Plan for today: Get through the day without collapsing...come home and sleep. Sleep in tomorrow. Try to shake this cold. Maybe I'll socialize this weekend -- see if I can drag a couple of people to a contra dance or some such Friday night. I haven't seen people in TOO LONG. I am seriously neglecting my friends. People I really ought to see soon: Jed, Del, Ian (men with three-letter names, apparently), Adam, Peter...that'll do for now. I seem to see the women more frequently. :-)
10:00 -- Finished the reflections on my teaching demo... now I just have to finish printing out 18 copies (of 14 pages each) and then go meeting with my fiction teacher, and then write a 3-pg paper. By noon. (Actually, I have an hour free from 1-2 as well, so if I don't finish by noon, I can finish it up then.) Crazy crazy. After 5:30 this afternoon I'm going to shut off my brain for a while. Maybe I'll rent a movie tonight...any suggestions? (I really do need to get up to date on my classic films...I've seen so few. Casablanca, The Thin Man, umm...there was another one about a man who faked paintings and a museum robbery that was really good...oh, a couple more here and there, but honestly, I need a nice comprehensive list of the ten classic movies I absolutely must see. And if any of you can suggest a funny one for tonight, that would be most appreciated. (Of course, the pathetic video store down the block probably won't have any of them, but that's another problem altogether.)
11:30 - I received mail from a friend today, asking if she should admit to a guy that she has a terrible crush on him. I responded with a diatribe on geek flirting, and thought some of you might be amused, so I enclose it (suitably edited to protect the guilty) below.
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Y'know, I go for geek flirting. I don't know if you've heard of it, but it's a fairly common term out here in the Bay Area (where there are lots of geeks. :-)
The main idea in geek flirting is that you skip all the little games and insinuations and little touches and guessing and go directly to finding out if they're interested. Conversations tend to go like this:
[chat, chat, chat about various things, ideally with just the two of you there]
Female F looks at Male X, pauses a moment, takes a deep breath (subtly): ["You know something, X?"]
X looks quizzically at F. ["No, what?"]
["I gotta admit, I think you're really attractive."] F can leave it at that, or follow up with, ["Would you like to go see a movie Friday night?"]
X responds, blushing ["Gee, thanks. Yeah, a movie would be great!"]
or, alternatively, ["Gee, thanks. That's nice to hear, but I'm afraid I actually have a girlfriend (boyfriend)/have taken a vow of celibacy/need to wash the dog..."]
The big advantage to geek flirting is that the pain of rejection is quick and hopefully early enough that neither of you is too invested/embarrassed. Ideally, this should happen *before* you develop a truly major crush, but since you're partway there already, I'd advise finding out as quickly as possible.
That's my approach, anyway. Besides, it's not fair that the guys should have to bear all the brunt of possible rejection. If we want equality and fair play, we should take some responsibility ourselves...
Addendum: Geek flirting does of course apply equally well to f/f and m/m situations...and m/f/f, f/m/m/, f/m/m/m/f, etc if it comes to that...
Addendum Two: Another good approach is the group geek flirt. This is in some sense even safer, in that it can be passed off as casual much more easily; gives them an easier out and saves you embarassment. This does require that you have some confidence in their social skills...so they don't utterly embarrass you by asking you to explain yourself...eg.:
[big group of people hanging out, chatting. F subtly brings the conversation around to cute guys, and people start talking about what they think is really cute in a guy. All the guys in the room get a little nervous.]
[F: "You guys are all so shallow. Tight ass, big bulge -- c'mon! What really gets me are hands. Look at X over there -- now he has really nice hands."]
[X blushes as all the women examine his hands.]
[F repeats, staring directly at X, "Yup, sexy hands are what I think are really attractive."]
This actually slides over the line from geek flirting to regular flirting, but it's fun to do anyway, so what the heck.
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You can tell I'm trying to avoid work, can't you? Shh...