Sunday, February 10, 2008

One-Sided Flirting Goes Both Ways

I ventured out into the social world this past weekend as well. Not this weekend, because I've been laying at home sick with the flu, but the weekend before this one. And how did it go?
Well, the evening started with a trip to the neighboring city to attend a party where I knew no one except an old high school friend who was visiting Europe from overseas, and whom I haven't seen since graduation. It was great seeing him again and I met his girlfriend and caught up on all the important events of the last five or so years. Funny too, coming out for the second time to him since I identified as bisexual in high school and now identify as lesbian. So we compared and contrasted stories from high school and talked about all the drama I stirred up when I started dating my first girlfriend back in junior year. And as the wine poured we all got into more philosophical questions of the pros and cons of sex without emotional ties and the differences between women and men (biological or social constructions?). I think we all know where on the scale I fell in those debates...
One very interesting facet of the birthday party we attended was how fascinating it is to party with people who you'd normally never hang out with. I don't want to come off as a snob or anything, it's just that I tend to hang around the same type of people a lot. I guess most people have a comfort zone of sorts, as far as what "their group of people" is. For me, that group consists mainly of queer vegans (or at least vegetarians) with socialist leanings. So when I find myself at a party full of more capitalist friendly, meat-eating heteros (and yes, I know that I am very very much generalizing here) it's like a whole new world to me.
I had a great time mingling and there were definitely lots of pretty women there. I of course chatted fliratiously with several of them and that's when it hit me: I could be as obviously flirtatious as ever and they wouldn't perceive it as flirtation. And why? Well, because they're straight and don't think of women in that way, probably. If it had come up in conversation that I was gay, then maybe they'd have been watching more for those signals, but since it didn't in most convoes... well, it slipped right past them.
And I don't find that strange at all actually, because just a few days previously I was out an errand with a co-worker. We had our first meeting with a potential collaborative partner and he happened to be a relatively young guy. Well, it was a good meeting and walking out of there to the car my co-worker pointed out that he was flirting with me pretty hard core. To which I responded "Huh???" I was completely clueless to all the obvious flirting that had apparently taken place in that office and I think the reason why is that I simply don't think about men that way. Thus, I don't think about men thinking about me like that. If that makes any sense.
Regardless, flirting with straight girls was the only flirting I got that evening. I left the party early to head out to the women's bar in my city... but a train was cancelled and I ended up sitting at the station for an hour. And right around that time the three glasses of wine I'd had on an empty stomach all hit me at once and I didn't feel so good. So I did manage to get to the women's bar, but I ended up leaving after just making an appearance and saying hi to my friends. I'll make a new attempt soon, I promise.

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