I Like When You Poke Me

There is a new(ish) frontier in flirting.
Not really new...

It started in 2004 and has been public since 2006, and is the most popular social networking sight on the interwebs.

No one will be surprised by this, but it is Facebook.
Obviously.

 

Everyone and their mom has a facebook these days. And everyone and their mom is using it to flirt with people who they wanna see naked. 

I doubt that it is an outlandish statement to anyone, but it still catches me off guard when it happens to me. I often feel like the only people who use facebook for flirting are either 13-year-olds who don't know any better, 45-year-olds who don't understand texting, and people without any shame or who haven't realized that everyone can see when they post "watup sexxxi?" to someone's wall.

Other indicators include: 

When someone randomly "likes" a picture of you...especially if it is a picture that has been sitting around your profile for 6 months or 3 years. 

Or when they start a "poke war" with you and include little comments like " ; ) " or " ; P " or "lol."
I understand that poke wars can occur between siblings and friends too, but when you're just hanging around and someone pokes you...that isn't a great sign about their chaste intentions.

Doesn't that just look like an invitation to imagine someone naked?

Facebook has created more than just a new flirting opportunity, it has also opened up a world of stalking.
In the past, a stalker was someone who followed you around and took creepy pictures through the bushes of you drinking coffee or getting in and out of taxis. Now it seems that a stalker can do just as much following and being creepy from their couch. They can check your facebook to see who you are with and where, and to download new photos of you in your bathing suit, they can check your twitter to learn your feelings about the new Transformers movie, and they can check your Pinterest page (that's a thing, right?) to see what you like.

It's SO easy to be creepy now, and I don't know what to do about it.

You meet someone at a party, learn at leas their first name, and start searching through the host's facebook  friends to find them. Then you click 8 different profiles before finding the one that matches the person you met. You search around their photos and mutual friends (less than 3, it'll be weird to add them, more than 15 and you're golden, FYI) and then decide what to do about it. Send a cheeky message? Just add them as a friend? WHAT TO DO?

General (personal) guideline: wait until the second or third meeting (especially until they have given you their last name or phone number) before finding them on facebook. Otherwise you might seem over eager. 

Personally, if I'm going to flirt with someone not face to face, it's going to be over text, not facebook. Or maybe I'll do it through emails... or telegraph messages...or maybe smoke signals but that requires me to leave the couch.


Moral of the story: Whatever way you wanna make overtures, make sure you end up giving 'em a good "poke." Get it? Get it?

Your First Line of Defense

There are a lot of things I'm good, well, there are a few things I'm good at, okay, there is at least one thing I am good at.

That thing is called "bitch face."

Bitch Face is when your face makes you seem like you're a bitch, but not just that, it makes the opposite sex not want to approach you in any way at all ever.

You don't just seem like a bitch, because some dudes are in to that, no, you're giving off this vibe like "If you talk to me I will introduce your face to my fist, and they will not get along well."

It is a well documented thing, and here are some examples:

Posh goes more for the "What the fuck are you doing, bitch?" Bitch Face. This one is most useful if you are already being approached by a guy or talked to and you don't want to find the words to make him go away.

This girl just has constant Bitch Face on this show, and maybe in real life too, and this is a great example of it. Straight mouth, no hint of a smile, tense jaw, and very slightly furrowed brow to imply that their very presence on this earth is an unending nuisance to you.

Selma's is showing us the classes drunk Bitch Face. You're a little frazzled at the end of the night and you end up just staring blankly and kind of sneering at the person. Then you leave.

Bitch Face can come about in one of several ways; some people are born with it, and their neutral face is bitchy looking. Where some people always smile or always look sad, some people just look bitchy. Some people can acquired the Bitch Face through years of practice, if they're lucky and study under a master. Some people get that way when they've been drinking, or under special circumstances, but it isn't their natural face.

Bitch Face has a lot of practical uses too: it helps keep gross bar fly boys at bay, it helps you get across campus quickly, it helps to keep people from asking you for help all the stupid time, it means you get left alone.

It can also be a curse since that means no one really wants to approach you. So when you do see a guy you want to have hit on you, pull out your best smile.

 Then you'll really dazzle them.

It can happen though, that if you have Bitch Face you end up standing around while your friends get hit on or danced with, and you just get annoyed and your Bitch Face gets more dramatic so people are even less inclined to approach you. Vicious cycle, guys.

Moral of the story: Bitch Face works...maybe too much.

Seriously Guys, What The Hell?

