Flirting

flirt, v.

1. trans. To propel or throw with a jerk or sudden movement; often, to propel by a blow from the finger-nail released from the thumb. Also with away, off, out. Cf. FILLIP v. 1.

    b. With immaterial obj.; esp. to blurt out (something spoken).

2. To give (a person) a sharp, sudden blow or knock; to rap, strike. Cf. FILLIP v. 2.

3. To give a brisk, sudden motion to; to flick. Also with out, up. to flirt a fan: to open and close it with a jerk, to wave it smartly.

    b. absol. or intr. Of a turkey-cock: To set up its feathers. rare.

4.  a. intr. To turn up one's nose; hence, to sneer, gibe, scoff at. Also of the nostrils: To be turned up or dilated, as if sneering (the earliest recorded use).   b. trans. To sneer or scoff at, flout (not clearly distinguishable from fig. use of 2). Obs.

5. intr. To move with a jerk or spring; to spring, dart. Of a winged creature: To take short quick flights. Also with about, away, up.

6. fig. To flit inconstantly from one object to another. Obs.

7. To play at courtship; to practise coquetry; to make love without serious intentions. Often, to flirt with (a person); also in indirect pass.

    b. To play, toy, trifle with (something).

    c. trans. = to flirt with. rare.



from OED Online

Definitions don't mean shit. I still don't understand flirting. I believe I don't flirt; in fact, I don't know how to flirt.

I'd once seen Rina in action. Rina is Jen's best friend, and I'd hung out with her all of three time the entire eight years I'd known Jen, but I'd swear Rina is the Goddess of flirtation, packaged in the body of the Goddess of Sex. Jen claims Rina flirts unconsciously - a sort of reflex, like breathing - and I want to throw myself at Rina's feet and pledge my allegiance as altar-girl and worshipper.

The one time I'd seen Rina in action, she was seventeen, and the three of us were at McDonald's. She was seated opposite me, with Jen next to her. As we chatted I noticed her eyes kept straying to a point behind me, and she was smiling ... well, flirtatiously. I'd wondered about it for awhile until a man - an expat in his late-twenties or early-thirties - came up to our table and asked if we could excused our friend for a moment; he'd like to speak to her.

After a long while, Rina sauntered back to our table from his table and said that he told her he had to fly off somewhere that night, but would cancel his flight if she would have dinner with him.

Okay, so maybe he might have been fudging the truth some, and that was just another easy pick-up for yet another smooth operator. But I was young and impressionable, and I'd never seen anything like that before, and it impressed the heck outta me. By Goddess, with just her eyes! I'd wished, then, that I could flirt with half her flair.

But I never did get the hang of flirting, or even what it means to flirt - and the OED is sure as hell not helping. I need to know what flirting is because I don't want to stupidly send out the wrong signals.

There are a lot of things I'd waited for - things I thought would come naturally to a girl as she enters womynhood, things like wearing war-paint ... er, make-up; looking at a lash-curler without having to muffle a scream; painting nails without getting nail polish everywhere; balancing - never mind walking - in three-inch stilettos; climbing up the fucking bus in a fucking skirt; wearing panty-hose without wimpering; the most effective way of removing bloodstains from clothings; fixing the various household appliances; cracking an egg without getting the yolk pierced and eggshell bits in it; boiling the perfect hard-boiled egg under thirty minutes; and flirting.

Hell, I'm way past entering womynhood; I'm in - have been in - womynhood for years now, and still ... nada. Where the fuck is my share of the feminine fruits of wisdom?

I need to know how not to accidentally flirt with a male, how tell a guy who hits on me to fuck off without coming across as rude and antagonistic, how to say no to a guy who asks me out without feeling all guilty because I'd given him my number when he hit on me because I didn't know how to say fuck off without coming across as rude an antagonistic.

I also need to know on which part of my anatomy some jerk posted a "All Freaks and Idiots Welcome - Freaks and Idiots of the World Unite" or a "Seeking Male with Lame Pick-Up Lines - All Inquiries Entertained" placard (or possibly both) so I can remove it immediately.

Actually, I got it all planned out: after I've accomplished the above, I want to learn how to flirt - prolly the least difficult thing of all (comparatively); I bet there are copies of Flirting For Dummies or Flirting Made Easy somewhere in the library that I could take out. Then I'd start hanging around Jen's so I could practise flirting with June.

But - fuck. Jen just told me last night that June's moving out at the end of this week, and she's got no idea where she'll be moving to.

Fuck.