When flirting goes too far, Photo by Earl Wilcox on Unsplash
I usually write when something new happens in my love life. I don’t tell you about the sex with old boyfriends that resurface.
And even less the stories that go nowhere and are left to fester.
Yet, I want to talk about this failure, this humiliation, because after all I come out of it more than victorious.
A friend, nothing more
These last two years, life has taught me that you can fall in love with the first person you meet, just like you can fall in love with a friend you never considered before.
We’ve known each other for several months, we’ve become friends for several months. We laugh, we spend time together, it’s simple and pleasant. But nothing ambiguous for almost a year.
Neither on my side, nor on his. Ok he is cute, but he doesn’t surf on the same vibes as me. Besides, it’s because we’re so different that we joke around so much.
He’s that guy to marry. This ideal son-in-law. He’s my safe guy, he knows how to have fun of course, but he stays within the bounds of propriety.
As for me… Well, I’m still me, with my one-night stands, my energy, my passion for nonsense. And it only gets worse with the years…
He’s seen me pick up guys. He knows who I am, calls me Mylourd in the evening and doesn’t seem to judge me.
First Flirtings
At the beginning of December, I slip a little during a party. I try in vain to put some guys under my teeth… Ok, I kiss two or three… It’s ok…
But I don’t know why, during the evening, my brain spins: I want him.
Probably because recently, he flirts openly with me. Especially in the evening. With his big blue eyes firmly planted in mine, he approaches me, makes me dance. And that opens the breach of desire…
And you know as well as I do that this breach can make me fall very low.
The bar closes soon, I approach him, I whisper a few words in his ear… which I don’t remember. Then I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but my teeth start to nibble gently on his neck.
The bites follow the kisses and vice versa. I am excited, I feel a wave of desire being born in the hollow of my loins. The panther wants to bring him back to his den… He lets himself be done, docile, unperturbed.
I move back, I ask him if I can kiss him. A scathing “No” comes down on my crazy hormones.
But uh… But…
Frustration immediately gives way to anger. I leave furiously. That night, I would not end the night with him, but with a handsome twenty-something.
It gets tougher
A week later, it’s a big night we’re having again. And in a corner of my mind, I intend to make sure I get my kiss.
As usual, we tease each other, we laugh, we dance. Then comes the moment when he wants me to do his makeup. Humm, here is a beautiful occasion to be alone both.
While I pass some eyeshadow on his eyes, I feel a puff of pheromones going up in me. And yet, I don’t dare. Impossible for me to attack him like that.
When I check the result, he looks me straight in the eyes. And deep down, I hope he’ll make the first move. We would be so close to kiss.
But nothing, nada. We go back to dance with the others. The night is still too young to attract him in my follies.
I take advantage of the others, I let myself be intoxicated and finally, an unexpected chemistry hits me hard.
He surprises us. I am between embarrassment and contentment… If it could make him a little jealous…
The apotheosis of flirting
It’s especially at the end of January that things get really tough. The flirtation intensifies, and I like it.
It’s been ages since I had a little crush, so I enjoy his glances in the corner, his moments to look for each other, his jokes and teasing all day long.
And I’m not talking about the evenings, where the friendly flirting becomes downright sensual. The looks are unmistakable, our bodies get closer on the dance floor …. But I always end up going home alone, without him.
Then comes the night of my birthday, we reach the apotheosis of the languid looks, the height of the suggestive dances. And my brain spins. Yes I think I really want him. Not just to sleep with, I want to have a romance with him.
Is it mutual? Probably not, but the signs he sends me are not clear. That night, he walks me home, 4kms on foot, 4 floors, and leaves my house after 10 minutes.
If he lived next door, why not, but he lives on the opposite side of Paris…
Damn alcohol, I have no clear memory of what we said. A few snippets at most, about our complexes, about our lives, but nothing concrete to tell me whether or not to hope.
So I base myself on the facts… Who walks four kilometers with someone if he doesn’t have a little desire in the back of his head ?
Plan of attack
In the days that follow, the flirtation continues to grow. It becomes the crunchy little thing that happens in my life.
The girls who know us both are formal. Oh yes, there is a lot of flirting between us, in the evening, but also during the day.
I’m reassured, I’m not kidding myself.
While a few weeks before, I was torn between him and Mr. Alchimie, I feel that the balance is tilting in his direction.
Like any self-respecting woman, I talk about it around me, I give advice and encouragement from my friends. We all agree that I should invite him to my official birthday party the following weekend.
The evening of frustration
That evening when he arrives, we are already a nice table of girls, he is almost the only boy.
