“Thank you for your time and for your goodwill.”
“I am happy to either confirm or deny your question.”
“Sincerely, [your full name here].”
“I look forward to remembering this conversation later.”
“I have, as do you, eyes.”
“You seem to like the other people here, and I can’t distinguish your enthusiasm for them from your enthusiasm for this conversation. That’s not a criticism.”
“Are you cheerfully enduring this interaction, or a willing participant? I can’t distinguish good humor from genuine interest. Give me a sign.”
“I have a related anecdote, which I will now relate, unless you wish otherwise.”
“I AM LISTENING TO YOU VERY MUCH BUT I’M ALSO TERRIFIED THAT YOU’LL WANT ME TO START TALKING”
“I hope you will consider me as a future conversational hub later in the evening, after you have exhausted your other opportunities.”
“Your hair looks so good that I want to change my entire life. Please don’t feel emotionally responsible for my well-being after hearing that.”
“Have you noticed how much I am nodding? Can I stop now?”
“I want desperately to establish common personal ground between the two of us.”
“Please make it clearer which reaction you want me to have before I make a mistake.”
“Please make it clearer which reaction you want me to have before I make a mistake.”
IT ME 24/7
(This is assuming I can ever figure out if someone is flirting with me, which is basically never)
dude this is me ALL the time, whether flirting enters the picture or not
Same. I often find myself having to think really hard about what I’m meant to be doing with my face.
Also a possibility: they are flirting with you because they enjoy your company, but don’t want you to flirt too hard back because you are both married to other people, and there is a line somewhere around here that they want to dance right up to but not cross because it’s tantalizing. Every possible reaction is fraught with meaning and danger.
/i’ve said too much
I… know absolutely nothing about this… nope…
*irrationally hopes this is my also married crush*
*casts self into pit*
(motherfucking april’s got me bad this year)
Ooh, I never thought of casting myself into a pit. That’s a good one. Because motherfucking april has got me bad too.
Perhaps I have not been fully clear in the OTs. Motherfucking April, every single time: Dance up to line, retreat at last moment, cast self into pit, wait 11 months, repeat.
do we still have to do the reading
AAAAAAAAA ok I feel less alone now but still AAAAAAAAAAA
(motherfucking april’s got me bad this year)
Forgive me; being single, I don’t know if I completely understand this hatred for April.
is it because y’all are twitterpated? You’re feeling the sap rising in the blood?
I need to get this printed on little cards and hand them to people.
Came down here to write exactly this comment, hello.
Hells yes.
I am aromantic asexual and require several days’ advance notice and preferably a bullhorn announcement if someone would like to flirt with me. Except when really concentrating, I usually don’t make the connection between the vague discomfort of “this person wants something from me, but I don’t know what” and “this person is flirting.”
Yeah, I’m in the same aro ace boat and I would like an announcement so I can shut that shit down instead of just thinking we’re having a fun banter-y conversation. My flirting skills are apparently sublime and it’s terribly inconvenient for me.
This is a genuine question, and I hope you don’t mind me asking! If you’re enjoying the conversation, why does it need to be shut down? Does their desire for it to be a flirting-going-somewhere conversation trump your desire for it to be a fun not-going-there conversation?
I wouldn’t mind flirting if it stayed flirting, but I hate the awkwardness of them feeling encouraged enough to ask me out and having to be like nooooo, thank you, especially if I am going to be seeing them again. Most recently, this resulted in a guy I legitimately wanted to be friends with attempting to stealth-date me until I had to stop hanging out with him anywhere other than a group and it was Not Great.
I’d rather just nip it in the bud and pass on the enjoyable conversation to prevent future problems.
Sorry I’m commenting one something that is so old. But yes though I’m aro-allo who is way to socially awkward to have sex with strangers and even more way to socially awkward to navigate someone’s one-sided romantic attraction to me after we have had sex. So it’s like are you being friendly or flirting because if you are flirting I have some bad news for you friend. Except way less smooth and more like squeaked out I’m aromantic sorry.
I . . . don’t THINK I’m aro or ace? But this me anyway. Maybe I’m just adorably oblivious.
GPOY.
*pulls blankets over head, never emerges*
I can’t tell if “Thank you for your time and for your goodwill” is a polite rejection or an invitation to further flirtation. That’s not a criticism.
These would probably all work better than my go-to, “let me tell you a wholly irrelevant story about my cat until you walk away.”
IT MEEEEE.
My kin!
