Learning how to flirt
After meditating and dropping out of the world for a while, I was in need of a few things. (Get your mind out of the gutter … although, sure, I managed to squeak that in). So Mia, Sara and I headed to our favorite watering spot and ordered a few glasses of our fave cab.
Nothing felt better than being around my gal-friends and indulging in the smooth taste of the wine; it didn’t hurt that the guy sitting next to us was lovely eye candy.
“Don’t look now, but did you get a peek at Mr. Immediately to Your Right, reading a book?” Mia whispered.
“I’m all over it,” Sara said.
“He’s alone,” I observed. “And ringless.”
After about 15 minutes of girl chat and a half a glass in me, I felt my mojo come back. So when the moment seemed right, I turned in Eye Candy’s direction, acting as if I were searching for someone — and catching a brief look at his book (Jonathan Franzen’s “Freedom”) — when our eyes briefly met. I smiled. He smiled back.
Game on!
So I went for it.
“How are you enjoying ‘Freedom’?” I asked.
“Very entertaining. I see a lot of myself in there.”
“Richard or Walter?”
“What do you think?”
And that’s how Eye Candy — Ron, actually — joined Sara, Mia and me for a rousing discussion of love, life, kids, marriage, freedom and sex. All the while, I was
thinking I
was the wing woman. 
But I was the only one who thought that, evidently.
“You know,” Sara said the next day as we power-walked Roxy to the dog park, “you really pissed me off last night.”
“I did? Why?”
“You were flirting with Ron, the only attractive
single man in the bar.”
“We all were flirting with him,” I insisted.
“Yeah, but you really shouldn’t be, you know?”
“Why? I was just joining in the fun. What’s
wrong with that? You know I’m a flirt, but I don’t mean anything by it.”
“You and Mia have boyfriends, and I don’t. Women who have partners shouldn’t flirt, especially if they’re out with their single friends who are looking.”
I was about to get all defensive, but I stopped myself and apologized. “Sorry, Sara. I’m glad you told me. I’ll try to be more aware next time.”
But later that night, I wondered — if you’re out
with a single friend or friends, is it wrong to flirt
if you’re attached and your friends aren’t?
As I’ve admitted before, I’m a shameless flirt, but an innocent one. My flirting has no intention attached — unless, of course, I’m unattached and available. No reason to be innocent then (well, if it’s someone I’m interested in).
When I’m in a relationship, as I am now, I don’t believe I have to give up my flirtatious ways. Being in a committed relationship doesn’t mean I have to get all asexual and stop interacting with the world in a playful way. Still, Sara’s word’s stay with me:
“Women who have partners shouldn’t flirt, especially if they’re out with their single friends.”
So, I defer to my readers, who often prove infinitely wiser than I:
- Should attached gals/guys no longer flirt?
- Or, is it OK to flirt if they’re alone but not OK if they’re out with single friends?
- And, finally — is this only how women would react, or would guys get all tweaked, too?
Photo © maron – Fotolia.com
Get naked, just don’t get paid for it
“This totally pisses me off,” Sara said, throwing down the newspaper in disgust.
“What are you talking about?”
“Just because Jodie Fisher posed nude and did a little soft porn like 10 years ago, she’s seen as some bimbo gold-digging slut who brought
down a hot-shot CEO — as if he had
nothing to do with it.” 
“Well, he …”
“He’s married, for crap’s sake!”
“Yes, but …”
“Look, maybe she is a gold-digger. Maybe the whole sexual harassment claim is bogus. But
what does her past have to do with it? Is making porn or posing nude a crime?”
No, it’s not, at least not in the United States. As
a matter of fact, your neighbors are probably posting last night’s amateur sex tapings on the Internet right now. And your teenage daughter? She just sextexted some hottie she hopes to sit next to in AP English when school starts later this month. Or, maybe it was to the really cute teacher.
Is Fisher any better or worse than a certain recent president who tossed off his druggie past as “youthful indiscretion”? Probably not.
The difference is this — she’s attractive, she’s a woman and it has something to do with sex. That’s a deadly threesome.
I know quite a few women who have been
sexually harassed, including me. Would I have sued one of my harassers? Hey, I’d love to see justice, because some of them made things really crappy for me at work. But there was that time I had sex with a man I barely knew in a public place; and the time I wore that uber-slutty outfit when I was in college (the only age you can absolutely get away with such antics) and hoping to sleep with the lead guitarist of a band I liked; and at least one of my former boyfriends has Polaroids of me being a nasty little girl.
How likely would it be that those things would work against me?
