September 2009
1 post
49. If I Ask Her to Lend Me Something I Don't...
We feel closer to those we help, so asking to borrow something, even when you don’t need it, is a completely legitimate way to flirt. In fact, it might be cuter and more effective when what you’re asking for is completely, blatantly inessential. The adorable girl in the apartment across from yours knows full well that you don’t have idea one about what to do with her cumin, but...
August 2009
4 posts
48. If I reblog all of his Tumblr posts?
Another one from the mailbag:
Reblogging every post on someone’s Tumblr would seem to be flirting at first blush, but that kind of excess crosses the line into semi-creepy obsession. A much better way to show you’re paying attention would be to reblog only the posts you find sweet, poignant, or particularly funny.
Yes, we know our readers are a discerning bunch, and we’re sure...
47. If I email my friend's brother without...
From the mailbag.
Beanie asks:
Am I flirting if I email my friend’s brother without mentioning it to my friend? Does this mean that I must be flirting because if I wasn’t I would have told my friend? Or can it be innocent? I mean, I AM trying to flirt but maybe I am picking up the wrong signals; so if it’s not necessarily flirting I can pretend it was never a flirtation in the first...
46. If I Show Her My Card Tricks?
There’s nothing Am I Flirting? dislikes more than a guy with a gimmick. If you approach girls with a deck of cards and a cheesy twinkle in your eye, you had better be on the World Series of Poker. Otherwise, you’re basically asking, “Was your card the King of I Really Want to Have Sex With You Tonight?”
It’s an excuse to duck out of any actual conversation or...
45. If I start a conversation about her tattoos?
If you’re chatting up a gorgeous girl with conspicuous tattoos, she probably wants you to offer your opinion, right? No, gentle sir. Kindly slow your roll.
It’s easy to see the appeal of someone who’s turned her body into a work of art, but the coffee shop, the bus stop, and the library are not art galleries. Her extravagant tattoos are not on display for your enjoyment. You may...
July 2009
3 posts
44. If I can't blog anymore without worrying...
Hi, AIFers. Flirters. Cads and minxes. What the hell, right? What are these words on this screen? AN UPDATE. It’s all I could get out, what with how split up my head is (ed. by me to add: ours, we’re both a mess here). Summer romance, you know? And that means one thing: blog silence. Because there’s no safe little video, or song, or even “topical” link to a...
43. If I show up when he’s working every week and...
This is our first question from the new submission page at amiflirting.com/submit. (Ooh, submission! We’ll save that for another post.) Thanks, anonymous reader! By all means, keep the questions coming.
We have to start by resolving some ambiguity here, because the answer to the question depends on what you mean by “every week,” and how far out of your normal routine these...
Submissions, if you please.
The fine code-maestros at The Tumblr have generously created a new submission system for blogs like ours. Am I Flirting? is going to have a go at turning on submissions, and we hope that your submissions will turn us on as well.
http://amiflirting.com/submit
June 2009
2 posts
42. If our legs touch at the show?
You can flirt with the space between your knees and ankles. Maybe you can’t help from tapping your foot so close because you just really like the song. And the next. And the next. If you find yourself not wanting to resettle in your seat for fear that pulling your leg back towards you may seem like a No, not tonight, you are flirting.
41. If I send him pictures of my ass?
This is certainly a grey area in the flirting milieu. As a friend who recently sent me a picture of her ass pointed out, even boys have them. You’re not seeing anything you couldn’t already see in your bedroom with the right mirrors.
I must differ with her on this issue, refined as her opinion may be. Although the booty barely cracks (snicker) the usual list of the top three parts a...
May 2009
3 posts
40. When I drunkenly criticize her jukebox...
Here’s a modified neg, only with more fondling. You load your dollars into the jukebox, and if you’re lucky, it’s not just one of those internet jukeboxes that download whatever song you want. (The whole pleasure of the jukebox is scarcity.) She sidles up next to you and you say Pick some, go ahead and you lean in over the volume to see what she’s going to choose. Really,...
39. If I put him in my Mash note?
Mash notes are a time-honored playground tradition, also beloved of fun-seeking hipsters or other semi-adults with senses of humor. The deal is that you play a game that establishes your future spouse, a home, an occupation, and a type of vehicle you might drive.
Putting a fellow in your mash note is the rough equivalent of engaging in the classic flower-destruction exercise “he loves me,...
38. If I am sitting next to her on the plane?
There was a couple on my flight last night, who maybe even weren’t a couple. He kept touching her touchscreen for her, ordering Seagram’s ginger ale and Pringles and she leaned in towards him and laughed and pushed her half-cup of soda closer to his tray and there is nothing more obviously flirty. It was like watching a really good first date with every excuse to listen in because...
April 2009
6 posts
37. If I Ask A Lot of Questions About His...
The dynamics of flirting become more complex when those infuriating significant others enter the picture. You’re completely screwed, because every effort to downplay your homewrecking intentions by sweetly bringing up his girlfriend in conversation has a flipside as an attempt to locate some critical missing scale in the armor of his relationship. If you’re interested, perhaps...
