supposed to report when a giant ad blankets the whole page? It promises ‘scroll to see rest of content’ but in fact it starts after the dignity one and the next thing you see is sparrow. I reloaded because I thought it was weird there were only four items in such a promising topic.
Yes, me too!
Three!
Four! And not for the first time on a toast article. But reloading fixed it.
This is very timely for me. I sent a friendly yet neutral (can’t be too potentially-vulnerable, right?) message to someone last night who I thought might just might have flirted with me. There was definitely dancing and shared cigarettes.
The message was read, but no response. I’m now very eagerly awaiting a sinkhole opening beneath my cubicle.
You will be missed.
Leprosy and a harsh voice aren’t too great, but marriage to a cobbler? Shoes that fit perfectly, for life? No downside. And even if you mean, like, a peach cobbler, that’s still pretty good.
A short but happy and fulfilling marriage to a peach cobbler does sound pretty good.
I would marry so many cobblers. Just call me the Black Widow of cobbler marriages.
Have you not heard the expression ‘The cobbler’s children go barefoot?’ Clearly, your life would be a miserable parade of watching other people with perfectly fitted shoes while you were forced to shop at a department store that only/never carries half-sizes. The *perfect* curse.
I am so thankful for your wise guidance in these complicated “flirting” situations, Mallory.
So, I think I am a decent flirter, also, instead of a heart I have a writhing mass of venomous snakes. I am nailing this essay series, thank you The Toast.
I flirted with a guy just a few minutes ago!! I was so proud of myself! The elevator stopped at a floor I was not getting off at and he was standing in the waiting area chatting with someone and he turned his head to look at me and then we both looked away and then I correctly timed my “glancing-up-under-lashes” move for when he looked back! I will never see him again but it’s still progress from terrified eye-contact avoidance!
Right there with you on terrified avoidance … isn’t it awesome when we can have a little freedom??
I had never thought of the elevator as a good place for that but it’s like speed dating with floors!
I am cheering for you!
*bows before the greatness*
I seriously did not even think of this as an option … GAH
Marriage to a cobbler is a blessing in my book.
I’ve only met one cobbler, but he was a pretty nice guy.
I have a pair of western boots that need tending….
Considering that I complained about not knowing whether someone was flirting with me just the other day, this is suspiciously well-timed. Good to know the toast is always here for me in my times of need.
(Did this coincidence finally make me create an account so I could comment? Why yes. Yes it did.)
“Turn into a sparrow. Do they turn into a hawk and follow you on th’wing?”
Caution: May cause ornithocide.
I once punched a man because I thought he might have been flirting with me. Best to be sure, really. I’m now happily married to a woman so it’s probably for the best. I hope I didn’t cause him to reassess his own flirting skills too much.
For years, I didn’t believe that flirting was a real thing. I’d just assumed that if someone was interested in you, they’d tell you they were. This led to a whole life of never reading in to things or looking for signals or whatever, which has worked out because, while I’ve never been in a relationship with another human being, I have also never ever been embarrassed ever!
I do the same thing! No sex is always better than embarrasment in my book.
I do the same thing but sometimes it backfires??? Teach me your ways.
The trick is to make sure that no one is ever actually interested in you. Also, I’ve never met a lady who wasn’t willing to take total obliviousness as a solid no. Dudes on the other hand…
Same! Except that I have been embarrassed when yay-friendy-friendship escalated and the poor guy was confused that I wasn’t interested in romance. Ugh. I’m a really nice friend, but I finally learned that I just shouldn’t be a really nice friend to guys.
I’ve long since accepted that anybody attempting to flirt with me has a very, very hard row to hoe, and would probably be better off handing me a piece of paper that says in their very best fourth-grade script, “Do U like me check one _yes _no”
For a couple of years, every time I had a crush on a guy I would accidentally end up hurling something at his crotch, causing him great pain.
I am betting no one who reads this believes that “accidentally”.
I do!! I believe you!
Yes, I believe you because it me.
Like… immediately? I’m picturing you locking eyes across a crowded room and then FLINGING YOUR GLASS at him.