“ah you seem interested in this conversation allow me to relate one of like sixteen anecdotes I have memorized for just such an occasion”
Pfft, everyone wants to hear about my cats.
Right? I mean, if you’re really right for me, your response to one of my cat stories is “Cool! Lemme tell you one of MY cat stories!”
If somebody did this to me, I might suspect that I had found my soulmate.
Or my favorite, “Let me be archly bitchy to you; people find this behavior amusing and charming in vintage comedies!”
“I have, as do you, eyes.”
Eep. [My work crush you guys, so out of hand. Relevant.]
Same.
He actually said (to others, male) that they are the feature he’s most attracted to. I know it sounds like such a line of bullshit, but. And I have some of those; two, in fact. Two whole separate eyes. How does one count the milliseconds of linger to determine if they count as lingering? I could die.
*me thinking* “Oh my god there must be something wrong with this person. They look normal, but that can’t be right. Maybe they are a serial killer. Or they live in their mother’s basement. Or their mother lives in their basement. Maybe their mother is a serial killer who lives in MY basement.”
or, conversely,
“Wait, that guy was flirting with me?”
Maybe their mother is a serial killer who lives in MY basement.
I recently moved to an apartment building whose basement I have never ventured into. This will be a fun new thing to think about during every conversation from now on.
Maybe their mother lives in my basement to find out if I’m a serial killer?
I once had a journalist arrive at the door to inform me that the guy living in the basement flat was the Gay Girl In Damascus hoaxer and did I have a comment? Not a serial killer, but still rather a shock, since I had been friends with the couple and was feeding their cat while they were away.
Men like to tell me about their cooking triumphs; is that flirting? I can never tell
With the exception of work colleagues (I’m really bored at work), yes, I am flirting with someone when I tell them about my awesome cooking.
“We two are both almost completely covered with skin, over most of the surface of our bodies.”
… almost??
well, eyes and such
I have, as do you, eyes.
*prints this out*
*puts it in wallet*
*someone cute approaches me and omg what if they are flirting and i have to figure out if they are and how to respond?*
*takes this out of my wallet*
*throws it towards them as I run away*
“I AM LISTENING TO YOU VERY MUCH BUT I’M ALSO TERRIFIED THAT YOU’LL WANT ME TO START TALKING”
Me. Honestly, I’d be fine at social events if there were a guarantee that anyone talking to me would never shut up and I could just nod and smile and laugh. But there always comes that point where you’re supposed to reciprocate and I just aerowm,xiuewhrkooisutersalkalihotgago
yep yep yep.
This is how I always end up dating people who have no problem conducting the entire conversation themselves. It’s not a great system.
SAME. The keysmash is where I typically insert a directionless anecdote about my cat, or attempt to compliment the other person and then immediately run away to live in a cave by the sea for the rest of my natural life.
For real? I too am terrified that you’ll want me to start talking, if for no other reason than that I will then have to turn to my default conversational gambit, I have a related anecdote, which I will now relate, unless you wish otherwise. (Pretty sure I have literally said literally that at some literal time in my life. Probably several literal times.)
I have to prepare anecdotes ahead of time for both specific situations and for general small talk. Right now my go-to work anecdote is about a book of cows and my go-to small talk anecdote is about students on my campus who are confused about transitional seasons. My best prepared anecdote is for the holiday season and it’s about Martha Washington’s historical turducken.
Ok but the turkducken sounds fascinating.
Turducken recipe (but so much more than turducken) found here: http://gwpapers.virginia.edu/holiday-cooking-with…
When the Art Institute of Chicago decorates the Thorne Miniature Rooms for the holidays every year, the recipe is included on one of the museum labels. That’s how I learned about it.
If we were flirting this is the point where I would tell you all about my William Wordsworth cookbook.
I read these in Raymond Holt’s voice.
Next readthough I’ll try to up my game and alternate lines between Andre Braugher and Marc Evan Jackson.
Oh my god, I need Andre Braugher to narrate one of these ASAP
MARC EVAN JACKSON. such a brilliant idea. I am here for awkward Sparks, always.
So gross, Croach, seriously
I too read most of these in the voice of Captain Holt. As well as this response.
There’s a moment on Homicide when Andre Braugher’s character goes into extreme flirt mode to convince a driver whose car he just hit not to report him. It is an intense experience. Andre Braugher is a master of the Smile With Eyes.
I read some in Holt’s voice, and some in Amy’s voice, especially the last two.
