“Someone stole my camera at my twentieth year reunion and took a picture of my legs. I think they were flirting with me.”
Everyone has his or her rules about marriage. My husband’s and mine are short and sweet. He hates it when I talk to him like he’s two and he won’t entertain Oodles of Noodles as a food group, not even on a bad day.
I insist he celebrate Mother’s Day effusively and that he not get rid of the bedroom furniture my parents gave us no matter how big or ungainly it is.
I refuse to tell him he can’t go for coffee with a woman or make friends with another mother and he won’t tell me how to act on a girl’s night out — though sometimes he crosses his fingers and prays when I leave.
I won’t tell him not to eat at Hooters because quite frankly their wings are delicious and those white ankle socks don’t intimidate me, and he never ever tells me what not to wear unless it’s reaching embarrassment stage like the velour brown pants I bought.
I thought I looked like J-LO; he did not.
He was right.
I don’t like rules and if we have any they are of a vague nature but that’s for us to decide because each couple has got to draw their own lines in the sand.
In my particular marriage I am allowed to flirt. By flirt I mean the 18th century definition of it, which is “sharing one’s wit”. Not the 2013 year’s version, which probably means have a child with. I’m not sure because I am old(er) and behind the times and I am okay with that.
But I digress, I flirt and I’m allowed to is the topic.
I had just given birth to my baby boy and was coming out of the dregs of winter. After almost five months in sweats, a black hoodie, fuzzy slippers and a ski cap, I finally decided that my face might actually miss makeup. I decided to put on pants that required a belt but barely because let me tell you they were a little tight and my t-shirt well, it fit.
Yup that’s my story plus a little eyeliner and gel and wait people, it gets even more exciting.
I donned all this finery and went to…..Chipotle with my husband.
But hold on fine friends, it gets better because as I went to sit down I saw the most beautiful contractor I had ever seen. He was wearing pants and boots and a shirt and he had two hands a torso and feet too.
He was a man.
He had curly golden red and blue eyes and for the record I don’t like blue eyes, red hair or hair at all, but those eyes, well they saw me and that mouth — well it smiled at me. My mouth watered and it wasn’t the chipotle-grilled steak.
He was probably looking at me because my fly was down or smiling/smirking at me because he was wondering why a grown woman was wearing a shirt that said “I’m a cracker jack.”
I tried to hide the manic grin that had come to inhabit my own face – figuring it wasn’t attractive – but five months into my second child and infant weary, I wasn’t sure, maybe manic grins were sexy now?
I hadn’t been in the land of the living sans baby for so long that I wasn’t even sure I knew how to walk, much less smile, much less flirt. That’s when I felt the reassuring hand of my husband Mike on my shoulder.
“It’s okay Becky. Do you want to sit next to him because you’ll get a better view?”
That’s not poetic license he said that.
But this is supposed to be a piece about flirting and if that was my best shot at flirting then after reading this piece you would just smile sadly and say, “Oh poor Becky, she thinks she’s a cracker jack.”
A new friend I had at work took me aside and asked me how I could so easily “talk” with complete strangers. She meant flirt but it wasn’t only with men. I also flirt with women and babies.
Oh gross, I’m a politician.
I told her I only flirt when I am wearing a bow tie, seems harmless.
Then I said, “In fact, I’m flirting with you right now – do you like it?”
Then I got serious and shared my secret.
If you see me standing stupid and dumbstruck or speechless in front of a man then I find him attractive and I will be certain to walk away quickly. I will not flirt, repeat I never flirt, with anyone I actually find myself even semi-dangerously attracted to.
To not share one bit of my wit with him because THAT would be dangerous. Thankfully, my husband and I haven’t been speechless for all twelve years of our marriage and I’m hoping never to be.
So watch out world, I am ready to go out and maniacally smile at you. I know it’s tempting but give an old lady a break and smile back and if you see me standing dumbstruck, smack me in the back of the head and remind me of my wit and my Mike.
And if you see Mike standing dumbstruck, well – then all flirting is off.
Rules are rules people and we have to abide by them.
About Rebecca Suder