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Flirting Without Being A Creep

Flirting Without Being A Creep

Last updated on: August 26, 2016 at 1:12 am by Tom Swiss

Flirting Without Being A Creep 2016-08-26T01:12:31-04:00 Tom Swiss

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There’s something I’ve been meaning to write about since the Starwood Festival, but as that old Zen Pagan John Lennon put it, life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans. (Though the idea doesn’t seem to have been original to John.)

Since the topic is likely to come up at the Lovelight Yoga and Arts Festival this upcoming weekend, let’s see if I can gather my thoughts into something coherent. But first, a little tangent about Starwood…

The festival was, as always, an excellent time. It was a bit of a mellow year for me — I find that I’ve been needing my sleep the past few months, possibly a response to the concussion I gave myself earlier this year when I collided with a student. So I wasn’t up around the fire as late as usual, though I did make it to dawn in the company of some lovely people around the big bonfire Saturday night.

A personal highlight was signing a copy of my book Why Buddha Touched the Earth for Oberon Zell, one of the founding figures of the Pagan revival. (Ahem. You can be cool like Oberon and buy a copy too, just saying. Or pick up my new essay collection, What Does It Mean For The Gods To Exist?.)

I also got to see several old festival friends. One of those is a lovely young lady of several year’s acquaintance, whom I’ll call “R” for the purposes of this story. When I got to sit down and catch up with her for a few minutes, one topic that came up was the way that a fellow festival-goer had flirted with her in an unsubtle and clumsy manner. It wasn’t a threatening situation, but it made her uncomfortable.

The fellow in question had produced a flashlight to help her find her bag around the fire, which was a good deed and could have served as a fine way to meet someone. But he had presumed on the small acquaintance thus created, had more or less jumped from that to “Your tent or mine?”

(I should note that I’m taking one side of the story without question here in order to make a general point. Should someone recognize the players here, I wouldn’t want the fellow involved convicted in the court of opinion.)

Image via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

This sort of thing seems to happen a fair bit at festivals. I think there are at least two reasons. One, for those of us who are outside of the mainstream of society, festivals represent a unique opportunity to meet potentially compatible people. When I head to a show on a Saturday night, even if it’s a band I like, I probably don’t have much in common with the average other person in the audience. But when I go to Starwood or FSG, every woman I meet there is the sort of person who goes to events like Starwood and FSG! So we have something exciting in common.

Second, festivals are temporary autonomous zones where some of the usual strictures are loosened. It’s permissible to say and do some things that could get you in trouble on that Saturday night back home. There is an energetic openness that includes sexuality, and it can be the case that you end up in a passionate encounter with someone you just met. I know some people who’ve have successful long-term relationships, even life partners, who started from such an encounter.

But that makes it extra disappointing when men new to this culture, inebriated by this freedom and entranced by the empowered and confident women who attend these events, pull the stuff they’ve learned in mundane mainstream culture. It harshes everyone’s buzz.

(It’s not my intention to be heteronormative here — I’m just writing from my experience as a straight guy watching the behavior of straight and bi men approaching women. This is only one sliver of human experience. I suspect some of these points apply to other combinations but I must leave it to those with relevant experience to comment.)

Some years ago at Starwood I got talking with Lasara Firefox, the author of the book Sexy Witch. Lasara used to be a regular at Starwood before she moved to the West Coast, and she would often teach an NLP-based flirting workshop at the festival — it was usually packed! After watching this guys-trying-Mundania-strategies play out several times I jokingly suggested that someone ought to teach a “How NOT To Flirt” workshop. She agreed and said that it ought to be called, “How Not to be ‘That Guy'”.

“‘That guy’?” I asked.

“Oh yeah,” she nodded, “‘that guy’.”

Every time I mention this to a woman, it’s met with a chuckle or an eye-roll. The concept of “that guy” seems to be a familiar one to women in our culture. And it’s not a label to be coveted.

It also put me in mind of a recent edition of Dan Savage’s “Savage Love” column where a woman wrote to ask if it was okay to pretend to be a lesbian in order to dismiss a guy who made a pass at her:

Most recently I used this pose when a courier broke down in my driveway and I invited him in for a glass of water while he waited for the tow truck. It was really uncomfortable and a little threatening when—after establishing that I lived alone—he asked me out.

Savage, and the mostly-but-but-entirely lesbian woman he checked with, agreed that it was okay to pretend to be lesbian, but that it was unlikely to put the guy off.

But as a straight single guy, I found myself putting myself in the courier’s shoes.

