You flirt with everything.” She could tell that her eyes were popping– her eyeballs actually felt cold around the edges. “You flirt with old people and babies and everybody in between.
Rainbow Rowell
Fangirl
I guess I was a naturally flirty person. I don’t know. I’d just be existing, happy and curious and social, and then somebody would comment on my flirting. It upset me at first, feeling like I was being accused of intentions I didn’t have. As a kid they tell you over and over that you’re supposed to make eye contact when people are speaking to you, and nod and say things like mm-hm, so they know you’re listening. They call it being respectful. Then your body gets a little lumpy and when you do those exact same things, they call it flirting.
It upset me at first. I hate feeling misunderstood and some of the attention I got from grown men was downright scary. I run towards things that scare me, though. Since it seemed I didn’t have the option of not flirting, I wanted to become very good at it. Fortunately, I was in the right place at the right time, which in this case was performing at the Renaissance Pleasure Faire in the 80s and 90s. So much flirting.
These terms are all a little fuzzy, in that there’s definitely something subjective to it. Still, to my own sense of order, at least, the flirt is not the same as the come-on. The come-on has intentions, fleeting though they may sometimes be. Pure flirting is much simpler. To flirt is just to see someone and make sure they know you see them and that they know that you like what you see. Babies flirt. Babies are incapable of the come-on.
When I started working faire, I was young enough to think that all the PDAs were kinda gross, but it turned into a weirdly safe place to learn how to flirt. When done right, flirting celebrates how everything is delicious, without asking for anything to eat. Flirting can escalate to a come-on but, I cannot emphasize this enough, they’re not the same thing.
And that’s why I stopped flirting. Too many people don’t share my belief in this distinction. I just want to tell the world how beautiful it is, to express my enthusiasm for the people around me, without being accused of leading people on just because I paid attention to them. I like attention, giving it, receiving it. On certain occasions, on stage, I even like the feeling of commanding it. Only with the rare and special individual do I want it to lead to anything else, though.
In summation, I am really good at flirting. Except for when I’m not. Crushes are like kryptonite for my rizz. If I’m actually into somebody I forget how to word. I fluster and fumble and can’t do anything right. Admiring, I am good at, but wanting someone, it’s too much. I can’t flirt like that..
The Work Crush was going through an isolating experience and had asked for emails from friends. I like to think I’m a good writer, and a good friend, and so I took it upon myself to write him frequent emails about everything going on at work. I don’t remember what I said. It wasn’t about what I was saying, so much as just keeping him connected to our workplace and the associated community.
He returned to work just a little sooner than expected, surprising us all by showing up at an event with small gifts from abroad. The Work Crush is a performer and he walked in the door with full razzle dazzle charm. He was on. I am more inclined to lurk on the periphery, and tend to lean into my own invisibility while doing so. From this comfort zone, just outside the group, I watched the master storyteller regale our colleagues with his latest tales.
Then he approached me unexpectedly. I wasn’t prepared for that. He stood too close to me. He spoke in a quieter, very sincere voice, “Crystal, I just want to thank you for all of your lovely emails…” I cut him off. It had been easy to write anything to him from thousands of miles away, but now I was embarrassed. What had I written to him? He was inches away from me, being beautiful, and charming and making me the center of his attention. The Work Crush wasn’t even flirting with me. He was just reciprocating my friendship. Still, it was too much.
I interrupted him loudly, much too loudly for how close we were standing. Arms out wide, I made this large gesture, like I was playing keyboard in some manic 80s synth band, and declared, “I like to type!” I meant to say, “it was no big deal, I enjoyed writing to you,” with a smaller, more laptop sized gesture. I am, in more level headed moments, very good at being friends with my Work Crush, but I could not flirt with him if my life depended on it. He exists, and in response, I fluster.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m very flirty in the context of a relationship. The short circuit has more to do with knowing that I am bad at obscuring myself. If how I feel on the inside is okay to express on the outside I’m a lot closer to charming (in my own clumsy, socially awkward way).
I can flirt if I only mean, “looking good,” or if I also mean “I can’t wait to get you home later.” I just can’t flirt if I mean, “OMG, I want you, but I don’t want to want to you because right now I think we could make tonight amazing but some part of me still knows tomorrow would be hella awkward if we did and I already know that we are not going to be the sort of lasting partnership that I am looking for, and you were just saying hi so this entire argument with myself is inappropriate.” That is a string of thoughts that I need to keep to myself.
It’s trying to keep myself to myself that makes it impossible to flirt. I am, in every way, a better person when I have no secrets. When the Work Bestie declared his intent to flirt with me there weren’t any secrets. I didn’t want anything more than friendship and I doubt he did either. He was as sweet as he was beautiful, I, in turn, was fully at ease in my delusions that he was harmless.
We were hanging out, at work, talking about life and things and he got kinda serious and gave me this seemingly non-sequitor speech about how and why he would never cheat on his girlfriend at the time. Good. Weird, but good. Good, because people shouldn’t cheat on each other. Weird, because why was he telling me this? It was so serious and seemed so non sequitur. Then he told me that it was okay to flirt. And as someone who is naturally flirty, I agreed. Then he made it clear that he was okay with flirting with me.
I almost laughed. It was so unexpected. We’d had lots of deep conversations at that point, and lots of kidding each other about things, and lots of generally enjoying each other’s company. You know, the things friends do. I felt safe with him, at least partially because he was known to be faithful. The declared intent to flirt with me was such an awkward way to start a flirtation. He was beautiful, no doubt, but we weren’t like that.
At the time, I kept to myself that I thought it was adorable. Why not let him play with the big kids? I like flirting. This could be fun. I appreciated the clarification that this flirtation would be à la carte, with no come-on included. That surely saved us from a different conversation, because I was definitely not down to be anybody’s side chick and I would have been livid if I’d thought that he thought I was. Alright, weirdo, let’s flirt. For no reason other than that he declared it so, the Work Bestie and I went from being Friends to being Friends Who Flirt.
I got rhythm, I can’t miss a beat
I got a new skank, so reet
Got something, I’m winking at you
Gonna make you, make you, make you notice
Gonna use my arms, gonna use my legs
Gonna use my style, gonna use my sidestep
Gonna use my fingers, gonna use my, my, my
imagination
The Pretenders
Brass in Pocket
Crystal, Clearly 
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