Flirting With Danger

It happens fairly regularly. Today it was at the tobacconist. The girl behind the counter had dark black hair that was a cross between Joan Jett and Betty Page. She sported some 1980's retro look with her ripped pink t-shirt and denim mini-skirt. The tattoos and septum piercing looked good on her. Then she smiles at me with that narrowing of the eyes and slight curl of the lip that seems to scream, "I could eat you up." She is inviting me to flirt with her, but I don't.

Women often either send me signals to start flirting or even start to flirt with me. I can't flirt back. Many people consider flirting a harmless little exchange. Not me. I can't do that to people. I've seen the way some of the girls at work look at me. It is most obvious when I am talking about my wife. The way I always describe her as the coolest and most fantastic person I know and how much I love her, the girls look at me with a face that says, "I want a guy who'll talk about me like that." They are in love with me. Not me as an individual, because many of them have no desire to be with a person of my type, but what I represent as a partner. Some of them have floated some harmless little flirtations my way. To flirt back would destroy the image of the ideal man they see in me.

It would also be a complete tease. Imagine getting an announcement from your favorite bottle shop telling you that for one day only you can get 75% off your entire purchase. So you trek on down and stare at all of your favorite brews. When you try to buy something the clerk informs you that they are not actually selling any beer today, but if they were you would get the discount promised. That ain't right. I can't do that to someone.

But I am more than willing to go down to the strip club and lay out some bills. That's fun. The boundaries are established. In exchange for money girls will dance naked for me. No crossed signals. They want nothing more from me and I expect nothing more from them. In fact the one time a dancer suggested that something more could happen I was totally creeped out. That ain't right, either. Unless it's Nevada.