I have lost the ability to sense when others are expecting me to move things forward and when I am to wait to be nudged along by others. I can blissfully ignore whole situations without the realisation that I am in fact missing them. I am being given the signal left, right and centre and yet I am too busy watching the rugby to notice and by the time these signals have caught up with me, the boy trying to give them to me has run away to Peru to breed Alpacas and forgotten all about that chubby girl with the big boobs who didn't seem interested. This does sort of leave me no where. I think the main problem is I simply don't speak 'relationship'. I speak friendship; in fact I am fluent in friendship. I could earn a masters in friendship in less than a year and come top of the class. Dynasty and The Blonde One think it is my main problem, they have now informed me. I meet someone and the first thing I do is become their friend and give out the wrong signals and by the time I would like to start a mild flirtation they can only view me as a 'friend'. I thought I was simply being nice. I do so like being nice. What they fail to realise is without a basic grasp of 'relationship' I am left with very little to help me and almost nothing to say. A few choice phrases here or there, but they quickly expire and my only choice is to return to the safety of friendship. My best flirtation comes out when there is absolutely no chance of it going anywhere, as soon as it could develop into something I freeze and turn into friendship Freda. And who wants to be her?
I do believe I am improving though, and even managed to put my most seductive smile to use at work. Alas, the man in question I fear is now terrified of these strange smiles I am giving him and am sure is becoming a bundle of nerves whenever our paths cross. I'm sure his response of a 'startled smile' is not translated into 'I have seen your seductive smile and I like it', but then again, I don't speak relationship, perhaps it is.
This is not my only issue, as if this whole 'look at me and fancy me, please' beginning of a flirtation wasn't difficult enough, the world of social networking has thrown a whole new can of worms into the mix. Dynasty and I were discussing the new 'who is going to put that you're in a relationship first' dilemma. I almost long for the days when greeting your new beau at school on Monday, after he had so cooling asked you to 'be his girlfriend' on the Saturday was like, totes the most awkward thing, like ever. Oh, how I miss that almost turbulent science room moment (science being my first lesson on a Monday. Clearly). I fear that even if my ability to communicate in 'relationship' improves, I will stumble on the very first hurdle of not putting that I am 'in a relationship' on a social networking sites soon enough. Or too soon. Which is worse? Who do we ask? And who made these new rules, anyway. Zuckerberg, you have a lot to answer for. Socially, this seems to be going backwards on the maturity metre, but as we have discovered on many an occasion, what the bloody hell do I know.
I have, I fear, missed out an entire section of relationship confusion, of course; labelling. I despise the moment when someone asks you 'are you seeing each other? together? dating? fuck buddies?' or whichever label they ask you. I have so often come a cropper on this issue, and it seems I am not the only one. And I have to apologise to my sex here, because I feel, on the whole, it is us that have to most issue with this (I know plenty of men who have had an issue with this, of course, but rule of thumb, I'm afraid tells me it is the female of the species that antagonises this area). Why, can someone tell me, do we need to 'put a label' on something so quickly? I don't ever remember pacing around, frantically wondering if The Blonde One and I were best friends after a few weeks of friendship. I don't remember sitting her down and saying 'OK, Blonde One, where is this going? Can we wear matching t-shirts with our photos on and the words BFF's written on the back? Are we at that stage yet? Are we?' No, of course, I didn't. The Blonde One would have thrown Marmite at me and told me to Fuck off and then warned all our friends that I was some sort of deranged stalker. So, please, can someone make it clear to me why we need to do this with relationships? I am not saying that we must all run around sleeping with every Tom, Dick, Harry and Clive and not even bring up the subject of whether we like one another (I am far too Catholic for that, I thank you), but why rush things, and why put a label on anything? Would it not simply be easier if we see the people we like, and avoid the people we don't? If we enjoy spending time with the nice people then continue spending time with them. Sooner or later you will both realise how you feel and it should all fit into place. This, however, is unlikely to take place after two weeks. Or perhaps this is where I am so different.
The Mature One recently gave The Darling One the advice to stop worrying about all the little things and start enjoying it. If you analysis it all, you'll miss the most exciting parts. I would have to say I agree; I may not speak relationship as well as Dynasty or The Blonde One, but I am not going to start questioning everything either. I think I speak enough relationship to get by and will simply have pick up the rest as I go. So I may be very odd in my notion of what needs to be said during the first weeks of flirting, but believe me, if you so much as ask me 'where is this going' before the month is out, I may just point to the top of beachy head, for that is where the relationship will now be heading.
