Thursday, May 15, 2008
Flirt at your own risk. Plus: Good Grief! "Peanuts" deserves some respect! Should Sherman Alexie speak for Native Americans?
Feb 17, 2000 |
Strangers in the night
BY CHRISTINE SCHOEFER
(02/15/00)
Christine Schoefer's article was quite interesting and informative, but missed one salient facet of flirting: It's cruelty. For any man or woman who is unattractive to the opposite sex -- and especially those for whom this has always been the case -- "flirting" might better be described as "taunting."
It is one thing for a person to flirt or be flirted with when they are confident in the knowledge of their own attractiveness. They can enjoy flirting in its more innocuous social context. But for people who are the opposite, whose self-knowledge is of a sadder sort, flirting becomes inherently degrading.
This is best summed up in a short passage I read in a book many years ago: "She stroked his hand in the friendly and familiar but uninviting way women had with unattractive men." It is cruel to "flirt" with people who are obviously outside of the society of courtship, and unnecessary.
-- Rob Anderson
Flirting is as dead as politeness in this country, at least in the big city. Nowadays, if you practice one or the other (or both), people think that you are crazy or perverted. The best way to put a worried look on a woman's face is to give her that "half smile" or to make eye contact in public. Times have changed and there are a lot of dangerous people out there.
-- Dave Wrobleski
All praise to Christine Schoefer! Americans are stumbling, demented buffoons when it comes to flirting. I'm a 30-year-old single man who has spent much time abroad, and the staggering lack of flirtatious grace in American women should be a national source of shame. It seems especially true of my generation. For the sake of education, let's just clear a few things up:
1) Flirtation is not "slutty." They did it in Victorian times, OK?
2) Sneaking peeks at someone and then looking away, hiding behind your hair, standing in one place and waiting to be noticed (and becoming bratty when you're not) and being afraid of your own shadow does not qualify as flirting. You therefore have no right to complain when it doesn't work.
3) When all else fails, try starting an actual conversation -- perhaps even without a life vest.
-- Tom Foreman
What's up with Schoefer? Everybody in America flirts. Perhaps our style is a just a bit too subtle for her. Maybe she notices flirting more when she's abroad precisely because she's traveling and therefore a little looser and more aware of those around her.
Ease up, Christine, and enjoy the eye contact.
-- Stuart Cohn
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