TheOther wrote:
I wrote about this in another thread, so most of this is copied over, but maybe it will be useful.
The denotation of flirting is just engaging in activities that are for the purposes of attracting someone else romantically.
That's too vague to really be helpful, though. Here is my working idea for the mechanical process of flirting.
Flirting works by doing and saying things that suggest that two people are closer than is warranted in any given context.
Here are a few examples:
In the context of just having met someone, simply spending more time talking to a single person than anyone else in the room could be flirting (even if the subject is mundane). In your example, the baseline level of compliments we give to a stranger is zero, so even one compliment about a shirt is abnormally friendly (though this can vary from country/culture to country/culture, so it is relative).
Among people who already converse regularly (acquaintances), small physical gestures such as a pat on the back, or a knowing nudge to the side could be flirtatious. To feed off of your example some more, maybe at a local hobby club, one or two compliment a year is normal, so more than that would be seen flirtatious. Further, in a hobby club, compliments related to the hobby in question are seen as less flirtatious than compliments about something unrelated.
Among friends, gestures that imply deeper closeness can be flirtatious. For example, a lot of people who are close will tease each other. The idea is that the subtext communicates something like, "We are so close and secure in our friendship that we can make a joke at each others expense, and know that in spite of that we remain friends". It's almost the emotional equivalent of cats showing their vulnerable underbellies to close human friends as a sign of trust and closeness. If we combine this concept with the original concept of 'doing things which suggest a deeper level of closeness than expected', you could see how teasing someone could potentially be a form of flirting, especially if the two people involved in teasing don't have that sort of friendship pre-established. If a good friend starts complimenting you more than they used to, or more than they do other people, that can be a sign that they are flirting with you!
The way the 'game' works, is that two people who are flirting are trying to figure out if the other person views them as a potential romantic partner. So if two people are flirting, they will, over the course of time, continue to slightly escalate the implied level of closeness through a series of 1000 mini-actions, until you reach a tipping point where it becomes obvious that romantic intentions are had. Usually, people will test the waters a little bit with subtle flirting methods (like teasing, slight physical gestures, etc), and then when they reach a certain confidence interval that their feelings are mutual, they will make a big 'move', like asking for a date directly, or sometimes going in for a kiss unexpectedly.
The whole system is designed to allow people to test out the waters of figuring out if someone is interested in them while also allowing them some level of plausible deniability to save face in case the romantic feelings aren't shared. People who are good at flirting can filter through people who are interested or not without a lot of embarrassment, as they can figure out with a decent amount of probability whether someone is interested or not before doing anything overt.
On the darker side, a lot of people will flirt with others as a form of validation. They want to know that other people find them attractive, even if they don't personally desire a romance with them. So a lot of unhealthy people will flirt up until just the point before it becomes obvious/overt flirting just to feel good when their subtle flirtations are subtly returned. These types of people confuse a lot of poor souls who think they are genuinely interested.
I hope this was helpful/informative.
19 Jul 2019, 4:32 am