As for this pleasure which by accomplishing my desire would have set me free from these meditations and which I should have sought quite as readily from any other pretty woman, had I been asked upon what—in the course of this endless flow of talk throughout which I took care to keep from Albertine the one thing that was in my mind—was based my optimistic hypothesis with regard to her possible complaisances, I should perhaps have answered that this hypothesis was due (while the forgotten outlines of Albertine’s voice retraced for me the contour of her personality) to the apparition of certain words which did not form part of her vocabulary, or at least not in the acceptation which she now gave them. Thus she said to me that Elstir was stupid, and, on my protesting:
“You don’t understand,” she replied, smiling, “I mean that it was stupid of him to behave like that; of course I know he’s quite a distinguished Person, really.”
Similarly, wishing to say of the Fontainebleau golf club that it was smart, she declared: “They are quite a selection.”
Speaking of a duel that I had fought, she said of my seconds: “What very choice seconds,” and looking at my face confessed that she would like to see me “wear a moustache.”
Slight variations on society vocabulary: your key to identifying flirting.
Everyone I’ve ever thought was flirting with me has turned out to be interested in men (I am a lady).
On the flip side, I once didn’t realize a guy was trying to flirt with me and that we were in fact, on a date, until he tried to kiss me. The duck I did to avoid it was probably the quickest I’ve ever moved in my life.
Haha, that sounds like me when a drunk old man in a bar paid 50p for my tea when I was having difficulty fumbling with my bag to find the change. Turns out that was a date and he felt he deserved to give me a slobbery kiss.
I had a very similar experience, only with me, I wanted it to be a date as well, but I had thought that presuming it was would only lead to false-hopes being dashed, embarrassment, and so on. As a result, I wore a black muscle shirt with a zombie David Bowie as Ziggy Stardust (this was before he died) on it and spikes on the shoulders – just to show that I, too, knew we were only hanging out as friends, and to show how cool I was. Naturally, it turned out to be a date. Like you, I did not find this out till he kissed me. Happily for me, I wanted this, and was delighted with the unexpected turn of events. The spikes on the shirt proved difficult, but ultimately did not deter us from making out in the movie theater parking lot for 20 minutes straight. We’ve been together for two years now, and have a special place in our hearts for that black, spiked, zombie Ziggy Stardust muscle shirt. It is an appropriate symbol of my love. Weird, standoffish, and hard to hug properly.
I’m very good at telling if I’m being flirted with, as long as I have absolutely no romantic or sexual interest in the person doing the flirting. It is impossible to both want to flirt with someone and to be able to tell if they are flirting with me. I’m pretty sure that’s a law of physics.
Heisenberg’s unflirtaincy principle.
I am *excellent* at realizing other people are being flirted with but the worst if someone’s trying to flirt with me, and I think it is also a law of physics. I am my own blindspot.
Yep. My now-boyfriend and I (both, at that time, socially-inept teenagers; we’re still socially inept, but in our mid-20s) spent ages both trying our best to express our interest in each other while comically missing the fact that the other person liked us. It’s amazing we got together.
This is timely in the extreme as I’ve somehow fallen so low as to read internet “likes” as endearments. Out with the sweetmeats or get lost, liker.
So you’re saying that dude 8 years ago *was* flirting with me?
Dang.
The worst thing that could possibly happen to you is thinking someone is making a pass at you when they aren’t
Okay, but if someone asks you a question you don’t want to answer, accusing them of making a pass at you is the fastest way to derail the conversation. They’ll go into frantic denial mode trying to smooth things over, and you can draw yourself up and haughtily sweep away before they realize you’ve never answered that question.
Pretending that I think someone has made a pass at me has saved me from answering a lot of invasive questions.
“Where were you last night?”
“HOW DARE YOU, SIR! THE NERVE!”
I wonder if this would work on job interviews.
Re: “Turn into a sparrow. Do they turn into a hawk and follow you on th’wing?”: acknowledge raptor privilege.
Was their unexpected LinkedIn invite to you preceded by the perusal of your profile by a mysterious stranger?
If yes, then they are definitely flirting and you should message them via LinkedIn immediately.
If no, wait a few more months and forego all other opportunities to see if there is another ambiguous communication.
based on actual recent Seinfeldian events
This all strikes me as overly optimistic. Slow down, there.
Life is a rich tapestry indeed so I can flirt and usually know when I’m being flirted with… but only if it’s a guy. I can’t for the life of me begin to flirt with women or figure out when they’re flirting with me (I just assume they’re being friendly in a pretty intense way).