What Not To Ask The Girl You're Hitting On At The...
An unauthorized guest post (don’t call it a reblog!) from lenachen:
“Do you live alone?”
Actually, no. I live with a man who’s 6’ 2”, muscular, intimidating, and conveniently out of town if you plan on following me home. Not that the latter piece of information needs to be shared.
(P.S. It is super creepy that you patted at the seat next to yours when we entered the train and even...
36. If I 'neg' her?
The neg? Are you fucking serious? Are you a pheromone salesman who just lied and said you liked Hendricks and tonic because? Because you thought you were turning us on? Oh no now you say you are comfortable telling us what you do for a living. Never put your real name on a dating profile site, you say. I WONDER WHY because you, bald-assed motherfucker, just insulted US for being BLONDE.
Who...
35. If I’d like to do your nails?
Fluxblog...
34. If I Feign Interest In Sport?
Baseball season is upon us, and it’s that time again: time to either deeply love or deeply pretend to love America’s game. If you put on a show of being impressed and fascinated by your amour’s knowledge of slugging percentages and deep bullpens, are you flirting? Oh, most definitely.
As Irving Goffman explains in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, we often offer...
33. If I ask her a lot about her open...
You’re a modern guy. (Of course you’ve had it in the ear before.) There was that britpop girl back who got off campus early, sophomore year, who invited you to her house party? She told you it would be “wicked” and you went anyway. You met her boyfriend there. It was. They were both so good to make out with, you never just assumed every cute girl was into the strict...
February 2009
1 post
32. If I Play the Guitar in Her General Vicinity?
This question is older than time, older than Dire Straits, and almost as old as guitars themselves. If that guy on the steps of his apartment building or out on the campus lawn just wanted to practice some Jack-Johnson-ass modern rock hits, he would do it in his room. That’s not going to happen, though, because that destroys his chances of being able to casually refer to a passing...
January 2009
3 posts
“It’s sort of an unspoken thing, something a friend should pick up on. My...”
– Lord Whimsy on flirting
30. If we make up a ridiculous company and keep...
Mailbag, mailbag! A reader writes:
Starting up a company takes a lot of effort and a high tolerance for stress and many other respectable traits like (probably/hopefully) creativity. Starting a hypothetical one doesn’t but we still get to act like we did all that hard work and talk like we’re brilliant. Over the course of a conversation with a very cute girl we created our own...
December 2008
2 posts
29. If I throw a snowball at her?
If you’re stuck in frozen climes this month, you’ve probably run across the delicious opportunity to strike a pretty girl with a perfectly-formed, perfectly-aimed snowball. So what’s the deal with this delightful juvenilia? It was flirting in third grade, but now you have an apartment and maybe a car or something. Isn’t it just mean and immature?
The proof of the snowball...
November 2008
15 posts
27. If I Laugh At All His Gay Jokes?
Hey, more reader mail! If you have a question you’d like us to answer, put it in an email, lick it, and address it to amiflirting@gmail.com.
Before we answer this question, we should be clear that we’re not talking about ignorant gay-bashing “humor” here. We’re talking about charming gay boys making charming jokes about being gay, and the other boys who love them.
...
26. If after offering to fix your busted Wordpress...
A wise lady explaining the vagaries of internet courtship supports the practice of another experienced lad who’s been refining the provision of “the internet boyfriend experience” — it’s the small favors, elevated to improbably perfect common bonds, that make for flirting.
So of course she could have looked up the answer you gave her in the Wordpess Codex herself....
25. If I Write Terrible Poetry?
You are probably really rotten at writing poems. If children are being left behind in general education subjects, they’re being knocked out with sacks of doorknobs and left in junkyard tire-piles when it comes to poetry. But somewhere, deep down, the desire to use poetry for its intended purpose still stirs in even the most talentless amongst us. Its intended purpose is flirting.
Because we...
Watch(After No. 24, If I Make You A Mix Tape)
24. If I Make You A Mix Tape?
“Um, sorry it’s been so long. I got really really really buried and life is crazy right now. Crazy like, when did all my friends lose their jobs? That’s when you’re all supposed to be there for each other, right?”
And we all stay up all night chatting, and refreshing and refreshing and refreshing and you know how your eyes just won’t stop until your body...
22. If I Feed Him With My College Meal Plan?
Today we return to the halcyon days of all-we-could-eat pasta covered in a layer of french fries, and the girls who swiped their university meal cards to deliver it to us. If you go to a school where the cafeteria is a main social hub, the exchange of meal cards can be confusing or misleading. In the real world, when someone buys you a meal, it’s a date (unless there’s some other...
Even if Sarah Palin is Smiling
Apropos of item no. 18:
The three talked late into the night. Schmidt and Salter probed and pressed and looked for gaps between her views and McCain’s. Palin shrugged off substantive differences. “What’s the big darn deal?” she asked, smiling and, in her frontier-girl way, half defying, half flirting with her interrogators. - Newsweek
No, America. Sarah Palin, for all...
