Flirting

Innocent flirting is a way of expressing desire without actually doing anything about it. As such, it is one of our most genteel sports, not to mention low in fat and easily digestible. I know this because when I was young and has an ambition to become a pastor, my sunday school friends taught me how to flirt. And flirting is safe because it is impossible to pin down. It's noncommital, No one can positively sure it's taking place.

"I don't know. I think she was flirting. Yeah, that was definitely flirting. I think it was.."

One thing to remember: there's a big difference between flirting and actually hitting on someone. Flirting is like dancing around the subject. Hitting is like stepping on its toes. In other words, You're hitting on a woman until she flirts back. Flirting has to go two ways, A woman has to realise what you are doing and give you the raised eyebrow and welcoming smile. To have successfully flirt means you haven't annoyed anybody. It's just my theory anyway.

One of my most memorable flirting experiences happened when I took an evening course in the city. I watched one of my classmate who came out of the class wearing an incredible red cashmere sweater. Her hair was magnificent. She was so lovely I almost fell down. They say women dress for themselves, but clearly she was trying to impress her boyfriend outside at Mc Donalds (a bloke who looks like Lionel Richie minus the teeth). But this guy just looked at her and said "you got any beer?" The look on her face.. Her spirits just plummeted. She didn't even ask how she looked.

"You looked really great" I said, stepping up to the plate. Sensitive man that I am, I had spotted the problem immediately and wanted to cheer her up. My reward was a gorgeous smile, half a lip lick and eyes that looked at me in a new way.

I'd known her for a long time after that and frankly, we'd never acted if we'd found the other remotely attractive. But whenever we find time, in library or in the music stores across the college, it was suddenly fun to toy with the untapped energy between us. Besides, she started it. She was doing a little dance an inch from my fingertips. And not long afterwards we started to say very provocative stuff in our ears.

Later, when she'd finally dumped her putz boyfriend, she asked me straight out if I wanted to sleep with her.

I decline, I wasn't going to fell for that routine.

She insisted, I resisted, she demanded, I gave in.

That night, all I heard from her was "When I said I wanted us to sleep together, I meant really sleep"

She slept. I was awake. Staring at the ceiling. Counting holes in the acoustic tile. Do you know how many holes are there in an eleven by twelve acoustic-tile ceiling? Two million seven hundred thousand and thirty three...

Sunday School

When I was little, my sisters and I went to Sunday School while my parents went to church. Back then we always thought attending the service with the adults would be more exciting than the Sunday School. But when my dad finally let us sit in the chapel, it wasn't.

Stand up, Sit down, Sing. Stand up, sing. Kneel, pray. Get up, pray. Fidget. Listen to sermon... Fidget. Drift off from the sermon. Wake up and put money in the basket. In the end, we wanted to go back to the Sunday School.

Times were simpler in the Sunday School. We memorise the Ten Commandments. I wonder if I still remember them?

Thou shall have no other Gods before me..

Don't take the name of the Lord in vain...

Keep the Sunday...

Honour your father and mother...

Thou shalt not kill...

Thou shalt not commit adultery... (We didn't know what it was, our teachers only told us that you got to be a grown up to do it)..

Thou shalt not steal..

No bearing false witness against your neighbours

Thou shalt not covert thy neighbour's wife..

Gee, the first time I washed my neighbour's car his wife paid me and gave me a great big smile, and I suddenly felt like doing the washing forever free. But I wasn't sure if that fell under the forbidden rules of the church. At that time it sounded borderline, but I wasn't going to ask..

My wonder years

Mostly, I spent my chore years - sometimes called the "wonder years" because you always wonder why you are doing chores instead of playing with your girlfriends - mowing lawns, feeding your crazy pet dog and climbing the big mango trees plucking mangoes. Plucking mangoes wasn't so bad, but feeding crazy piu was always a bad idea.. especially when you woke up late in the morning.

But I don't look back at my childhood chores with any sense of regret. Those were beautiful, timeless days full of smells and sensations that are hard for me to come by today. Hard work, sweats, working on your muscles.. but evidently you are growing to become a man.