“One time I was playing with a stapler and stapled my own finger. I could see the end of staple underneath my fingernail! It didn’t hurt that much, though.” – me, twenty years after said event, panicking as I noticed I was being flirted with.
It didn’t hurt that much, though.
That…sounds bad.
It actually wasn’t that bad! It hurt mostly after I pulled out the staple. #fingerhole
Also, argh for logging in at the wrong point and inadvertently posting this comment twice. 🙁
“Thank you for your time and for your goodwill.”
LITERALLY TRUE THOUGH
“no srsly thanks, you don’t understand how good it was to be treated like someone I could hypothetically describe as desirable. *cough*…..I mean, LOL?”
no haha really the pain isn’t so bad when I’m quietly seeing myself out.
“No, really, you don’t understand how good it was. It’s okay if I glom onto you like a needy limpet in hopes of a little more of that, yes?”
This is why I quietly see myself out first yes.
“Are you cheerfully enduring this interaction, or a willing participant? I can’t distinguish good humor from genuine interest. Give me a sign.”
Yes, please. There needs to be some sort of hand signal.
This is helpful since last week a man approached me on the street and asked me out for the first time in my life and I stammered and ran away.
(I came back to edit this to say this is not the first time a man has asked me out but rather the first time it’s happened with a stranger on the street, but actually I think in terms of literally initiating a conversation in order to ask for a date, I will let my original statement stand)
A+ comment-username synergy.
I had almost the same thing happen when an (amateur) male stripper asked for my number after he gave me a lapdance. I stammered and was like, ‘uh, sorry, I have a boyfriend’ and fled. My friends are still mad at me about it.
Never follow a stranger to a second location. This is the code by which I live.
A good friend was flirted with by a man in a park, didn’t know what to do at the end of this conversation and yelled I HAVE TO GO, THANK YOU and ran away.
You promised you wouldnt tell anyone that story! 🙁
It’s the best story though, and your reaction was on point.
A (possibly apocryphal) friend of a friend was asked out by a stranger on the street and gave him her real number but a fake name. He turned out to be great! So then she spent weeks not knowing how to tell him her name wasn’t actually Lisa McLisaface (or whatever she had told him). I’m told they eventually got over that hump and dated for a year or so, but IDK.
One time I had a guy ask me out in the grocery store. My response, “Are you serious?” This single anecdote explains my entire love life.
Oh, a guy asked me how to find something in the grocery store a few months ago, and then he complimented my hair, and then he said “Are you single?” and I made a FACE, which I wish I could see instead of just imagining what it must have looked like. I think I said “I’m buying groceries is what I am” but even before I said that he was starting to back off and say “okay, okay, I always ask the wrong question.”
I am currently reading A Natural History of Dragons, where the protagonist responds to a marriage proposal with, “Why?”
It worked in Love Story.
“One time I was playing with a stapler and stapled my own finger. I could see the end of the staple underneath my fingernail! It didn’t hurt that much, though.” – me, twenty years after said event, panicking as I noticed I was being flirted with.
Once a guy I had a huge crush on visited me at work, and while I was desperately trying to remain calm I stapled my finger.
This was followed by a long, uncomfortable silence, after which he looked at me and said, “I could see that was going to happen”. He wound up dating my cousin.
Yes, Donna. I am.
I need a Donna in my life.
Do you like….bread? I’ve got a french loaf.
you had me at bread.
I’ve got legs!
<3
*boof* Bye I love you!
It’s painfully accurate. Making the right facial expressions/noises is hard sometimes!
“Excuse me, I must go upstairs and tend to the chickens in the spare bedroom” —an actual thing that I have said and then followed through on in order to escape the attentions of a flirt
Were there actual chickens in the spare bedroom?
Yes, we were raising chicks and they were still in the “keep in a box under a heat lamp” phase.
It’s almost disappointing how much sense your escape-sentence makes now.
It in fact felt quite normal at the time! It was the first time I ever realized that someone was flirting with me to my face (I was 24), and I didn’t know how to handle the situation, so socializing with chickens instead of socializing with boy seemed like an obvious response.
(I then went on to date that boy for four months because I figured I might as well. It was not a terrible experience but was the wrong thing to do because we were not well-suited to each other, and I blame the chickens for not warning me away from that mediocre relationship.)
“I blame the chickens for not warning me away from that mediocre relationship” is another excellent sentence both in and out of context.
Out of context it makes me think of consulting chicken entrails for divination, though. I blame this on reading I, Claudius in my formative years.
