When you flirt does the other person crank up the heat to an 11 as a consequence? Problem sometimes occurs when you tell the other person that you’re flirting with, that you’re a shy, slow, tentative person, but it seems to come across: “I hereby encourage you to channel Pepe Le Pew and ignore all boundaries, starting now.” What can you do?
Relationship expert Reid Mihalko from ReidAboutSex.com and Cathy Vartuli from TheIntimacyDojo.com are going to share some tips for keeping the breaks on without ruining the flirt.
Reid: A letter from a viewer.
Cathy: She really liked our video which we loved to hear.
She says I like to flirt, but I don’t necessarily want the other person to crank up the heat to an 11 as a consequence. Problem is when I tell the other person, the person I’m flirting with that I’m a shy, slow, tentative person, which is what we’d recommended, sharing if you feel awkward or shy, it seems to come across I hereby encourage you to channel Pepe Le Pew and ignore all boundaries, starting now. That makes me scared to flirt so I haven’t in ages.
Any tips for keeping the breaks on without ruining the flirt?
This is Reid Mihalko from ReidAboutSex.com
Reid: And this is Cathy Vartuli from TheIntimacyDojo.com and she’s about to give us some amazing wisdom for our person who wrote in.
Thank you for writing in
Cathy: Yeah. It’s great. Great question.
Reid: What’s your answer to the question?
Cathy: You’re already being really courageous and brave in sharing that you’re shy and awkward.
If you can, sharing that you’d love to flirt but you don’t necessarily mean it as an escalation to Pepe Le Pew, we’re going to use that example because most people know who that is.
Just letting them know what you want, letting them know what kind of play or flirting you like back. If you can ask for that, that can be really powerful because most people really want to do a good job and they would be so excited that someone’s actually saying I do want to flirt, that they just take that and run.
Reid: Yeah. This would be an extension of the advice from the other videos.
Now that you have more information about what doesn’t work for you, put that into how you’re inviting people.
I would like to flirt with you, which I’m glad it was working.
Cathy: Yeah.
Reid: Just going out and being really honest with people.
Cathy: Yeah.
Reid: And then saying and just so you know like I’d like … on a scale from 1 to 10, I’d like to keep this in kind of the 6, 7 range, not the 11.
If it’s too much, I’ll let you know so we can dial it back down and for you as well, can we play the dial game.
Cathy: Yeah.
Reid: And then you guys could actually use that as a beginner and be like hey, so okay, so they’re like yes, let’s flirt and back. So let’s … like what do you think of 5? And then you guys try a 5.
Cathy: It’s kind of geeky that way and it will probably take some of your mind off the awkwardness or the shyness.
Reid: Well and the whole point is to be playful. You’re actually creating a game where you guys get to win in the whole…so this is what a 5 is like for me, what’s a 5 for you? It’s like okay, so now like what’s a 7? And then kind of doing it that way by designing in that you get this dial.
Cathy: Yeah.
Reid: You can let people know like I need you to … can you bring it down 2 notches?
It’s almost like a flirting version of you have a safe word. You’re like green, green light’s great, go, go go. Yellow is caution. Red is we need to stop.
There’s nothing wrong with building these things in. And again, remember the people that you’re flirting with cannot read minds. That you even invited them to flirt in the first place is probably getting people super excited because a lot of people want to be playful, they want to be more playful in life, they just don’t know how to ask for permission and because you’re watching this videos, smart citizen of the relationship and intimacy realm, you have more information now than they do, you have more tools.
Cathy: Yeah.
Reid: You can create more and again, figure out what’s not working for you, try to design that into the invitations in playful ways for people for that they can win.
Cathy: Yeah. Congratulations. I really love that you have the courage and you’re getting out there and flirting a bit and we really appreciate you asking the question. It’s a great question.
Reid: And for those of you who want to leave comments and don’t know what to leave, leave us some of your worst and best pick up lines.
Flirting, we need more … I need more pick up lines. Help me. Help me.