I don’t know, but you can ask Jodie Fisher.
OK, so my “youthful indiscretions” probably never made it past someone’s now-failing memory or crumpled in a nightstand drawer. I wasn’t in a Playboy collegiate spread or a movie like “Intimate Obsession.“
Not to say that I wouldn’t if had someone asked. But, whatever …
No, I didn’t profit from my sexuality, but I’m guessing that wouldn’t get me off the hook. Ms. Fisher, who had dreams of stardom, worked her looks and bod — which all gals do to a certain extent. And it’s happening younger and younger, thanks to a hottie-obsessed society. hey, people — sex sells! But, she got paid for it, too. Maybe we just don’t like that.
We all like watching porn (well, many of us), we have pole-dancing girls nights out, we sextext naked pictures of ourselves to our sweetie yet we judge those make their living from the same things. That’s weird.
HP’s Mark Hurd leaves with $28 million. Fisher’s working at her mom’s staffing agency, in between a dry cleaner and a hair salon, in a small strip mall in New Jersey, raising her son.
But I’ll bet somewhere someone’s offering her lots of money to pose nude again. Because, we’ll want to see it!
If I had a daughter, I’d be so making sure she wasn’t posting anything sexy on Facebook or sending naked pics of herself over her cellphone. But, I have a son; I guess I have nothing to worry about.
- Why do we diss women who make a living off of their looks and bod (while hoping to them naked at the same time?
- Does someone’s sexual past matter in a sexual harassment suit?
Take a lesson from Cleopatra
“So, what do you think of my date?” my friend Dan asked, sidling up to me as the stunning blonde went to the ladies room.
Sara and I had run into them when we’d popped into the new brewpub to get a beer after a long
sweaty hike this weekend. Dan waved us over, and I hung around when Sara had to leave to pick up her daughter.
“Well, she’s really pretty.”
“Yes, she is! But, what do you think of her?”
I didn’t quite get what he was getting at, so I went with the Wonder Bread assessment.
“She seems very nice.”
“C’mon Kat. Tell em what you really think.”
I’m always nervous when people ask me what I think of their love interest because being honest often doesn’t work out well. So, I fudged it.
“Dan, I think I should be asking you what you really think; you know her a lot better than I do, and besides, that’s all that matters, right?”
“True. Well, she’s not too with it, you know?”
“You mean she’s not too smart?”
“She’s smart, she’s just …”
And just like that, she was back at the table, all dimply and freshly lip-glossed.
We chatted some more, and I listened and watched a little more closely before I said my goodbyes.
Then I realized what she was “just” about.
She was just beautiful, but dull — there was no charm or wit to her, no curiosity.
Does that matter?
“It’s essential,” Dan said when we chatted on the phone later. “And that’s something women have forgotten.
“What do you mean?”
“Women nowadays act as if their degrees and ambition are aphrodisiacs, but they’re not.”
“Don’t guys want women who are smart?” 
“Smart’s not enough. They need to think like Cleopatra.”
“Uh, she killed herself with a snake. How smart is
that?”
“Go read about her.”
So I did. Evidently the Egyptian queen was quite the hottie in her day (although as people debate whether Angelina Jolie is the right person to portray her, Egyptologists insist she was actually “short, fat and plain”), but it really wasn’t her
beauty that captivated men or her age — although she was just 21 when she hooked up with the 52-year-old Caesar, and really, you can do no wrong at 21.
It was her wit, charm and, as Plutarch says,
the “sweetness in the tones of her voice” that made her a guy magnet.
Oh, dear; well, good luck, Valley girls …
Not to mention that she could “make herself agreeable to everyone,” as Cassius Dio says — which nowadays we’d probably have some silly self-help guru telling us to stop being such a “pleaser.”
But, is that what men want?
Dan says yes. Beauty and intelligence? Sure,
but if you can’t be playful and charming …
Guys may or may not want their intellectual equal, but they want someone who’s low-maintenance and makes him feel good, someone who’ll “make herself agreeable.”
Is being “agreeable” another word for doormat? Could be, if that’s how you feel about it. Can “agreeable” also mean manipulative? Maybe — I wouldn’t say Ms. Cleo had just her man’s best interests in mind. She had a few people offed, including her own sister, to keep her power.
But, haven’t you ever noticed that when you have a little “sweetness” in your voice that a guy will do pretty much anything for you?
Maybe to be treated like a princess we need to act like a queen!
- How important is charm and wit to you in a potential mate?
- Have women forgotten how to be “agreeable”?
- Is being “agreeable” giving up your power, or using your power?
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