A married woman's mobile phone snorts with the arrival of a flirtatious text message. But it's not from her husband. Instead, it's from an interested co-worker and she's flinging a seductive text right back him. Huh!?
Is she interested? Probably not. Attracted to him? Oh no. So what's going on? It seems these days, serial flirts have more ways to smile, seduce and fling across an "xx" than ever before. Flirty gestures are being ricocheted across cyberspace, co-ed gym buddies are charming each other during squats and co-workers are giving each other "the eye" in the corridors. All this, despite the fact that their other halves are waiting at home unknowingly, with a cooked meal and a DVD.Sure, this revelation is bound to prickle a few spines. After all no one wants to hear their partner is leading another on.
Yet blokes listen up: married women have been flirting ever since there were two sexes. Shakespeare even coined a term for such femmes, calling them flirt-gill (ie Jill), meaning, "a woman of light or loose behaviour".
In 1962, Marilyn Monroe confessed to her psychotherapist that she was both a gossip and a flirt (who would have thought?). In the '80s, Princess Diana famously flirted with anything that walked by using her signature slightly upward glance. And Oscar Wilde marvelled at it all, noting: "A woman will flirt with anybody in the world, as long as other people are looking on."
Of course it's not only the women who are doing it. As one Lothario poetically puts it: "During work hours I flirt with anything that shakes, but then its home to the wife for some bacon." Ha!
Yet is flirting really worth the cost?
Not according to dating consultant Baileys. "Many people associate flirting with a neon sign saying 'All roads lead to the bedroom,' " he says. "If you are a gifted flirt and you're in a relationship, be very careful. Flirting shows confidence and most people like confident individuals."
"A confident girl can also come across as a 'flirt' - which is very, very dangerous."
And while it's this not-so-innocent flirting that's getting coupled-up folk into sticky situations, is there really such a thing as a bit of harmless eye-battering?
"Yes!" says sexologist Stacey Demarco. (Whew!) "Flirting is sometimes simply part of the job. As a writer who specialized in PR, I know the value of being fun and building rapport. And flirting is a way of building it."
This one had me a little baffled, so she explains that there are different grades of flirting. "The lower grade may just be fluttering of eyelashes, lengthy eye contact or maybe giving someone lots of smiles. The next step up may be touching, lowering of the voice and sexual innuendo. And watch out, because when this 'true flirting' backfires, it really backfires."
Yet the question remains: to flirt or not to flirt?
"If it's fun and innocent, then why not?" says Michelle Lia Lewis, author of The Street Guide To Flirting. "My husband would go to a social function and he would flirt with others, but not seduce them," she says. "Flirting in its purest form does not have sexual overtones!"
We certainly hope not. But Demarco has other advice. "If you have a committed partner or spouse, I would be asking why you need to flirt so badly," she exclaims. "Control that ego." Amen.
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