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lydyWhat the the Readercon flap and all that, I've been thinking a fair amount about sexual harassment, social interactions, and so on. John Scalzi has had several very sensible things to say about how to interact with people, how not to be a creep, and so on. Many commenters have have useful things to say, too. One of the things that's been said several times, though, is roughly, "Don't flirt with someone unless they flirt with you." Which leads me to immediately think, "But, then, no one would ever flirt." Which would be, in my opinion, a damn shame. I like flirting. I think it can be a world of fun.
Which leads me to a revelation. Flirting is not one of those things that socially inept people should really attempt. Please let me be clear: I am talking about flirting, that ever-so-slightly salacious banter that people who are attracted to each other indulge in in social settings. I am not talking about any of the other multitudinous ways that people indicate to each other that there is a sexual attraction and that they might be interested in doing something about it. Here's a crucial piece of information that some people appear to be lacking: flirting is not the only way, or even always the best way, to get laid.
Flirting is, in fact, a high-risk, complex social interaction. It is, often, about gaming the system. It is about using various "acceptable" interactions to imply "unacceptable" interactions. Please note the scare quotes. I think sexual behavior is perfectly ok. Really. But flirting is about playing a game. If you are not skilled enough at this game to tell whether or not the target of your flirting is having fun, and is at least interested enough in the game to play it with you, you are not good enough at it to play. Really. Being able to detect interest, the level of interest, and maintain the intensity at a level which pleases both of you, and does not creep either of you out, is difficult, and part of the fucking point.
There is nothing wrong with either a) not wanting to play this game, or b) not being very good at it. It's a style of social eptness which has, at best, a very limited utility. And you run the very real risk of being mistaken as an operator, or a creeper. I did mention that it was a high-stakes game, right? Being female, it's much easier for me, since in the game, it's pretty acceptable for me to simply accept or reject gambits. I can, if I want, never increase the intensity of the situation, always just accepting or rejecting further intimacies. Typically, the guy will up the ante as things go along. Look, I didn't say this was a unbiased, politically correct game. It's gendered as hell. It's unfair. It's difficult. Under the right circumstances, with the right partner, it can be fun. These days, you can also play with subverting the paradigm. Women's options have become more varied, all to the good. But, fundamentally, this is a game based on mainstream, conventional mores, and ways to subvert them.
But that high-risk thing I was talking about? Really. Played badly, you end up being a harasser, a stalker, a predator. Because in the end, the thing that is _really important_ is not the game, but the other person. You are playing this game with a _person_. Someone with past, present, connections, context, old scars, preferences, needs, desires, and who _is_not_you_. The whole evil "pick up artist" thing entirely defines the interaction as a competition. Flirting, when it's fun, is not competition, it's co-operation. Which means respecting other people's boundaries, figuring out what's going on, and being pretty clear. Which sounds like the opposite of flirting, which thrives on ambiguity. Which is why this is tough. Because you need both: clarity and ambiguity.
Which leads me to a revelation. Flirting is not one of those things that socially inept people should really attempt. Please let me be clear: I am talking about flirting, that ever-so-slightly salacious banter that people who are attracted to each other indulge in in social settings. I am not talking about any of the other multitudinous ways that people indicate to each other that there is a sexual attraction and that they might be interested in doing something about it. Here's a crucial piece of information that some people appear to be lacking: flirting is not the only way, or even always the best way, to get laid.
Flirting is, in fact, a high-risk, complex social interaction. It is, often, about gaming the system. It is about using various "acceptable" interactions to imply "unacceptable" interactions. Please note the scare quotes. I think sexual behavior is perfectly ok. Really. But flirting is about playing a game. If you are not skilled enough at this game to tell whether or not the target of your flirting is having fun, and is at least interested enough in the game to play it with you, you are not good enough at it to play. Really. Being able to detect interest, the level of interest, and maintain the intensity at a level which pleases both of you, and does not creep either of you out, is difficult, and part of the fucking point.