An Am I Flirting? Flirt
Seriously, all 120-something of you? Dead cute. How do we start pairing you off? By complementary patterns of plaid & stripes, or alphabetically according to username, or some other system yet to be be deployed by Young Master Karp?
Oh! The Tumblr-dating-dashboard. You heard it here first.
An Am I Flirting? Field Report
Am I Flirting? is beginning to receive reports of people mentioning our blog while flirting. If you’ve done this, we’d like to hear your stories, and how your flirtation turned out. As always, we assume none of the risk of mentioning this blog in the same sentence as anything romantic. That’s on you, you crazy person.
Here is a message from a gentleman — presumably a...
21. To Fend Off My Creditors?
If you’re not, you should be. Even with a black superhero president-elect, we’re in the midst of a global economic crisis. But you have to remember that subtle hints about the possibility of hot, hot sex are virtually recession-proof.
So, the next time that girl from the bank calls to ask in a sensuous voice whether you ever plan on paying your credit card ever again, ever, you might...
20. If I Voted?
Only if you took your panties off in the voting booth, handed them to the polling clerk with your ballot, and said:
“This is what democracy looks like.”
Also: only if you voted for That One. Because nothing says I wanna fuck you like I wanna fuck you with your reproductive and sexual rights intact. Gobama!
19. If I Train Him To Email Me on Schedule?
“am i flirting if… in the course of four months i have successfully trained him to exchange emails every two days when he said he hated email and only wanted to correspond by post? i mean i think it’s clear but he insists it’s platonic. then i feel bad for maybe flirting. maybe i am wondering if he’s flirting.”
Am I Flirting took this mailbag question to the...
18. If She Smiles and Really Listens When I Talk...
For some reason, even the most simple gesture from a girl — a smile, making eye contact, nodding — can seem like flirting. Is it our Attention Starved Culture? Is it boys growing up without getting Love? Is it just that girls are too used to keeping cool distance in order to avoid gape-mouthed leers and catcalls?
And it’s not just with girls. A guy I know complains that other...
17. If I Put on Lip Gloss Every Time I'm Around...
This is another question pulled from our reader mail. If you’d like to see your question answered on Am I Flirting?, please send it to amiflirting@gmail.com.
Ah, the age-old issue of lip gloss, debated by scholars since time immemorial! Or, at the very least, debated since Lil Mama’s 2007 one-hit-wonder “Lip Gloss.” If your lip gloss is constantly poppin’, are you...
October 2008
27 posts
16. With the Gym Membership Guy?
You probably know this guy, dear readers. He is ripped, cut, and every other violent past participle that goes along with a great body. He’s the Gym Membership Guy, and he totally wants you.
Or does he? There’s a certain amount of flirting that goes along with his job, and he’s usually great at it. But when you he gives you a disarming, well-rehearsed line, how do you know he...
15. If I wear a 'slutty' Halloween costume?
There’s nothing “flirty” about the ritualistic donning of hooker gear by good girls. I know there’s dudeslut costumes, too, but they’re never that slutty, anyway, so yeah, I’m gonna say it: DOUBLE STANDARD. I don’t need to tell you how fucked it is, that there’s one day a year when dressing like you’re asking for it isn’t just socially...
WatchFig. 14: Don Draper’s Guide to Picking Up Women. Am I Flirting? is simply mad about Mad Men, but not everyone can be Don Draper.
14. If I look fantastic in a suit, look fantastic...
Absolutely. In case you didn’t get the reference, Saturday Night Live recently featured a short called Don Draper’s Guide to Picking Up Women, with Jon Hamm in his role as the dashing lead of Mad Men. Draper is known for his ability to fall into affairs so easily that it looks accidental, and in this SNL segment, he delivers four secrets to his success. This is supposed to be funny...
Like this video. Wow, he really actually goes down... →
13. If We Talk About Porn?
Were you masturbating? KIDDING. Together? This can happen, right? You’re on the phone or IM or texting or whatnot, and he just happens to interrupt your flow, and I mean, it’s just going to take a second to say, “Hey, yeah, I did torrent the new TV on the Radio on your recommendation, and THANKS!” so why take your hand off your bits while… you…?
Okay, so you...
12. If I Notice That She Changed Her Hair?
Are you kidding? Noticing things without being creepy is your flirt-bread and flirt-butter — or flirt-meat-and-potatoes, if you prefer. If you have a crush on someone you see almost every day, like a co-worker or a barista, you’re bound to notice things like haircuts, new highlights, and the shaving-off of beards. When you comment on these things, especially the subtle ones,...
11a. If I Ask Him About The Book He's Reading On...
A parable worth remembering, if you hope to be a successful literary flirt, is the story of the guy who tried to fake his way through a conversation about La Ciudad y Los Perros in incompetent Spanish. Discussing Vargas Llosa’s first novel with a cute native speaker in her own language is a bold move. At best, you’ll impress her with your willingness to try. At worst, you’ll come...