I was trying to enjoy a beer. Just one beer...well, one pitcher of beer. Alison had been convinced to join me at the local bar The Up & Up. The Up is not, I repeat, NOT the kind of bar you hit on people at. It's all booths and tables and full of groups of friends.
It's like the Cheers bar but better because no one is sad and we're all a lot younger.
So, we're sitting at one of the booths along the wall, minding our pint. In walks not one, not two, for fourteen girls all in black minidresses and heels. Then, from among them, appears a girl in white.
It's a fucking bachelorette party.
A huge, loud, stupid bachelorette party with several older attendees (at least three women over or around forty) and the rest all looked like late twenty-somesthings who were going nowhere in life.
There was a lot of screaming.
And a lot of old lady butt getting bounced around near our table.
Even older women like to lez out at bars.
What the hell, guys?

We wanted to try and get out fast so I made Alison drink the last of my beer and we were going to get the hell out when, of course, a dude approaches.
Of course.
He stood by our table for a minute, just yackin' and then sat down to talk with us.
Joy. Of. Joys.
The gentleman was very drunk. But that didn't stop him from talking, or managing to get a friend over so he could talk too!

Here's the break down of our two lovely suitors:
Alison's guy:
firefighter
graduated computer science major
30
has a child, who is with him five days a week but whose mother lives in Mexico so WHERE THE HELL IS THAT KID FOR THE OTHER TWO DAYS OF THE WEEK?
has, apparently, a long standing warrant for his arrest here in Bellingham so he's turning himself in to jail come morning
and, of course, he's "really good at sex" and "all his girlfriends keep crawling back to him because he's so great and they want to do him all the time." Right.
My guy:
fisherman
no college degree
27 or 28
has some big plan to go into real estate...or something
is really into being a buddhist
his lama is an old white guy with a ponytail
they met in prison
yeah, this dude went to prison, and I'm pretty sure it was for murdering his fiancee.
Evidence, you request?
He had a tattoo for her, and when I expressed sympathy he responded "it's actually the best way to break up with someone, you have total closure."

ABORT MISSION.

As you can tell, Alison and I attract really high quality guys.

Moral of the story: do NOT hit on me if you've been to jail. Thanks.

Stalking and Shocking

Stalking is a major problem in relationships. Women often find themselves the subjects of these unwanted advances and creepy fans.

I am looking out for your safety, here at the Not So Virgin Mary blog, and so, in the interest of keeping all of you un-dead, here is a pair of cautionary tales.

My friend Alison.

That's all you need to know.

Alison is...not good at noticing things. She doesn't notice people staring at her in public places, or that she's about to try and wear that shirt she spilled Bagel Bites on, or that she can't drink half a fifth without getting sick (this based on the fact she's tried it a couple times now and it has yet to go well for her).
There's the back story.
Here's the rest of it: Alison started taking Russian during the Fall quarter of our freshman year of college. In that class she met a boy. His real name is Cole but we call him "Russian Boy." He's not Russian, he's just from the class. He asked her to be 'study partners' and we all know what that means...except Alison. She did not see it coming when he kissed her.
He came to her dorm room, crawled onto her bed, snuggled in and tried to make her study something else (heyoh). I'll describe the following events in her own words, "I only got a hickey because I was busy thinking about sandwiches so I didn't tell him to get off my neck."
So yeah.
They 'studied' together a few times and then she stopped answering his texts and calls part way through the quarter. It was half because he was coming on really strong and half because I might have broken her phone so she couldn't read and respond to texts...who knows the real reasoning?
He got really mopey.
THEN COMES THE CREEPY PART:
One morning Alison's roommate woke up to go to work at 6am. She left the door unlocked. Alison roused a few hours later, confused and bleary eyed but certain of the thing lying next to her bed...a rose. A single red rose. YEAH. That happened. She rolled over and hoped it would go away but no, when I came over later that morning to make her come get breakfast/lunch with me, it was still there.
My theory: he broke in, cuddled with her, left the rose and gave her a single, lasting, final kiss before leaving her forever.
That rose.
A symbol for creepiness for all times.

The second tale is actually kind of scary.
Stacey was our friend during freshman year, but she was a year older than us. We loved her. She was popular with everyone, and that includes creepy dudes. She had been getting weird phone calls for a while now, all from a private number she couldn't call back. They were the heavy breathing sort of calls. You know.
One day she had a lab that got out around eight pm and she was walking across the main section of campus (Red Square) when she got the worst of these calls.
She answered.
"Do you feel safe walking across Red Square all alone at night?"
Here is what Stacey should have done: hung up, gone to a well lit and crowded place, called the cops, and filed a report.
Here is what she did: laugh it off, call her mom to tell her, then come to us and tell us about it. Point: SHE DID NOT CALL THE COPS.

My friends are not good at this 'life' thing.
Obviously.
So don't be like them: don't get creeped on. Or, more importantly, don't be a creeper.

Unless it's facebook creeping, that's unavoidable.

Moral: Don't be Alison and Stacey.