The Flirt

Flirting: a form of human interaction between two people, expressing a romantic and/or sexual interest. Usually consisting of conversation,body language or brief physical contact. It may be one sided or reciprocated.

For me it's neither. Its simply disastrous. Having been in two long term relationships, my flirting skills were never really activated. Flirting was not required. The men came to me.

Fast forward a little, and now at 29, free from the destructive vices of my last relationship, here I am. Utterly and completely happy with my life, and ready to seriously start dating again. After some thoughtful soul searching; I know what I want in a man. I know what I am attracted to and what gets me excited. I'm taking a different approach this time around. Im going after what I want.

So I embarked on a mission about 3 months ago. To brush up on my flirting skills, pick a target and make it happen. When faced with the pivotal flirting moment, one has two flirting choices. (1) the sexy and confident approach, (i.e make direct eye contact or have "just the right thing to say"), or (2) my approach (i.e tripping, blundering and muttering random nonsensical sentences).

I began to see the pattern, and most importantly I was quickly learning that I wasn't a very good flirt at all. I trudged onward, not abandoning my mission, and yet the end results were always the same. Take yesterday's blunder as a prime example. Enter hot guy. They say timing is everything. As I walked through a hallway only a clear glass door separated the two of us. It was absolutely the perfect opportunity to introduce myself. It would have been the perfect time to confidently hold out my hand, introduce myself, throw in a hair twirl and even perhaps a flash of pearly whites. Right at that moment, that pivotal moment when both of our hands were on the handle, it jammed on my side and my shoulder dove into the door, leaving the left side of my face smeared on the glass pane in pursuit. He smiled. My two choices flashed before my eyes. I knew I could recover from this mishap, shake it off and start over. Instead, I muttered some ridiculus thing. A twitchy grin spread across my face and he walked on. Perfect.

So, as I span the lessons learned over the past ten years, I get it. Some women are just really good at flirting, they have a natural talent and ability to capture a man's attention and let it be known that they're interested- leading to reciprocal desire. The rest of us ain't so lucky- I'm still holding out for the man who finds my flirting skills irresistibly sexy.