Charm and Flirtation: What's Up?

 Lately I've been thinking a lot about flirtation. I don't know; I guess with so many friends and family members pairing off at an alarming rate, there's a certain amount of that going on, and Sarah and I (and a few other friends) have had discussions as relates to what flirtation really is. See, when I was little, I thought flirtation was the blatant thing done by girls like Cynthia Kirkpatrick, the step-sisters in Cinderella, or the girls in my neighborhood who liked to hook their arm through a boy's and slap his shoulder while laughing raucously.  As we grow  up, things aren't always as crystalline as we were led to believe they are. I don't mean things like "God is real." or "Adultery is wrong." I mean that sometimes certain subjects are far more complex than they look at first sight.
 This blatant thing was never attractive to me and from a young age I swore I'd never flirt. I mean, what decent man will find a blatantly flirtatious girl attractive? I reasoned it all out with myself:
If I want a smart man of good character and smart men don't go for floozies, then I shouldn't act like a floozy. Besides the fact that flirtation was, to me, one of the Seven Deadly Sins as a twelve-year-old. But you know what? Innocent little girls grow up. Soon I was 18, 19 and upward, and while my heart in the matter of acting like a floozy never changed, I made some surprising discoveries:

I could charm young men.

Without flirting.

   There are two points to be made here. First off all, I believe that women are most charming when not flirting, so on the one hand, my little discovery is very true and even wise. But there's a second point I'm only just now beginning to realize:

At the heart, are charming a man and flirting with a man much different?

Did you know these gals are called The Bimbettes?

  

  What I mean is this: At the camps I've counseled at, we have a rule against flirting which is a pretty important rule in a co-ed camp of highschoolers. We define flirting as "Acting as if you want the attention of and a relationship with a person with whom you have no intention of starting a relationship." (<--- More or less.) I Googled "flirting" to get some help in organizing these thoughts and the list for methods of flirtation was far more extensive than I'd thought, going so far as to qualify extended eye-contact and banter as tactics used by those seeking to flirt with a fellow. Hmmmmm.

    I'm really wanting to dig into this subject with you girls so if you're a guy reading this and are getting uncomfortable, sorry. But honestly, I think the guys could take a cue too and I want you to know that we do think about how we interact with you and those little sleight-of-hand tricks that look so pretty are never unintentional. There is nothing that makes me more annoyed than to see a fellow taken in by a practiced flirt. And yet though I don't call it flirting, haven't I done the same? In her most recent letter to me, one of my friends mentioned how she had recently been thinking about how there are more ways than outright flirtation in which a girl can purposely attract attention. Charm. That's what it is; knowing your good points in figure, talents, personality, and purposefully arranging them to have an effect on someone else.

    It's a strange and heady sensation, realizing that you are a grown woman now and are able to have an interaction with a fellow that will insure--though you may never meet again--he will think of you once or twice before entirely forgetting you.

It is an imperial, queenly, ancient power. Every girl comes to this point in her growing-up phase and for those of us who were raised knowing that flirtation is a waste of time and resources, it's a little astonishing. Right about the time I first started realizing I had a small store of this Eve's gift in my arsenal, I was reading An Old-Fashioned Girl by Louisa May Alcott and feeling that Polly and I were two souls alike. Then I came to the chapter, "Forbidden Fruit", and realized how much I identified with this favorite heroine with whom I'd grown up:

Polly scoffed at this sort of thing sometimes, but to-night she accepted it without a murmur rather enjoyed it in fact, let her bracelets shine before the eyes of all men, and felt that it was good to seem comely in their sight. She forgot one thing, however: that her own happy spirits gave the crowning charm to a picture which every one liked to see a blithe young girl enjoying herself with all her heart. The music and the light, costume and company, excited Polly and made many things possible which at most times she would never have thought of saying or doing. She did not mean to flirt, but somehow "it flirted itself" and she could n't help it, for, once started, it was hard to stop, with Tom goading her on, and Sydney looking at her with that new interest in his eyes. Polly's flirting was such a very mild imitation of the fashionable thing that Trix & Co. would not have recognized it, but it did very well for a beginner, and Polly understood that night wherein the fascination of it lay, for she felt as if she had found a new gift all of a sudden, and was learning how to use it, knowing that it was dangerous, yet finding its chief charm in that very fact.

