I like to have written correspondence with someone for a while before we go on a date. I can miss social cues in person (likewise, I can send them unintentionally), so I like to see the words on the page because I "read" that information best of all.
I'm by nature a friendly, playful person and I've realized that that is sometimes taken as flirting, when I don't intend it. I try to be conscious of that and if it happens repeatedly, I avoid the place where it happened, either online or in person, figuring that it's just not my "scene." When I find a pocket of reality where people really "get" me, I treasure it and return there as much as I can.
I'm not looking for someone to date; I'm still or maybe I should say, re-involved with my girlfriend whose house I just moved out of, but I guess I'd say that when I do flirt, it's through humor. In my family, when people really like each other, they tease and poke fun at each other, not in unkind ways, but in ways that say, "I see you better than anyone else in the world and I'm noticing little things that are unique to you."
That said, I tease any of my friends I really like, and that's not flirting. I went out with my best straight-guy friend last night, and I always tease him a lot and make him laugh at himself. He started doing the same to me, which I never get, and I love. We have a lot of "in" jokes that come from how well we know each other.
That's just friendship, and here's the difference between that and flirting: When I got home, I talked with my girlfriend on the phone, and teased her mercilessly, which was fun. She always knows more than anyone else in the room about any goddamn thing that comes up and I like to cut right through that and point out how cynical and overly serious and sometimes officious she is. It catches her off guard—I don't think it happens much in her life—and she laughs like a little kid. Sometimes there is a daring quality in my tone, as if I'm daring her to defy my "take" on her, and it completely disarms her. There is none of that with the friend I went out with last night, none of that "Bet you can't pin me down" energy.
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