Guess which one of these is actually relevant to my life.
Same. I guess it’s a combination of anxiety caused by overly friendly straight girls (or “friendly”? “Straight”? Who knows.) and internalized homophobia?
… high school was rough.
Many years ago when I was Young, I was constantly irritated at attractive men. I mean, they were the worst. First of all, they were sexually unavailable to me because naturally I was a gross troll who didn’t deserve love. Second of all, they persistently made fun of me, in this really mean way where they would pretend to be flirting with me. I’m no fool, and I do have my pride, so I’m glad to say that I showed them! I was always rude and dismissive to these horrible attractive men who flirted with me. And they learned their lesson. They learned their lesson.
I’m generally oblivious to any flirting more subtle than a wink. (This has led to temporary confusion when people wink at me for other reasons, e.g. because they have a nervous tic…)
Or it’s just this boy, barely 21, and you realise simultaneously that hey, he *is* flirting with you and wait, he was born the year Jurassic Park came out, and you suddenly understand with piercing clarity that although you are aok with age difference, that is your personal cut-off.
Unfortunately everyone else who identifiably flirts with you, like the station guard who’s been smiling for weeks and follows you onto the train to ask if you’re free tonight, gets shouted at by your violently protective friends.
… you have good friends.
I”m so bad at flirting that sometimes when I am videogame flirting I’m like, “But that’s just a nice thing to say! WAIT DO PEOPLE THINK I’M FLIRTING WITH THEM ALL THE TIME!?”
“Geez, most of these options seem a little rude–WAIT NO ANDERS I AM NOT FLIRTING WITH YOU!”
See also: Alenko, Kaidan.
You think you’re making friends, having fun. Then their hands start going places other than your shoulder or lower than they should be for a hug and you are very confused because WHEN DID I CONVEY I WAS OK WITH THAT!?
“The worst thing that could possibly happen to you is thinking someone is making a pass at you when they aren’t, full stop.”
I once got a text from a boy I was somewhat interested in, asking if I wanted to go to a concert. I was busy that night, but decided to be a Modern Woman and asked him if he wanted to go to a movie later that week instead. We started dating, and I found out later that his initial text hadn’t actually been to ask me out, but was part of a group text that my dumb phone doesn’t show as a group text.
We dated for a year and then broke up amicably, how long should I wait for the consequences of my mistake to manifest??
Hello! I am here to tell you that you too can survive mistaken-intentions-flirtation.
I have recently been flirted with by someone I really liked, whom I’d been thinking about asking out – so I was thrilled when they asked first. I told them I was interested, and they responded by telling me that, oh, sorry, they didn’t know I was into that, and they meant friends with benefits, and they are not currently doing relationships. And honestly? It’s kind of pretty okay! I was intensely sad the day they told me, and then intensely okay the following days. (It’s also the first time i went out on a limb like this, romantically)
It’s surprising how not-hard it is to get over your feelings if you actually ask, and get whatever answer you will get.
Who ASKS someone to be friends with benefits. Ew. On the plus side, at least they were up front about it so you didn’t end up all-in only to find out it meant a lot less to them than to you, after several weeks of bangin’. So really a win for all! (and bullet dodged …)
Erhm, I asked someone to be friends with benefits a couple months back and so far it’s been working out splendidly!
Wait okay so what do you do if someone flirted with you and you flirted back to see if you could and it turned out that you could indeed (score, self!) but had no real interest in the someone but then the someone got very confused and showed screenshots to your best friend to ask what was up (which was hard for her because you yourself had already showed them to her to laugh about earlier that very day)???????
Buy your friend flowers because if that friend got both of you out of that without hurting the other person’s feelings they are a miracle worker.
I am choosing to interpret the fact that this post went up on the same day that Mallory talked about coming to Sydney as her obliquely flirting with all single women in Australia and am therefore taking notes. I will be ready.
:inarticulate Tina Belcher groan:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_XaIuw6K6Q
Yep. No one has ever flirted with me. Thought that might be the case.
I still wouldn't know how to do it; I avoided Girl Scouts in favor of reading alone, sometimes under the bed.
I wonder if this would work on job interviews.
This is actually a huge relief to me; as a divorcee I intend to make my way as a kind of reborn spinster.
Confirmed flirt
Flirtation has occurred
Proceed with caution