“I look forward to remembering this conversation later.”
And later, and later and later and later and later and…
“I like historic cemeteries.” Boom, done. Who’d have time for someone less than intrepid about historic cemeteries.
I would definitely have a lot of follow-up questions for that one, so I hope you’d be happy to answer lots of cemetery questions in the interest of furthering this conversation *flirty eyes*
Depending on the circumstances, I either like to explore them or perform rituals in them. On special days, both.
As someone who interned at a rather well known historic cemetery after college, I am stealing this response from you, good sir or madam. My thanks.
I am mapping a historic cemetery at my job right now and my gentleman caller has requested that I refrain from telling him about it anymore. GUESS WHOM I WON’T BE HAVING TIME FOR ANYMORE, GOOD SIR.
I imagine he’s in a difficult position. I’ve definitely had the “I like her a lot, but I really can’t stand to have another conversation about making oboe reeds” dilemma before. (Dreadful [wood]winds, indeed.)
I don’t even mean to emanate the fuck-off vibes it just happens.
How to respond when someone tries to buy you coffee:
1. “Oh, I’m fine”
2. “Oh, I already paid”
3. “Oh………. Thank you”
(those ellipses indicate the moment a dim light bulb inside my head finally went on)
4. “Uh… what?” +confused stare
I once did the thing where a guy comes up to you in the bakery saying he accidentally got another cup of coffee in the wrong size and would you like it and you very matter-of-factly reply how that’s very kind but you’d likely just spill it all over yourself on the train. He was pretty cute, too, but by the time I’d made the crucial connection I was of course too ashamed to backtrack.
“Your hair looks so good that I want to change my entire life. Please don’t feel emotionally responsible for my well-being after hearing that.”
This perfectly encapsulates what happens every time I decide I like someone and wish to express a normal human amount of affection and then get locked into a cycle of second guessing myself that ends in constant whiplash motions between excessively confident turbo-warmth and overzealous self-deprecating aloofness.
I never knew how to articulate that particular whiplash I experience, but here you go. You’ve done it for me!
Oh lord I’ve had so many of these conversations and I’m not even sure flirting was involved in any of them.
I guess there’s the time a couple months ago when I asserted, in response to an accusation of good-smelling, that I had in fact showered that morning. I was really impressed with myself there.
Ugggggghhhhh this is my LIFE. I met a cute boy at a wedding this weekend and I think? he was flirting with me? But I am an idiot and really don’t know and now I am very glad he lives 500 miles away because writing him off is just easier than continuing to wonder.
This exact thing just happened to me too!!! D’:
sigh. I try to take some comfort in the fact that there’s *probably* an alternate universe out there where a better-versed-in-social-skills me understood that the cute boy who wanted to talk about Rilo Kiley at the book fair ten years ago was flirting with her and responded with something better than *weird side-eye, half-hearted nod, run away*
life is one big missed opportunity but I live in hope that my alternate selves are doing it better.
life is one big missed opportunity but I live in hope that my alternate selves are doing it better.
I feel like that pretty much sums up my thoughts on my life at this point in time. Wherever they are, I truly hope they’re enjoying all the chances I didn’t take.
I literally ran out of a building yesterday when it was pointed out that the warehouse manager was, in fact, flirting with me and not just being extra helpful. I feel all of these deeply.
I do think you’re really, ridiculously cute, and I know you might be flirting, but either I forgot to come out to you or you forgot to come out to me, and I’m sworn off straight girls.
That is, the only girls who outright act like they’re flirting with other girls are straight girls who are just very friendly; queer flirting is a convoluted series of shots in the dark, obscure references, and deliberate displaying of Pride memorabilia.
I think maybe I need to get some pride memorabilia.
Because that’s pretty much what happens to me.
Do nothing and you get nothing, but tip your hand too much or too fast and you scare off your quarry. Sounds like a good mechanic to base a game around.
Lesbian Flirting: A Role-playing Card Game.
8/10: Great design, but too real to enjoy playing.
Play it with your crush for added torture.
Wait, you’re not dating the friend you came to the bar with? How can that be? I’m going to insist on believing you are. And complaining to you about it.
Oh my god this.
What about <something terribly combative and rude, so at least now I know what we’re doing next>.
“Please make it clearer which reaction you want me to have before I make a mistake.”
how did Mallory get access to my AIM chat logs from freshman year of college :-/
Once again Mallory makes me need a tinfoil hat because she is inside my brain.
