Flirt Shmirt. Let's talk about how I feel like an idiot all the time.

Okay guys. I've dipped a toe into the dating pool. I do not like it.

Rephrase. I'm not good at the "toe dipping" part. I believe this is because I am incapable of successfully flirting with people. I have a lot of amazing lady friends who can wrap a fella around their little finger in a matter of seconds. That is not me.

Here is how I feel:
------
Picturesque forest. Sunshine, breezes blowing. And, a giant bear has run a handsome boy up a tree and is frantically jumping around at the bottom of it "shouting" and drooling.
------

Not only do I frequently feel like I can't control the volume of my own voice (probably all the time) when I'm trying to chat with someone who has caught my eye, but I generally feel like I'm the bear ripping all the bark off the bottom of the tree trying to scramble up.

This goes hand in hand with a conversation I had with my sister about the concept of "being sexy." When I was little, I thought "being sexy" meant moving really slowly. So, whenever my barbies were trying to catch Ken's eye, they would SLOOOOOOOWLY raise their pointed-toe-leg while laying in their beach chair in their best ball gown. This approach does not work well in real life. If it did, I would bring a beach chair and a gown everywhere I went, ever.

As I got older, the girls who "knew how to be sexy" seemed to have it all locked up. They could swoop into your conversation, just before you'd be trying to slooowly do something, and steal your potential guy with a little brush of the shoulder or a well placed giggle and boob wobble.

I bet they didn't call it a boob wobble. There isn't much sexy going on with that turn of phrase at all.

Anyway. Part of me has come to understand that a good deal of "being sexy" is being comfortable with yourself. WHAT!? That is SO much harder than just learning how to whisper something adorably into someone's ear, or to magically get a guy to ask YOU out instead of the other way around...

True story. Outside of ONE dance in high school, I did the asking. Including prom. I have chosen to look at this as an early life example of how I am a take-charge gal, but it doesn't really give me much confidence that I have the patience or the skill to get someone to ask me to do something fun.

I am also categorically bad at strategy and game-playing. I don't have the head for it. I'm an empath, with is probably why I feel so badly for the guys I'm trying to flirt with. I can sense that they are either no longer enjoying the conversation or that I have accidentally started shouting at them. I don't have the energy to discern if someone has stopped talking to me because they are "leaving me wanting more" or just actually leaving. I generally assume the latter.

Sometimes, I try to get up the nerve to say something cute and/or potentially sort of sexy. Then this happens. This is an actual quote from yesterday:

lovely gentleman: Can I take a pizza home?

LD: Sure. We have plenty left over, and there's pizza tomorrow too. It's a pizza explosion...hahaha...

lovely gentleman: Great! Thanks.

LD: You can figure out a way to pay me back somehow. I can be easily purchased with a cherry coke.

Aaaaaaand scene. I came within inches of just putting my head down on the stack of pizza boxes in embarrassment. "I can be easily purchased"!?!?!?! As my old neighbor used to say, Lord love a duck! NO! Why did I say that? I mean, it happens to be true, but JESUS! And how in the F do you respond to that, if it was even worth responding to. At least I didn't use an inappropriately large word. That happens too. I recently attempted to use the words "inordinate", "schism", and "flummoxed" in conversation with a fella. He didn't seem to appreciate them, and frankly those aren't even that large. Though, that was also the guy who told me that karma was "stupid" so I'm not that upset about trotting out some sophomore honors English vocab.

My friends who are in relationships have been incredibly supportive, letting me 3rd wheel with them (and never making me feel like one), and helping me brainstorm people who I might be able to start this terrifying flirting process with. But, they all look back so fondly on the flirting phase. The grass is always greener, I suppose. I can't wait to not feel completely ridiculous all the time!

So, when you are having dinner with your significant other, enjoying the comfort of an established relationship. Think of me. Somewhere in Chicago, there is a petite blond girl shouting big words up at a cute boy in a tree.