The art of flirting is as old as its’ goal – sex itself. It’s the the verbal foreplay, that we perform when we meet some one with whom we’d like to “mate”.
But flirting seems to have become an act that we can no longer really control – we do it all the time, even when we don’t intend to.
A couple of weeks ago I was having a few drinks with some friends in a nightclub, when I met a man at the bar, who kindly offered me a drink. He seemed decent enough, so I accepted his kind offer, had a drink and a conversation with him at the bar. Then suddenly my friends came over and said that we were leaving for another club and I quickly said goodbye and went along with them.
The morning after, it occured to me that this man had made a gesture expressing his interest in me and I, even though I hadn’t intended to, had flirted back by accepting this particular drink and had then just left.
What can you assume from a simple gesture?
The interesting part in this matter is the motive behind a man offering a drink, and the clarity of the motive behind the woman accepting it. Once in a while it might be okay to just be naive and assume that a man can offer a woman a drink just to get to talk to her. But deep down we probably know that this is a quite naive assumption. Perhaps just as naive as for a man to assume that a woman accepting a drink is a woman wanting more than just to talk?
If a man offers you a drink, you can assume that he is single (or perhaps ready to cheat). If a woman accepts a drink she has at least some interest in you, but the gesture itself does not tell you whether she is single or not. This gets really confusing because many women who aren’t really available do flirt just like other singles. But why do women flirt, even if they are dating someone else (or married)?
Pointless Flirtation?
When we flirt, we open up a window to a world of fun and excitement. Note that it’s only a window not a door because we don’t really want to enter this world, we only want to have a little peak of what it looks like. So we open the window, we accept the first drink, talk, laugh and maybe even let our fingers touch some of what we see, but then when the sun sets we close it up and return to our homes, well behaved.
We flirt because it’s fun and exciting, not necessarily to get anything out of it. But isn’t this incredibly unfair to all the single men, who actually do want something out the their flirting?
Acceptable Flirting Behavior
There are some rules of what you can and cannot do when you’re in a relationship. Most commonly, it’s okay to talk to other people and to go out every once in a while, but probably not actually flirt.
Unfortunately, the line between going out and talking to other people and directly flirting is extremely thin. It’s a matter of a very subjective analysis of a given situation. A woman can have a drink with you, while playing with her hair, laughing at almost everything you say, and still be off the market. And you can’t really blame a woman for acting like this because it doesn’t say anywhere on the drink that you offer her, that she must be single to enjoy it.
Be Discretely Direct
If you’re a single guy in search of a woman and have experienced flirting women who aren’t really available a few too many times – there are a few suggestions of how to reveal the “fake flirtations” of these women.
If you find that a woman seems to be flirting with you, try pointing the conversation discretely into a direction that will make her talk about herself and her social status. This can be done in many ways. Ask her questions that will lead her to reveal key pointers. Like these:
- Do you go out a lot?
- What are you doing next weekend
- Would you like to go to a more quiet place?
In other words, carefully try to cross the line of harmless flirtation into what would be inappropriate if you’re in a relationship. But then again, there are no rules, so what some might consider inappropriate, can still be acceptable for others. The point is to make it obvious what you want out of the flirting and this goes for women as well as men. This can be done in a subtle fashion but doesn’t have to be. You could make it clear that you simply bought her a drink for temporary companionship and nothing more.
How much is too much?
But still the question remains: How much you can actually flirt when you’re off the market? And the answer to that question is – a lot! At least that’s what we do, women even more than men, you might presume. But when do we know when it’s too much, if such a line even exists? It’s difficult to set up rules for this kind of situation but you can still keep it simple. You can flirt just as much as you would be able to handle another woman flirting with your man, or another man with your woman. It really should be that simple.
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