So I saw this post the other day, and I thought about it. I don’t really know how to flirt, and Sex Geek is right… the alt-sex community has lost the art of seduction to the admirable goal of open and clear communication. Even as liberated as we are, I don’t know many people who aren’t picky about their partners, their desires, their kinks, etc., and the only way to make sure everyone has fun and that relationships hold together is that kind of communication. But the article points out that flirting and seduction can still work in that context and gives a template for one style of flirting that integrates nicely into the alt-sex lifestyle.
I’ve been trying to learn how to flirt. My worry has always been that since I’m a married man and very candid about that, I’ll come off as creepy, especially if my wife isn’t around to say explicitly to the person that I’m flirting with that it’s alright. There are a lot of cheaters out there. I had a lawyer try to lump me in with them publicly during my divorce some years ago, when even my ex-wife said that was patently untrue, and that’s always stung me more than I care to admit. Because I’m above all other things an honest person, and for all the things I don’t care about other people thinking of me, to have someone think me dishonest still cuts to the quick and probably always will.
The last place I got to practice the art of flirting was at a science fiction convention, WisCon 32. Some of my readers may even have been flirted with… It’s a safer forum for that sort of thing, because saying the word “poly” out loud doesn’t derail the moment and send it off into an explanation of what polyamory is or what an open relationship is, or “rules.” There are always people who think we have some kind of universal Code. FYI, polyamorists are like Democrats (I’m both, so I should know), put five of us in a room together and just see if you can get us to agree on anything.
I was pleasantly surprised by people’s reactions to my being more flirtatious than I normally am. Surprised, sometimes amused, but really never disappointed. Oh, and disappointed is not a euphemism. Disappointment, by my counting, would be if I’d managed to ruin a potential friendship by showing interest in something more intimate. I didn’t hop into bed with anybody new at the con, but I did make a couple of new friends, and somehow, the flirting seemed to make closer friends with a couple of them than I would have otherwise. Just goes to show. Try something new, learn something new.
This makes me glad I had kids, because if I didn’t I would be all obsessed over who was flirting with whom, and the correct protocols, and gee does that mean I fit into some cheesy internet acronym deal. I think you are right when you say most of these types at your convention are ‘lefties’.
There is much irony here because in making little internet clubs and conventions, they are not really ‘playing on the edge’ or ‘existing outside mainstream lines’ as they so often claim- they are so unable to talk about their poly-problems with ‘mono’ people ,etc etc…but, herein lies the rub- they AREN’T really outcasts because they have found a way to mainstream it. All of this evaluating and public obsessing (think popular poly sites) is rather creepy to me. It serves to outline the bloggers/podcasters obsession with self rather than interest in others- rather a poly-as-more-people-to-give_ME-attention-cause-it’s-all-about-ME mentality. Even if I would be OK with the practice of it, from nosing around, I probably wouldn’t ‘fit in’, as per usual. Unless of course I start an ‘extremist’ , ‘antisocial’, ex-’goth’ ‘politically incorrect’ poly group. Ha.
I think you spend so much time thinking that you are a bad flirter that you don’t realize you are quite good at it
Ellie, It’s a lot of work, and there are some contexts that i’m more comfortable in than others. Internet flirting, I kind of have down. In person…. not so much. Getting there, though.