Is Flirting Tolerable in Steady Relationships?

[GeorginaS]

I'm sorry. I cannot just blurt out the inner workings of the male psyche. You'll have to earn your insights into it through blood, tears, toil, and sweat, just as I earned what meager understanding of women I possess.

Did all of that and moved beyond all of it to sheer apathy. It's comfortable here. But if someone else wants to share their thoughts with me in list form, I'm all ears. Or eyes and squishy brain stuff.

 

[GreatEscapist]

Then again, I guess most things have a double standard. Some are even warranted.

*undigresses*
I think flirting is natural, normal, and as long as it is playful, not harmful or wrong.
I mean, come on. Could you really not flirt with someone? Even if you are in a relationship? To some people, like someone posted earlier (I forgot who) said, it's a perception, flirting is. (That was a great sentence. Props to me.)

Which is the problem with deciding whether things are wrong or not. "IT'S NOT WRONG. BECAUSE MY PERCEPTION VIEWS IT AS THAT."

 

[zoobyshoe]

There is sometimes a double standard in the perception of the objection. Women who object to a man flirting are generally seen as only standing up for themselves against the macho and insensitive male

Even by most men?

while men who object to a female flirting are often seen as macho control freaks.

Even by most men? It sounds like you're only giving the female perspective.

In actual situations where someone's flirting becomes an issue, my experience is that you'll hear every variety of opinion about who's crossed the line. In some cases the same people will express different opinions depending on which party they're talking to. Life can be a real soap opera with a cast of monkeys.

 

[zoobyshoe]

I think flirting is natural, normal, and as long as it is playful, not harmful or wrong.
I mean, come on. Could you really not flirt with someone? Even if you are in a relationship? To some people, like someone posted earlier (I forgot who) said, it's a perception, flirting is. (That was a great sentence. Props to me.)

My own opinion is that I would want any woman I was involved with to be a successful flirt as she goes about her daily routines when I'm not with her. I would be pleased to hear affirmations of how lucky I am to be involved with such an attractive person getting back to me. Flirting with other people right in front of me, though, is where it gets iffy. It's not a problem if you know you're solid with them. They might even fly off and work the room if you're confident they'll be back at the end. If there hasn't been that solidness established, though, it can be anxiety provoking. It sends the message that you haven't clicked all the right buttons yet, the buttons that would make them consider settling down and getting solid.

So, I think the issue is not whether flirting is right or wrong, rather, you should ask yourself what it means in a given situation, view it as a behavior that needs interpreting.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

Even by most men?

Even by most men? It sounds like you're only giving the female perspective.

In actual situations where someone's flirting becomes an issue, my experience is that you'll hear every variety of opinion about who's crossed the line. In some cases the same people will express different opinions depending on which party they're talking to. Life can be a real soap opera with a cast of monkeys.

People in general tend to back up their friends so getting a perspective from the actual people involved and those who care about them is going to lead to a rather biased view.

Yes. Men will stand up for women. It may be on principle, it may be because they are friends, and it may quite often be a "white knight syndrome". And if you would like a look at a cultural view that is not directly involved you can see it every where; in the common view that young men can not be the victim of statutory rape, that men can not be the victim of rape in general, that men are responsible when it comes to sex and alcohol, that a man checking out a woman is often a buffoon or a creep, ect, ect. Society tends to hold men more accountable and will usually back up the man only when the woman is "obviously" a "psycho"/"slut"/"golddigger". We can even see evidence of this in the view of legal cases where it is the law that the character of a woman who claims rape may not be impinged and we usually only see it happen when the alleged assailant is a celebrity where upon the woman has suddenly become a "psycho golddigging slut".

 

[zoobyshoe]

People in general tend to back up their friends so getting a perspective from the actual people involved and those who care about them is going to lead to a rather biased view.

Yes. Men will stand up for women. It may be on principle, it may be because they are friends, and it may quite often be a "white knight syndrome". And if you would like a look at a cultural view that is not directly involved you can see it every where; in the common view that young men can not be the victim of statutory rape, that men can not be the victim of rape in general, that men are responsible when it comes to sex and alcohol, that a man checking out a woman is often a buffoon or a creep, ect, ect. Society tends to hold men more accountable and will usually back up the man only when the woman is "obviously" a "psycho"/"slut"/"golddigger". We can even see evidence of this in the view of legal cases where it is the law that the character of a woman who claims rape may not be impinged and we usually only see it happen when the alleged assailant is a celebrity where upon the woman has suddenly become a "psycho golddigging slut".

You're right that the current PC default interpretation reflects a double standard. The better you get to know people, though, the more they drop the PC mask and say what they actually feel. (And some of the people I'm acquainted with go way out of their way to blaspheme against all that is PC.) So, I suppose I disregard PC sounding comments so automatically I have a near agnosia for them, and wait till a person says what they really think before I even register it. I screen it out, like chit chat about the weather, I guess.