How To Deal With Someone Who Says No To Flirting In A Powerful Way?
Cathy: How can you deal with someone say ‘No’ to flirting in a powerful way? This is Reid Mihalko from http://ReidAboutSex.com/.Cathy: How can you deal with someone say ‘No’ to flirting in a powerful way? This is Reid Mihalko from http://ReidAboutSex.com/.
Reid: Cathy Vartuli from http://TheIntimacyDojo.com/.
Cathy: And how do you deal with it if someone says ‘No’ when you’re flirting with them?
Reid: You say, ‘Thank you for taking care of yourself’.
Cathy: Excellent.
Reid: And then leave.
Cathy: You don’t have to necessarily leave.
Reid: Well…
Cathy: You should flirt more.
Reid: Okay.
Cathy: But that doesn’t mean you have to leave like..
Reid: What if the only reason I was there with them was to flirt with them?
Cathy: Well, that’s kind of sad then.
Reid: Why?
Cathy: Flirting is fun but hopefully there’s other reasons you like hanging out with that person.
Reid: They’re just being playful but I don’t want to be playful with them.
Cathy: Well, you could ask them what exactly…
Reid: Can I stay next to them?
Cathy: It might be helpful to ask them, actually. It is, ‘Thank you very much for sharing that. Could you specify what do you define as flirting? What would you like to add to this conversation?’
Reid: and then walk away if they say yes?
Cathy: Yes, exactly. But it may be that you’re at a party or whatever and it’s like, ’I’m having a good time talking to you. What do you define as flirting? I’m glad to stop that.’
Reid: Great!
Cathy: You know…
Reid: And then you can be like what would you like to continue talking about?
Cathy: Yeah.
Reid: Cool.
Cathy: You don’t necessarily have to like leave so if you have emotions come up coz someone said that no to flirting. One, there’s two side to that. One, maybe you weren’t flirting with them.
Reid: Yup.
Cathy: And you’re kind of like why what signals was I giving off? And you can actually specify like hey I didn’t realize that you were seeing is flirting, I wasn’t trying to flirt. Can you let me know because I’d like to be clear about this so that I don’t want inadvertently give other people the wrong signal.
Reid: Yeah and I think just for the way that I define flirting is just being playful with people and inviting them to be playful back most other people think flirting means hitting on.
Cathy: Yeah, hey baby.
Reid: Yeah so so get clear with other people what they mean by that, because if they think that you’re interested in them and you’re hitting on them when really you’re just being playful and you guys are having a connection then you know now you’re having it and I think an interesting conversation about what is flirting.
Cathy: Yeah.
Reid: And what are your intentions that’s kind of geeky nerdy and maybe not everybody’s up for that but if people aren’t up for that conversation then you can be like, oh well thank you for taking care of yourself like you want to talk about something else should I leave, like what would you like and what ends up happening there when you check in with people like that is most people like might feel put on the spot but most people have never had act somebody actually check in with them.
Cathy: Yeah.
Reid: And so my mileage is that people are like, huh, wow, that was weird but like good weird because that felt clean and respectful. Huh! And then you’re a clean and respectful person and that’s a good reputation to have.
Cathy: Yeah, and it is really hard to reach out if you were actually flirting with the like an invitation to be sexual, it’s scary to do that and if someone says please stop it’s like oh either I’m not desirable or I’m doing this really badly if you can just ground yourself and be calm for a minute and you realize them saying no is giving you like that person is not a good fit for that maybe they’re willing to share some information and feedback but if not then you can find someone else that you might want to connect with.
Reid: Yeah.
Cathy: So be gentle with yourself.
Reid: What do you think? Leave some comments, food for thought.