1. Mallory has apparently watched me have every conversation I’ve ever had with a stranger at a party, but also
2. “I have a related anecdote, which I will now relate, unless you wish otherwise” is a great piece of lost Perd Hapley dialogue.
I think this is a transcript of Perd Hapley flirting.
This is not a criticism.
I just went back and re-read it in PerdVoice. You are not wrong.
I sent this article wholesale to the person I’ve been nervously but enthusiastically dating a short while and am now extremely unsure about whether that was correct.
This article needed more guidelines for usage, mallory
I think it would be great and cute and funny if someone I had just started dating sent me this article. Chin up!
Guy: *flirting*
Me: *snort*, what is that, gorgonzola?
Guy: *confused*
Me: really good cheese
Guy: I need to be over there right now.
Me: *why isn’t he coming back, after I complimented him on his cheesy flirtation?*
That was a long time ago, and fortunately by the time my future husband started flirting with me, I knew well enough not to laugh at him, but only to tell him every terrible joke I knew. He asked me out again anyway.
“I’m not entirely sure where this story was going, so I’m going to stop speaking” – the way I’ve ended most stories in my recent Sustained Flirtation with a Boy.
You know, I’m not usually an oblivious person, but apparently this guy I know has been flirting with me and I didn’t realize because 1) I assumed he was gay like most of the guys at my school, and 2) he is nice to me. He has told me that my hair is beautiful, complimented my outfit, etc. He didn’t even try to touch me for weeks. I’ve never met a man interested in women who acts this way. (Which is admittedly kind of sad and why I’m on my guard about falling for him too quickly.)
I still thought he was gay up to the point where we were lying on his bed and he took my hand, then leaned in to kiss me. That was exactly what I wanted, but I wasn’t about to make the first move on a gay dude and make him feel uncomfortable! (It would not have been my first rodeo.)
NicesmartcuteGuy: “I like you. I mean it, I really like you.” Touches my hair. I pull away reflexively.
Me: “Huh. Ok…. so…” change of topic.
Months later:
NicesmartcuteGuy: “Sorry if I offended you or something when I told you how much I liked you.”
Me: “Wait….you *liked* me?! How was I to know?”
🙁
You cannot be interested in me! Certainly not! For NOBODY is interested in me! Fie upon you, good sir!
…cue all of my feelings about MAYBE beginning something with a person I am not sure, but he is Skinny and I am Fat and of course attractive Skinny gentlemen don’t date Fat women, says all of society and also most men I have been interested in since I crossed the line into genuinely Fat. I need a hug, some help with internalized fat phobia, and to go kick my ex from junior year of college in the teeth.
I will happily deliver a kick in the teeth to this ex of yours. Fingers crossed that things go well with the current potential dudefriend!
I have definitely met a few couples made up of a skinny man and a fat woman, if that helps. Society is gross sometimes, but that really is a thing that can be achieved.
Oh my logic brain knows that, but my FEELINGS BRAIN does not.
ugh ugh UGH UGH uggggghHHHgggHHHHggghHHHH.
^translation: I know this feeling too well, first-hand, even. 🙁 it’s the worst. And I had a terrible experience where over a year, a really nice guy who doesn’t know what flirting IS managed to coax me out of my pessimism shell long enough to entertain hope, and then mention that he had a girlfriend.
…..and any other dudefriend potentialities, even if they’re nice to me, but don’t want to date me, I shove under the umbrella of “WELP, this must be about my size.” even if I have no good reason to assume that.
(But this year I’m consciously enjoying when I love pictures of myself, even if it’s just my face, because I’m likely more hot than I assume, not less so.)
YEEEEEEEEES
As the person usually flirting with the people who are panicking like this. I still do not understand these…
Guy: You have nice X
Me: I know right!?
Guy: *Mildly offended expression*
Me: I saw it in the mirror this morning, of course I know. Next!
or
Guy: *flirts*
Me: This is it, the end. You’re going to be murdered because look at your previous history with men who’ve liked you. You will be found in an ice box you’ll have to be buried in.
I really need to find an in-between
Could we also have “How To Respond When You Suspect Someone Suspects You Are Flirting With Them, But You’re Not, You Just Enjoy Quippy Banter”?
This is the best melange of words and ideas I have heard all week.
It's the best story though, and your reaction was on point.
*boof* Bye I love you!
I think it would be great and cute and funny if someone I had just started dating sent me this article. Chin up!