He sits a few chairs away from me, and I am already a little frustrated. My main objective tonight is him. Obviously, I want to dance, have fun and laugh. But the panther doesn’t intend to lose sight of his prey.
If I can’t bring him back, I at least want a kiss.
Unfortunately, if he flirts with me when we are side by side, it is mostly with one of my friends that he flirts openly.
She is sober, she knows everything. At first, she tries to avoid him a little, to bring him back to us. But soon his flirty nature returns, and they spend most of the evening flirting.
I try to relax on the dance floor, to find comfort in the eyes of other prey, to draw on the positive energy of my friends, the weapons to avoid disappointment.
Just before closing time, I confront him. The words are vague, but I get a “I don’t like you”, which I’m not sure I interpreted correctly.
The bar closes, and I am in pain. I feel humiliated, robbed. I have been robbed of my prey. I have this feeling that I haven’t had for so long. This feeling of not being enough, or of being too much.
End of grey evening
I am bubbling between rage and sadness. When I leave the bar, I run away from it all. Then I change my mind, I go back on my steps, and I wait for the others.
My friends (except one) have done nothing, they have nothing to do with it, they came for me. It’s not right to leave like a thief.
When they join me, they immediately feel that something is wrong. They know. Somehow they try to cheer me up a little bit.
But when Miss Flirty joins us, and once again, she takes all the space, it’s too much for me. After a short “Ciao”, I leave at a crazy speed. I don’t run, my walking speed would compete with Yohann Diniz.
I stop at the Velib station, and unlock a bike. My cell phone starts to vibrate. Immediately, I answer it.
A few years ago, I would have left, I would have played dead, I would have hit the walls, I would have put myself in danger. Yes, a few years ago, I would have let my buddies worry, so I could feel that deep down, they cared about me.
Not anymore, I wait patiently for them at the station, and when they arrive, I burst into tears. I am humiliated. I am humiliated. I feel like an idiot for even thinking about it.
Once again, the girl next door gets the guy. Yes, once again, I am too intense, not pretty enough, not classic enough to be the one chosen.
Flirting? No, not at all…
As my tears are almost dried up, a figure we know well passes in front of us. She calls out to us. Miss Flirty approaches us and she seems to fall from the sky in front of my eyes puffed up with grief.
It is to understand nothing, she is the only one who did not drink, and she is the only one who does not see clearly.
I don’t know if she meant it when she said she didn’t flirt. My good heart won’t blame her, and I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt. But one of my best friends accuses her without hesitation and puts her nose in her poop.
She leaves stunned, and we go back on our bikes.
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger
The next morning, the hangover is mixed with disappointment. I feel empty, sad, and the depression is showing its face.
My eyes open way too early, and I can’t get back to sleep, despite a rather limited number of hours of sleep…
I decide to walk and clear my head. I decide to walk and clear my head. The depressing music follows one another in my headphones, and I enjoy this domestic spleen by watching the runners along the quays of the canal.
Strangely, I feel that the pain is only on the surface. I feel strong, I can already feel that the sadness will soon give way to joy.
Yes, it’s silly, but I feel so good about my life, that I feel it will only make me stronger.
I play the audios to my girlfriends. It feels so good, this surge of understanding, this surge of love.
Miss Flirty leaves me one, I take it as such. She poses as a victim, she didn’t sleep all night and she blames herself. However, she does not admit anything, according to her, she did nothing.
At the time, I have no desire to blame her, I don’t want bitterness to rot our friendship. However, the voices of other friends of mine are more than clear, and all corroborate my first impression: to flirt, it takes two.
My Sunday passes, and finally, that evening, I feel better already. I was ready to face him the next day.
My plan: ignore him, be colder than an iceberg, not a glance, not a smile. He doesn’t exist anymore.
The confrontation
Monday morning, I’m ready to set my plan in motion. He pokes his head into the open space, and gives a big hello.
As if by reflex, my arm goes up, waving, and a big smile appears on my face.
Uh, cold, North Pole, girl, don’t forget it! Come on you’ll be better next time.
For this first day, I avoid him, I walk around less, I go to the gym at lunchtime, I run away from the coffee machine where I could run into him.
However, a hint of bitterness keeps growing in my throat. In the end, am I not the one who suffers the most with this behavior? Depriving myself of a friend is not going to get me anywhere.
I can’t pretend nothing’s happened either. No, I can’t. I’m probing one of my girlfriends, I’d like to talk to HER, set things straight. Good or bad idea? Very good idea, but rather “painful” for my ego.
I think I’m ready, yes I have grown, my ego will only come out stronger.
The day is almost over, and I text him to talk for 5 minutes.
I grew up
Some minutes before leaving, we find ourselves in a room.
