Remembering How to Flirt

A soul in tension thats learning to fly
Condition grounded but determined to try
Cant keep my eyes from the circling skies
Tongue-tied and twisted just an earth-bound misfit, i

Pink Floyd, Learning to Fly

My honey and I have been together for about fifteen years, now. If you have been following the blog, you know that we have recently been discussing the possibility of opening up our relationship to one or more other individuals: either sexually, without strings, or perhaps even exploring polyamoury in full. (If you did not know, well, obviously you do now!)

This week, after a few difficult evenings, we were able to get back into a positive place, and part of that led us back into this discussion. If we are going to pursue this, perhaps we need to talk more about what ‘it’ is, and how we see ourselves moving forward. With that in mind, we decided to go out last night with a certain intentionality.

Of course, we recognize that if we are to do this, or even seriously consider this, we need to make sure that we are communicating clearly, that we are both on the same page at each step along the way, and that we are not forcing anything. So last night, our intention was simply to be more attentive to the feel of the crowd, more aware of individuals, less self-contained. Normally when we go, we tend to get quite involved with one another – which is great – but also prevents interaction with other people. We simply put out vibes that keep everyone else at a distance.

I felt some trepidation going into the evening. Its been a damn long time since I have flirted in a bar! I’m not sure, even, exactly how I once behaved nor how I would approach it now. We talked about this, of course, so it didn’t create any overt tension in me, but it did not fade for admitting to it.

On some levels, it seems odd to me – after all, I flirt. I flirt with everyone. Boys, girls, on some levels even family and kids (a non-sexual sort of flirtation, obviously). But it is quite different when it is about sexuality, and perhaps that was my trepidation: not knowing if I could rediscover that sexual flirtation after all these years of restricting that almost completely to my boy.

As it turned out, I did not end up getting the opportunity to test it out. My honey spotted a girl late in the evening that turned his head, but I was less interested and completely disinterested in her boyfriend. So we had some interesting discussion around that, but we didn’t act on his attraction in any way. We discovered that in our local environment, we really don’t know how to present ourselves with a vibe that is not exclusionary on some level.

It was an interesting experiment, and I think that being in that frame of mind allowed us to open up some new discussion topics that may well lead to more intentional behavior in the future.

(Originally Posted December 10, 2006)