Women really like it when you are a man, though. It's tough to have a woman go for you if you don't show some generalised masculine traits. Assertiveness, decision making, protectiveness, nurturing. A man has to give a woman the impression that he might stand up for her and take care of her. "Might" is the operative word. Women are very big on the idea of hope. I actually stood in front of my girlfriend during a bar fight once. I responded so quickly that I didn't even think about it first. Believe me. The surprise result was that I made her feel secure and important, which in turn made her want me. And her wanting me made me feel important and secure. It also made me want me. That's where it got a little confusing..

Discovering women and their minds

When a guy thinks he's going to get lucky, euphoria sets in. Then he wants to stay at the party, get drunk with his buddies and see who else falls prey to his immesurable charm..

Unfortunately, being so self centered and greedy often causes a guy to miss his opportunities. His intended gets drunk too, and instead of going when the going is good, he waits too long and then her mood takes a turn.

This is more commonly known as a woman changing her mind..

How a woman changes her mind is very difficult to understand. All I know is that it happens at the speed of light, without warning and that unlike men, who wouldn't have the nerve to try this unsupervised. Having been married for a long time, I now understand that women have an absolute right to change their minds. A man must respect it, no matter how swollen his glands have become.

I was twenty two years old at one time..

"But Sherry, babe, you said this is what you wanted.."

"Well, that's not what I want now. That's what I wanted a little while ago, but it's not what I want now."

It's all about timing when you are with a woman.

"But we already made an agreement. I'm already in lovemaking mode. I can't stop now. And you're obviously excited and..."

And now you are begging, which is so very attractive. Once you beg you have lost her respect, and you'll never get any. Once you are begging you are in puppy dog mode and the last thing you will get is the bone. That's why it's good if your girlfriend has roommates. Better odds.

Some guys think they are lucky when a woman tells him she wants them to sleep together. Usually, when a woman is this straightforward, a distressing surprise is just around the corner.

"When I said I wanted us to sleep together, I meant really sleep."

Another sentence from hell.

I tried "just sleeping" with a woman once, but it didn't work. We did not sleep. She slept. I was awake... staring at the ceiling. Counting the holes in the acoustic tiles.

My first girlfriend

My first girlfriend was really sexy, but she wouldn't give it to me in the dark. I'd have to get it somehow; and I'd have to give something in return. An unspoken barter system existed - a good early lesson about women and relationships.

We sat on the couch for hours. She, waiting for me to do something. Me, waiting for her first to say yes. But you see, I would have to do something first in order for her to respond. But I couldn't make my move until she said yes.

The last thing I wanted to do was to say "Um, excuse me, but is it ok to kiss you now? " That is so uncool. So neither one of us knew what was going to happen. A few years later I heard that some older guy came along, dated her once and 'got' her. That's how it always was. Some older guy always got what I wanted. Bastards, all of them..

The birds and the bees

Before we figure out the sciences and our species, we rely on sex education films, science books and that old standby National Geographic to reveal what we got.. down there.

Those medical illustrations are pretty weird, aren't they? The man is cross sectioned so that you get a limp side view. And women are cut along an axis between front and back, which makes their internal reproductive system look like there's a water buffalo trapped inside. After seeing those diagrams, I actually believed that if a woman blew on her thumb hard enough, she would have what I have - that it would just pop out.

Kissing again..

Kissing your hand teaches you very quickly a most important lesson: the nose problem must be dealth with. It's unavoidable. You can't go right at the person you kiss. The standard kiss is direct. Straight on. No twisting. You pucker and squinch your face. Noses collide. It's inevitable. The only difference between kissing mom or grandma and a girl, is angling the nose. When you start thinking about nose placement, you know it's serious. Eventually, you figure out how to get your lips and a girl's lip together.

In fact, the whole sexual mess is about angles. I wonder if it's the same for women. It must be. The only apparent difference was that they often practiced kissing with and on each other. (Well, that's what J told me when we sat together in the schoolbus. I got her to show me after 35 days of begging.) But actually when she kissed her girlfriend K on the mouth.. I started to think that well, men liking women kissing women is so stupid. I don't think any woman fantasizes about two guys kissing. But once again we're two different species.