stormdog | Flirting Confusion

A friend elsewhere on LJ / DW who describes himself as a gender invert wrote about learning to flirt and express sexual interest in other people. That he felt very uncomfortable going about it in a typically masculine active/aggressive way, and about how his language of flirting is modeled on typically feminine modes. I won't reproduce it in whole here (there is one selection that I responded directly to in quotations) since it's not my writing, but here's what I wrote in response. I identify strongly with a lot of it, but have responded and formed (not in a conscious way) my patterns of interacction differently.

This is a lot of why I am terrified of, and incompetent at, pursuing potential play-partners and romantic partners.

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Reading your thoughts on learning to flirt in ways that are more traditionally thought of as feminine gives me some concrete concepts to connect some feelings I've had to.

I don't see myself ever being able to communicate overt sexual interest in someone who I don't already know very well. The only time I have (and outside of a relationship, I've really only ever done that once), it was with someone I'd known for most of a decade. I'd feel much more personally comfortable and natural with a more indirect approach using modulated eye-contract, behavior, clothing, etc. It feels safer for me, and less hostile, which I guess I equate aggressiveness with on some level.

Maybe that's why I don't know how to deal with other people expressing a direct interest in me without other context, like someone who finds my profile on Fetlife (when I had an active one) and suggests we get together and implying sex; it's terrifying. It's most of why I'm not on there right now.

However! I also feel uncomfortable with that more indirect approach to being flirty. It's very important to me to communicate directly with people. Being intentionally flirty that way feels disingenuous. If I think someone is attractive and would like to get to know them better because of that, I should just tell them so. But then I'm being overt and aggressive (not to mention shallow if it's based solely on appearance) and I can't do that because it feels just as wrong. I know that many people enjoy flirting in this way and do not see it as deceitful or manipulative. I think I'd even enjoy someone flirting that way with me if they initiated it and I recognized it (which is so hard for me!). But I can't seem to feel ok doing it myself, which means I've never learned how to and am not sure that I will. And, as I noted, it's nearly impossible for me to recognize that someone is flirting with me; even making that conclusion feels like a disrespectful act in some way. Like it's wrong of me to assume someone might be interested unless they clearly say that they are. It feels like part of the toxic kind of masculinity that I abhor so. If something can be interpreted multiple ways, I always act as though it was meant in the least suggestive way possible unless told otherwise.

---"So instead of merely finding gender expectations annoying and confining, and rejecting their limitations, I found a need to have others recognize me and understand my own array of sexual interest and feelings."

This, in particular, reminds me of conversations I've had with numerous other people, including my therapist yesterday. I fear adopting behaviors or appearances that, as a whole, are not clearly masculine or feminine. I feel that my non-verbal forms of communication will be perceived as incoherent and jumbled and no one will know how to react. That I will be disregarded; perceived as an invalid participant in the social interactions I may have. I feel that need that you express, but I cannot figure out how to begin meeting it.