There is nothing wrong with either a) not wanting to play this game, or b) not being very good at it. It's a style of social eptness which has, at best, a very limited utility. And you run the very real risk of being mistaken as an operator, or a creeper. I did mention that it was a high-stakes game, right? Being female, it's much easier for me, since in the game, it's pretty acceptable for me to simply accept or reject gambits. I can, if I want, never increase the intensity of the situation, always just accepting or rejecting further intimacies. Typically, the guy will up the ante as things go along. Look, I didn't say this was a unbiased, politically correct game. It's gendered as hell. It's unfair. It's difficult. Under the right circumstances, with the right partner, it can be fun. These days, you can also play with subverting the paradigm. Women's options have become more varied, all to the good. But, fundamentally, this is a game based on mainstream, conventional mores, and ways to subvert them.
But that high-risk thing I was talking about? Really. Played badly, you end up being a harasser, a stalker, a predator. Because in the end, the thing that is _really important_ is not the game, but the other person. You are playing this game with a _person_. Someone with past, present, connections, context, old scars, preferences, needs, desires, and who _is_not_you_. The whole evil "pick up artist" thing entirely defines the interaction as a competition. Flirting, when it's fun, is not competition, it's co-operation. Which means respecting other people's boundaries, figuring out what's going on, and being pretty clear. Which sounds like the opposite of flirting, which thrives on ambiguity. Which is why this is tough. Because you need both: clarity and ambiguity.
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Date: 2012-08-13 02:15 am (UTC)Flirting is just a game. It is associated with much higher status than it should be. I can't play chess. There have been situations in my life where that was a social drawback. It made things not fun for me. I had to find environments in which being able to play chess was not important. I do like to play bridge. I am just very bad at it. Which means that I don't play it very often, and only with people who are very patient, know I don't remember all the rules very well, and are willing to explain the difficult bits to me. Perhaps even more like flirting: I can't dance. It is an important social thing that lots of people do, which has a significant sexual undertone. I have two left feet, no sense of rhythm, and am clumsy and graceless. On very rare occasions, usually when I'm drunk, I can be lured onto the dance floor. Even then, I make no attempt to dance _with_ someone. I can't catch their cues, can't interact. I can move somewhat spastically to the music and have an ok time, especially if I don't think anyone is watching. There are a number of social situations which make that considerably less than ideal. And you know, I have tried to learn to dance. But I do not have that skill. So, I do the things necessary to compensate for it.
If you really want to flirt, you should try to find flirting partners who are like my bridge partners, people who are aware of your skill level, and willing to work with you on that basis. But there's an important question of why you would want to.
Flirting is not the only way to get laid. Really, honestly, mostly I don't get laid by flirting. Usually, I get laid by asking blunt questions like, "My place or yours, and do you have condoms on you?" This works pretty well, actually. And flirting is very much not the only way to make a good human connection. There are lots of arguments for how it can interfere with making good human connections. I would argue that it is perfectly possible to make an important emotional connection that way, but you know, people do lots and lots of different things.
But you are not a damaged person, at least, not any more damaged than most people in the world. Nobody gets out of this alive, and nobody gets out of this without scars. There are things we can't do. There are things we can. What we'd like to be able to do and what we can do are rarely matching sets.
I'm kind of ignoring a problem I did allude to earlier, though. Flirting is a high-status game. People who can do it are often considered to be "better" than other people. I don't know what to tell you about that. The same rule-set which flirting is designed around gaming with is the rule set that makes flirting a high-status skill. It shouldn't be. The rule-set is brain dead and broken. For various reasons, I enjoy playing with it. But don't privilege it, it has all the privilege it needs. What's really important is finding ways to make connections with other people, finding ways to have authentic relationships, have fun, and be real. Maybe this sounds like I'm saying you should settle for spinach instead of ice cream. I don't mean to do that. But I guess I did mean to say that it is easy to go from trying to flirt into being an asshole, and that you should assess your skill level and determine whether or not you are making a mistake and failing. Not flirting does not make you a bad person, or less than a person. Having so little care for other people that your attempts to flirt are, in fact, creepy harassment, that makes you a bad person.
If I had one thing I actually had to say, it would be "Pay attention to the other person." Really, if you can do that, everything else ends up being gravy.