It’s so strange, we compensate at first with a little humor. But I need to get into the thick of it quickly, so I don’t chicken out, so I don’t back down.
He looks at me with circumspect eyes, he remains standing in front of me. As for me, I gesticulate from one foot to the other and I flee a little from his look when finally the words come out of my mouth.
“You made me suffer. Too much flirting, I bugged out, maybe I fooled myself a little, but I didn’t appreciate you flirting with my buddy. It hurt me, especially my ego, I’ll get over it, but I wanted you to let it go.”
There followed a short fifteen minute discussion. Confused, he apologized. He admitted to flirting, during the day, but also at night. A lot of flirting, but he thought it was harmless.
Because after all, I’m a girl of no consequence. At least, that’s what he thought. “Flirting with Mylourd, I figured, was a game. And then like that, I was protecting the others”. Thank you Mr. Flirty, but I’m not a sexual predator either…
I hope that after this discussion, he will have understood that nothing is ever without consequences, and that Mylourd and Mylène are indeed one and the same person, with only a different blood alcohol level. They share their memories (Mylourd doesn’t always have many…) and their feelings…
The discussion ended on a friendly note, and we left each other good friends.
Summary of the races
I came out of it prouder than ever. Proud to have put my ego in brackets to preserve myself on a daily basis, and to preserve a semblance of friendship.
Without a doubt, I came out much stronger. Ok my life is less crispy, but it remains sweet and pleasant.
The friendship with the young man ? It’s not as strong as it used to be, but I still have a great time with him.
As for my buddy, Miss Flirty, I had passed the sponge. I gave her the benefit of the doubt. In fact, I think what disappointed me the most was that she played the victim.
“I’m so mad at myself that I can’t sleep. “It’s a relief that it went well.”.
Sorry, sweetie, but it was your job to “comfort” me, not mine to pat you on the back and make you feel better.
Anyway, I had given up, I didn’t think about it anymore. Obviously, it eroded my confidence a bit on some subjects, but nothing that can’t be repaired with time.
The rebound of too much
Until this Saturday night…
Miss Flirty has just told us about all the little flirtations that populate her life. Oh of the crispness, she has some! We enjoy her words, I am always so fond of small adventures, whether they are mine or those of others.
Then from nowhere, she announces me that she has something on the heart. If she can’t get into her stories, it’s because she’s always thinking about Mr. Flirty.
I’m stunned. She is more than serious.
What does she want from me? My blessing? A helping hand?
In and of itself, I have no view of him anymore. The good thing about disappointments is that it’s much easier to see what’s wrong with the other person. He could introduce me to his new girlfriend tomorrow, and I would hardly be bitter.
But here… It’s still a little fresh. It’s all about ego, but to imagine them together is to remind myself of my incompatibility, my inability to please, and that’s not pleasant at all.
“I prefer to be selfish but honest. It takes a weight off my shoulders”. Here, the victim is coming out of the woodwork.
Great the weight is now on my shoulders. I just wanted to bury this story, and resume these two friendships. Would you leave me alone, you flirtatious kings?
No regrets
I tell her everything I’m telling you here. But she doesn’t give up. She has a real connivance with him, which she can’t find elsewhere…
Don’t get carried away, my dear, I had this connivance before you… and we saw the result.
But I don’t tell her anything more. It’s up to me to decide what I do with this information. Do I bury it in a corner of my brain, even if it means damaging my karma? Or do I play Cupid, when this upcoming relationship is already giving me heartburn?
I feel that she feels at peace, that she doesn’t even see that for once it would have been better to be dishonest, to carry her cross alone. Yes, she is almost satisfied.
This story, if it made me grow up, I still want it behind me. I want to forget the humiliation of not being chosen, again. And I feel that the only way to put it behind me is to do the right thing now.
I take my phone, and send each of them the other’s number. Let them deal with it, I don’t want to know anything about anything that happens.
No regrets, the weight is no longer on my side.
Friendship in jeopardy?
If the weight of the decision has deserted me, because the ball is in their court, I must say that my friendship is a bit on the line.
I am disappointed, just so disappointed, that for the moment, I don’t know if I could trust him again.
What disappoints me the most is always this victim side. “It’s too hard to bear, I feel like there’s something going on.” I feel like I’ve been left out. All that, yes you can feel it, but express it to someone else, not to the one you’re hurting.
If you hit a dog in the car and came to the grieving owner and told him about your guilt and your stiff neck, how do you think it would be taken?
The last text finished disappointing me, “It doesn’t take away anything from what I think of you,” but still happy!!! What would I have done wrong to disappoint you???
If it’s a real friendship, it will heal with time, if not… In any case, it’s my turn to be selfish in this story…