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Oh….almost 50 yrs ago! It’s good you didn’t feel harassed or afraid. It makes me think of that old movie “Looking for Mr. Goodbar”. Was it more acceptable for a guy to just say something like that then? They would be looked at as guys who harass women or thought of as super socially awkward & angry loners now. There is no way that could be confused with flirty.
IMO, it doesn’t even deserve a “sorry”….but I don’t think a bar is a good place to meet men anyway. You know nothing about them even if they were flirty instead of sleazy. I’m from a younger generation tho.
It was maybe marginally more acceptable but still inappropriate even for Key West, which was a bit of a pirate's den back then, in a harmless way.
I did not take it as a compliment or mistake it as flirtation, just as being crude.
I also didn't feel it was harassment as that implies continuing behavior but in this case only happened once with them both.
The bartender left the job shortly after, unrelated to our little interaction. The customer, who was a local business owner, I don't remember seeing again.
In a small party town regulars are locals especially in the off-season so everyone knows everyone.
It was maybe marginally more acceptable but still inappropriate even for Key West, which was a bit of a pirate's den back then, in a harmless way.
I did not take it as a compliment or mistake it as flirtation, just as being crude.
I also didn't feel it was harassment as that implies continuing behavior but in this case only happened once with them both.
The bartender left the job shortly after, unrelated to our little interaction. The customer, who was a local business owner, I don't remember seeing again.
In a small party town regulars are locals especially in the off-season so everyone knows everyone.
Oh my word.
I wonder if you knew a former coworker of mine that I was very fond of (I think she's actually moved back down there now!)
She said she used to drive a taxi in Key West and I think it would have been around the same timeframe.
She is a fine example of people who are older than I am who delight me with colorful stories of their lives. I often wish that I'd found a way to spend more time with her, but she was a bit on the reclusive side and I did not want to intrude.
I wonder if you knew a former coworker of mine that I was very fond of (I think she's actually moved back down there now!)
She said she used to drive a taxi in Key West and I think it would have been around the same timeframe.
She is a fine example of people who are older than I am who delight me with colorful stories of their lives. I often wish that I'd found a way to spend more time with her, but she was a bit on the reclusive side and I did not want to intrude.
Hard to say but certainly possible. It was very easy to meet people, most of us were in the hospitality industry. That would include cabs, for locals as well as tourists
Most people rode bikes but cabs were much in demand for late night rides home
Hard to say but certainly possible. It was very easy to meet people, most of us were in the hospitality industry. That would include cabs, for locals as well as tourists
Most people rode bikes but cabs were much in demand for late night rides home
I'm not sure that it was a normal cab. I saw her in a photo on Facebook posing with an open air vehicle sort of thing. Definitely part of the tourism industry, something you'd only see in such a place!
If you find them attractive, they're being flirty.
If you don't find them attractive, they're being sleazy.
I get why Minivan Driver said this, I have thought this way myself in the past and I wanted to unpack what was going on here but I also wanted to unpack why it can be hard for guys to figure out what is the line between sleazy and flirty.
I am sure I am not the only guy who has seen a girl, thought she was attractive and wanted to say something to catch her attention so I borrowed something one of my friends said to women in another context that killed for him and got a lot of laughs from women but when I said it, you would have thought I killed this woman's cat. I got nothing but daggers. Full on face plant.
That is the first level of why guys are thinking well maybe it is because he is more attractive than me. Do you see that?
As Sonic and others pointed out the boundary between sleazy and flirty is whether you crossed this woman's boundaries. But the problem for men, is that a given women's boundaries are dynamic and not static. As Homina pointed out, context really matters. If I walk up to a woman I don't know and I have never met and I try kiss her, that is a boundary violation for most women, but if I after a successful first date I try to kiss that same women, that kiss is often welcomed and not a boundary violation at all. Instead it was just a really good first date. One of the things that caused this woman's boundary to move here though was how she felt about me on the date. If the date goes well, a kiss might be welcomed, if I date doesn't go well, the kiss isn't welcomed.
The dating dilemma for guys is how do you get women to willingly and consentually move their boundaries for you? Like most things in dating it usually involves women having fun with you.
Sexual banter kind of operates on the same principle. Maybe you notice the way this woman is holding a pencil is kind of Fruedian and maybe she laughs when you point that out. If she does maybe you can see what else you can get her to laugh about. But here is the thing, the level this woman likes you at this point in time also determines the extent of how far you can take the sexual bantering with her. With women who like you more, things can get more bawdy faster.
This is that second level of awareness where there is some truth to that idea that Minivan driver said above and I think that is more of what he was getting at.
I was talking with a woman once in a bar. We were sitting on adjacent barstools and as I was talking, she raised her knee and gently began fondling my "package" with it! At one point, she brushed her (•) (•) up against me. That's sleazy!
On other occasions, women have asked me questions like, "Why hasn't some woman snagged you already?" Or said things to me such as: "Maybe your girlfriend/wife would like...." as if to find out if I was married or in a relationship. That's flirty.
Answering before reading the thread and seeing others' thoughts:
It's obviously not this simple, because people have mixed motivations, but IMO pleasant flirting is about trying to make the other person feel positive about themselves, to make them genuinely laugh or smile. Maybe it goes somewhere, maybe it doesn't, but you're happy if you've left the other person in a good mood. Sleazy is when you're just trying to get your own rocks off and using flattering words to do it. The clincher is what happens if the attempt at expressing interest falls flat, or if you're turned down. If you take your leave in an amiable way, it was just flirtation. If you persist in badgering the person or respond in some shade of "how dare they turn me down, they're a 4 at best," it was definitely sleazy.
To put it another way, expressing interest or gassing someone up while reading and respecting the person's boundaries and desires is flirtatious, while crossing boundaries is sleazy. That'll look different with different people because different people have different boundaries.
If you find them attractive, they're being flirty.
If you don't find them attractive, they're being sleazy.
Nah, I've definitely had people who were objectively attractive say/do things that were sleazy or creepy when they thought they were flirting and it's still a turn off. It's like that "she's a 10, but..." meme. Someone can go from a 10 to a 2 really quickly by saying or doing something that throws up a red flag. (I generally hate that ranking system, but you get what I'm saying.)
By the same token, if someone who I'm not attracted to is behaving flirtatiously, that's not a transgression (how are they gonna know if they don't try? Or maybe they're just joking around), but I'll shut it down as inoffensively as possible so as not to lead them on. It's only if they persist after being discouraged that it becomes a problem.
Flirty will have boundaries the both parties will quickly respect. Sleazy would be crossing boundaries.
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