   The chapter goes on to describe an evening at the opera with lively bantering between Polly and her set of old friends. An evening Polly deserved, being a poor girl who never has nice things to wear and whose friends arranged a pretty, splendid outing for her own good. An evening, actually, that sounds very pleasant and was complete with a set of conquests under her belt. But at the end of the chapter--a spot I used to skim through, being carried by the innocent fun of the preceding words--I noticed this paragraph:

"Now it's all over and done with," thought Polly as she fell asleep after a long vigil. But it was not, and Polly's fun cost more than the price of gloves and bonnet, for, having nibbled at forbidden fruit, she had to pay the penalty. She only meant to have a good time, and there was no harm in that, but unfortunately she yielded to the various small temptations that beset pretty young girls and did more mischief to others than to herself. Fanny's friendship grew cooler after that night. Tom kept wishing Trix was half as satisfactory as Polly, and Mr. Sydney began to build castles that had no foundation. 

   Here is the problem with "charming" a man purposely or ( as we avoid saying ) when we indulge in a little "innocent" flirtation: I don't think flirting itself--at least, the kind that I've long called "charm" is a sin. It's foolish, wasteful, etc. but I think the worst part of it isn't how it effects us as much as it is causes trouble to the person with whom we are flirting. Of course the floozy sort is the kind talked about in Proverbs that makes women look like gold rings in hog's noses. We're warned against that kind particularly.

   When we're trying to charm, flirt with,  or otherwise get attention from a man 9 times out of 10, we aren't interested in a continued relationship; we're just having a little fun. We want to feel that we are "comely in their sight" and it's a perfectly natural desire. We want to be noticed and we want to make an impression and when we learn to use the little artifices that are in a fresh young woman's power...it's quite lovely. But like Stark messing around with the Tessarect in the lab in that scene from Captain America, we aren't aware of just how powerful our little airs and graces can be. We don't realize that it's actually working and that the gentlemen sometimes don't realize that we're just having a bit of fun. Sometimes our game turns on us and we discover that Mr. Sydney is building castles in the air that have no foundation. The saddest moments are these, when our flirtation, charm, etc. has led to a person taking us seriously. I would never intend to mislead a guy, but if I'm not interested in him and am showing the same exact signs I'd show if I had a burning desire to follow him to the altar, how is he to know?

It's painful to watch a girl working her stuff on an unknowing guy: standing a little too close, blinking a little too slow, speaking a little too crooning, laughing a little too often, working a little too hard. As a girl I can pinpoint a flirt--even a subtle one--straight off. But the guys? They're more easily overcome and no wonder when very practiced Queens are using their talents to their own amusement. I have seen friends (and friends of friends) hurt by a bit of flirtation that they took seriously. "They'd better be more sensible!" the girls cry. But honestly, is it their fault? How are they to know the difference when we treat one and all with the same marked preference? We might pride ourselves on treating all young men the same, just like the Bible says. That might be true as far as bestowing the same level of attention on all men, but haven't we missed the heart of the issue if our version of treating them all equally means flirting with every one of them?

There's actually a new word for that: Flirtationship.

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm not one of the Don't Have Guy Friends or Never Speak To Men party. But in the past few weeks I've been coming to terms with the fact that like it or not, I have flirted in my grown-up life. Not all banter is flirtation--I banter all the time with my guy friends at church. We laugh, give and take hugs, play games, sing, talk about dozens of subjects, and generally have an awesome time.

But I know I can turn on the charm in my own small way.

You know you can too.

Some girls have a bigger dose than others, but we are all women and we are all gifted with that power.

   It's a brave man who knows his own strength and doesn't use it. It's a brave women who knows she has power and doesn't employ that power in making petty conquests.

  Let's all be a little more careful we're not unconsciously making life hard on the guys in our life. I know I'd be terribly upset if I found out that by pleasing myself and having fun, I'd made one of my friends start building dreams I never intended to help him finish.

It's a courtesy as much as anything. It's playing fair.

It's showing your hand and not leaving him guessing. 

Be natural. I know your natural self is just as charming without the artifice of carefully constructed ploys, and the guys will someday look back and realize you were the one girl they felt entirely at ease around because you didn't leave them jumping to find out what you meant by squeezing their hand or smiling into their eyes all evening. Banter, laugh, have fun. But do it with everyone clear on your intentions. We've had enough of the Bimbettes.