Tuesday 15 September 2009

Accidental flirtation

I guess I'm a little bit of a flirt. At least, some people have told me this, and I certainly do enjoy flirting, but I wonder about this. Sometimes being friendly can be misconstrued as being flirtatious. I swear, I'm just being friendly. I have a hard time finding that line, I guess.

Last night, I was at a friend's house and ran into someone in my third year core class. I find that course a little intimidating since it's my first 3000 level course, and I was glad to get to know someone in the course better. We were discussing the class, the presentations we have to do, our other classes. I noticed my new friend was drumming on his knees to the music. His friend nearby leaned in and gave me a knowing look and said "He's a drummer. He drums. He's a musician" and wandered off giggling. He gave some indignant and embarrassed response which is when I decided I was probably in the middle of a misunderstanding and excused myself. Oops! Awkward.

But I was just being friendly. When a girl is friendly to a guy, is that flirting? What's the difference really?

4 comments:

Saf said...

and then you have to get into questions of "when a girl is friendly to a girl, is that flirting? What's the difference really?" if you don't want to be all heteronormative and stuff...

Ange Friesen said...

a) haha. And b) yes. Being friendly is flirting. A few years ago I was working on a student film and was always super nice to the lead actor (I had to help him with costume stuff a fair bit), mostly because he was the lead actor... some kind of set etiquette thing. Anyways, I didn't like him, but he asked me out, and I realized that I should actually be really nice to the people that I like. The end. Good story.

Ange Friesen said...

Like, way more than I am usually super nice. Ridiculously nice. Like he was a pet. Uh.

Loud said...

There's actually some evolutionary science to this; it is a more successful reproductive strategy for guys to have as their default assumption that a lady is into them. I think that it's more of a constant than society's attitudes about what constitutes "flirting", insomuch as instinctive behaviour would likely take millions of years to breed out of men.

As for my personal opinion on the matter, I think there are signs above and beyond being friendly that indicate actual flirtation, mostly body language I'd guess? I am not the most perceptive of people on account of being innately prone to distraction.