I’ll never understand how difficult people make things by not being forthright and making things awkward:
“Is it okay if I bring my boyfriend?”
“…I think there’s been a misunderstanding. I had asked you on a hike as a fun first date, I didn’t realize you had a boyfriend. I’m going to bow out of this, but I can give you the hike info if you want to take him.” And then you laugh about the misunderstanding the next work day, and keep things at work from then on. No reason for it to get bad. Flirting is still fun! Just leave it at that without expecting anything more.
Unless you make it extremely clear from the get go that it’s just for fun then flirting with someone you’re not interested in is risky and even if it was made clear, there’s always a risk something will develop on one side.
It’s never this cut and dry in real life though. People often misinterpret others’ actions as flirting when they’re just being friendly. For some people, a woman smiling and making eye contact is flirting. It’s not on the person who’s being friendly “to make it extremely clear from the get go” that they aren’t interested in going out with you. It was on anon to ask this woman if she was single if he wanted to ask her out
I’ll never understand how difficult people make things by not being forthright and making things awkward:
“Is it okay if I bring my boyfriend?”
“…I think there’s been a misunderstanding. I had asked you on a hike as a fun first date, I didn’t realize you had a boyfriend. I’m going to bow out of this, but I can give you the hike info if you want to take him.” And then you laugh about the misunderstanding the next work day, and keep things at work from then on. No reason for it to get bad. Flirting is still fun! Just leave it at that without expecting anything more.
Don’t flirt with someone single if you’re not interested, don’t flirt with someone in a relationship if you’re not interesting in breaking it.
It’s just that simple.
I wonder if you have a different definition of flirting, because the end goal of flirting is not necessarily to gain a relationship.
Unless you make it extremely clear from the get go that it’s just for fun then flirting with someone you’re not interested in is risky and even if it was made clear, there’s always a risk something will develop on one side.
It’s never this cut and dry in real life though. People often misinterpret others’ actions as flirting when they’re just being friendly. For some people, a woman smiling and making eye contact is flirting. It’s not on the person who’s being friendly “to make it extremely clear from the get go” that they aren’t interested in going out with you. It was on anon to ask this woman if she was single if he wanted to ask her out