Let’s say that I found myself in a lady’s house though some accidental circumstance. And let’s say that this was a lady I found physically attractive. And let’s say also that after a glance at her bookshelves and CD collection (okay, maybe I’m being old here) I find, wow, this pretty lady and I seem to share some interests. Maybe we might be compatible.

Now in this situation I have information about this lady that she doesn’t have about me; I have reason to think there’s a possibility that she has no reason to suspect. And even putting that information asymmetry aside, in our culture it’s unlikely that she would make the first overt move. We can debate for a long time whether it’s a matter of biology or social conditioning, but either way the fact is that in our present reality, men are generally expected to initiate flirting.

But in this imaginary situation, I would already be pressing boundaries. I’ve entered her home, her sanctum sanctorum, without the usual social niceties by which she gets to decide whom to invite in.

We might define flirting, for our purposes, as the deliberate initiation of a conversation that could lead to the development of a romantic or sexual connection. Such a connection is a matter of negotiating and stretching boundaries. If circumstances have placed you in an uncomfortably close situation, boundaries are already stretched and additional pressure is likely to cause a reflex contraction. It’s time to hold your horses the moment.

If the courier had waited until he was on his way out the door, waited until the boundaries were normalizing, and as he was leaving said something like, “Hey, this is weird and all, but you’re a very lovely lady and I see that we’ve read some of the same books and you’ve got a great collection of blues albums, and I was wondering if maybe you’d like to get together sometime? Here’s my number,” he could have indicated his interest, paid her a complement, shown respect for her boundaries, informed her a little about himself, and given her an invitation to follow up — all without the sort of pressure and discomfort he created by asking her out while he was already in her house.

What he did was probably not ill-intentioned, but it was inartful. (And, full disclosure, there have certainly been times when I’ve been every bit as inartful. But I think I’ve learned a few things over the years.)

Similarly, I can’t blame our friend at the Starwood fire for finding R attractive and flirting with her. But he could have done it in a much more skillful way which would not have left her uncomfortable. If he had said something like “It’s been my pleasure to light your way, lovely lady,” and let it go at that, and then kept an eye out for her around the festival the next day and used their initial connection to strike up a conversation, he could have presented himself in a better light, demonstrated patience, shown that respect for boundaries, and not created an uncomfortable situation for R.

It’s still unlikely he would have met with success in his flirtation, for various reasons. But done well, even an unsuccessful flirtation should still leave the flirtee feeling complimented and pleased and have them wishing well to the flirter.

Flirting is a skill. But its a skill we don’t discuss or teach.

There was an episode of the animated SF comedy “Futurama” where genuinely nice guy Kif Kroker is romantically interested in Amy Wong, but hasn’t a clue how to proceed. His captain, the egotistical and generally slimy Zapp Brannigan, takes Kif under his wing and teaches him how to flirt — horribly, of course.

And hilarity ensues as Kif recites Zapp’s sexist and stupid lines. But it’s only funny because we know that’s not the true Kif. If you’re a Kif, don’t take the advice of the Zapps of the world.

Unfortunately, here in our time, pretty much the only people talking to men about that skill are the wretched hive of scum and villainy known as the “pickup artist” (PUA) community — a group which makes Zapp look like a perfect gentleman.

Here are some actual excerpts from a PUA text that can be found in a few versions on the web. (I won’t dignify them with a link, but one version is titled “Fast Seduction 101 Player Guide”.)

All the time have a game-show host mentality – act jolly, happy, goofy, “take it easy”, be very open about what you are doing and very open about each consecutive action you have in mind, for every little success (holding hand, hand around her waist, a kiss) show explicit joy and do a high 5 with your wingman.

…

You might be ignored at first, the girls will try to hint the two of you better leave etc – that’s common. But even if your getting the slightest response or feedback, even if negative, don’t give up before trying at least five minutes (might seem like a monstrous amount of time, but its not, because you’re HAVING FUN, and it is bound to stick to the girls as well, they’ll start smiling and laughing eventually and that’s what you’re aiming for:)

…

If the girls are leaving or going somewhere else, attach yourselves to them – they’ll definitely feel awkward for a few moments in the beginning, but once you’ve gotten your act rolling, they won’t want you to leave:)

(I have to note that that last piece of advice is basically stalking, and it’s right about here I would suggest my self-defense students to take action. Don’t do that, please.)

When this horrible BS is the information most readily available to men who want to learn the skill of initiating connections with women, we have a problem.

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I’ll be presenting at the Lovelight Yoga+Arts Festival August 26-28 in Darlington, Maryland

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