Posted by Tamar on August 10, 2005, at 17:51:47
In reply to Re: What do you think of FLIRTING????, posted by caraher on August 10, 2005, at 13:00:55
> > Does she imply there's something wrong with flirting?
>
> Not in so many words, but it's in the way she says it. Sometimes I almost wish I were the unfaithful type, so the kind of suspicion she sometimes treats me with would be earned. One example I have in mind is when an online friend called me pretty much out of the blue and I was handed the phone with the words "it's your girlfriend."Argh! I would find that quite hard to live with, but that’s just me. Still, I suppose the compassionate view of such comments is that she’s maybe a little insecure. Do you ever talk about it?
> It's nice that she wants to keep me for herself, and I understand that before she met me she was burned by an unfaithful boyfriend. But that was decades ago and it was someone else! And while I'm certainly as vulnerable to developing a crush on someone as the next guy I'd like more credit for my ability to recognize and respect suitable boundaries. We're really in agreement about the importance to us of marital fidelity, and I let her manage her own affairs in complete confidence that she would never cheat on me. I'd just like the same in return!
It seems to me that many women think men are inherently lustful. Perhaps they find it hard to imagine that a man can look at an attractive woman, or even fantasise about other women, without actually wanting to act on it. I think some women believe that feelings of attraction actually constitute a kind of infidelity. I don’t really agree with that perspective, because I think attraction is just part of being human. It seems a shame if a woman feels angry about her partner’s attractions (and probably guilty about her own biological responses to attractive people), because there isn’t any means of making it all go away. To me it’s much more important to consider how people act.
> Yup, as long as you have a mutual understanding about such things. I remember the one time a college roommate came close to punching me was when he was flirting with a mutual friend and remarked that "there can only be one flirt in a relationship." At the time he had a girlfriend back home and I said, "Yeah, some guy is probably saying that to Jill right now..."
Tee hee. Yeah, it has to be a mutual understanding. But for me it’s also about feeling very secure in my marriage. I know my husband is sexually curious about dozens of women every day, but I’m pretty certain he’s not likely to start an affair with any of them. So far, he has always come home to me!
> I guess I should add that it isn't just a jealous nature underlying her definition of flirting. For instance, I picked up my son after some athletic practice and when I arrived he was speaking to a girl. When I talked to my wife about picking him up her immediate reaction was, "Oh, he was flirting with Laura..." I said they were just talking as far as I could see and she basically said that constitutes flirting.
Argh again! Maybe she’s right… maybe all contact between men and women (or at least straight men and women) is somewhat sexualised. But on the other hand, I talk to lots of men every day who I don’t want to have sex with. For example, my students. I don’t even think about it; it never crosses my mind to think about them sexually, probably because I think of them as child-like.
> I suppose it would be fun. But really, I'm just so much more interested in normal human contact quite apart from flirting. Flirting would be part of the "advanced course," I guess! Though again, I don't know where the line is (yes, I know that it's probably a fuzzy one).
Actually, I don’t think the line is terribly fuzzy. I think if you talk to someone you feel attracted to and there’s smiling, laughter, touching and romantic or sexual content to the conversation, that’s flirting. You could have all the other things without the attraction and it probably wouldn’t be flirting. Or you could have the attraction without the touching or verbal sexual content and it probably wouldn’t be flirting. And then, of course, there’s the eye contact…
Just my two cents.
Tamar
poster:Tamar
thread:539248
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20050805/msgs/540023.html