I think I had this same thread on INTPc but I'm doing it again anyway.
Do you understand how to flirt? Can you detect flirtation when it's directed at you? How explicitly do the words 'I am attracted to you and would like to explore that some more' have to be vocalized before you recognize that someone else is interested in you? Any particularly good excerpts from media regarding flirtation that rev your analysis engine?
Re: flirtation
Posted: Thu Nov 25, 2021 8:28 pm
by elfsprin
This one from Unbearable Lightness of Being gets me going.
► Show Spoiler
"What is flirtation? One might say that it is behavior leading another to believe that
sexual intimacy is possible, while preventing that possibility from becoming a certainty.
In other words, flirting is a promise of sexual intercourse without a guarantee.
When Tereza stood behind the bar, the men whose drinks she poured flirted with her.
Was she annoyed by the unending ebb and flow of flattery, double entendres, off-color
stories, propositions, smiles, and glances? Not in the least. She had an irresistible
desire to expose her body (that alien body she wanted to expel into the big wide world)
to the undertow.
Tomas kept trying to convince her that love and lovemaking were two different things.
She refused to understand. Now she was surrounded by men she did not care for in the
slightest. What would making love with them be like? She yearned to try it, if only in the
form of that no-guarantee promise called flirting.
Let there be no mistake: Tereza did not wish to take revenge on Tomas; she merely
wished to find a way out of the maze. She knew that she had become a burden to him:
she took things too seriously, turning everything into a tragedy, and failed to grasp the
lightness and amusing insignificance of physical love. How she wished she could learn
lightness! She yearned for someone to help her out of her anachronistic shell.
If for some women flirting is second nature, insignificant, routine, for Tereza it had
developed into an important field of research with the goal of teaching her who she was
and what she was capable of. But by making it important and serious, she deprived it of
its lightness, and it became forced, labored, overdone. She disturbed the balance
between promise and lack of guarantee (which, when maintained, is a sign of flirtistic
virtuosity); she promised too ardently, and without making it clear that the promise
involved no guarantee on her part. Which is another way of saying that she gave
everyone the impression of being there for the taking. But when men responded by
asking for what they felt they had been promised, they met with strong resistance, and
their only explanation for it was that she was deceitful and malicious. "
IDK, I have a story though. I was bringing up Italian and Chinese food and there were two oldish ladies in the elevator. One commented on the food and I said something like "I have Chinese food (held up bag), I have Italian food (held up bag)" and the woman took it as a joke flirt and she said "OK, I'll think about it."
Please world, just don't talk to me.
Re: flirtation
Posted: Thu Nov 25, 2021 8:52 pm
by elfsprin
lol that's great
Re: flirtation
Posted: Thu Nov 25, 2021 9:07 pm
by elfsprin
Oh also I'm shit at flirting and detecting flirtation.
I don't even try to flirt anymore. I'm very direct. Definitely identify with Thereza as depicted in the text excerpt above. I've probably come off as heinously malicious by mistake.
I regularly facepalm when I think back on memories I have of people who were clearly expressing some kind of interest, but weren't painfully explicit, so I didn't get it.
I'm a member of an underground filesharing community about seduction and self-help.... it has a little about flirting. In high school I read a book I found at home called "Body Language" by Allan Pease. It includes pictures of what women do when they're interested. It also taught me what eye contact was all about - I used to stare too much or not enough. BTW a few years ago I got this DVD: (the Art of Kissing)
It talks a little about flirting - and also talks about 30 types of kissing. I like the lip kiss and the upside down kiss. I don't like french kisses at all.
Re: flirtation
Posted: Fri Nov 26, 2021 1:38 pm
by HighlyIrregular
One I wasn't sure about was in a library when a stranger girl with an accent asked me to help her with a sentence in a breakup email. Another girl in a college library that I was visiting through the interlibrary loan program asked me how to do something and I think I explained for two seconds and told her there's a pamphlet on it and she sighed. Also in a library, I helped an older woman (older than me...could easily have been 10+ years younger than I am now) with some technical thing and she asked if she could have my number in case she needs more help. In a supermarket, I heard someone in the produce section saying to her friend "they say you could meet guys in the supermarket but I don't know." They're all good ways to get a guy to make a move but I don't think they're technically flirts.
JohnClay, if the filesharing community is perchance of the PUA ilk, be careful. I'd advise you to feel free to take the innocuous bits of insight with you, but leave the BS negging and put down parts well behind you. You'll be happier if you can find something real, instead of something based on competitive manipulation.
One I wasn't sure about was in a library when a stranger girl with an accent asked me to help her with a sentence in a breakup email. Another girl in a college library that I was visiting through the interlibrary loan program asked me how to do something and I think I explained for two seconds and told her there's a pamphlet on it and she sighed. Also in a library, I helped an older woman (older than me...could easily have been 10+ years younger than I am now) with some technical thing and she asked if she could have my number in case she needs more help. In a supermarket, I heard someone in the produce section saying to her friend "they say you could meet guys in the supermarket but I don't know." They're all good ways to get a guy to make a move but I don't think they're technically flirts.
Ha, I'm right there with you both in having similar experiences and reacting similarly.
It's weird. I flatter myself that I'm actually quite good at understanding human psychology, intuiting what's going on behind the scenes, foreseeing outcomes. Somehow, once I enter the realm of flirting all that insight absconds and I'm flailing around like an utter idiot.