Wink, wink, amen

I just realized that me saying "wink, wink, amen," will be funny to the approximately two people who remember the prayer in which that was said. To the rest of you, I'm sorry. You had to be there.

But I've been pondering recently a rather odd phenomenon. Odd by nature because I don't find it odd. Allow me to explain.

I'm rather old-fashioned at heart. When I say that I don't mean I have an ivory bedroom set with lace bed curtains, but rather that I tend to err on the side of that-was-inappropriate-100-years-and-it-should-still-be-that-way. Which is why it's very odd that I don't freak out more negatively when dudes flirt with me.

Sure, I give them the stink eye (I've perfected it, and taught fellow-sisters how to glare just so, in order to properly discourage the fellow), but I'm not appalled like I think maybe I should be. I was driving home from work this week when an older gentleman decided to pull his car directly beside mine and wave and blow me kisses. I looked away.

However, once I was out of his sight (well, I could still see him waving out the window all the way up the block) I laughed hysterically. He was at least eighty, no joke.

Then (once the laughter had run its course) I stopped to consider that perhaps that shouldn't be funny to me at all. Instead of laughing, perhaps I should have remarked that "a not-so-distinguished-looking gentleman in a rusty-looking horseless carriage shocked me with a scandalous display of blown kisses and outright googly-eyes." I think he was crazy and appalling, but I didn't go home and sob in my journal that I was mistaken for a woman who was interested in a stranger's advances (I can tell you right now, though, my stink eye usually does a lot to ward off those advances).

So what gives? Has it just become acceptable that men act untowardly towards women they've never met? When did that become OK? And why don't I trouble myself about it?

Actually, I think I don't worry about it because there's nothing I can do about it. I certainly don't encourage it (my face of steel and the one-eyebrow lift is enough for them to realize that I don't think it's funny), and I typically don't initiate such things. Apparently there was some time when I flirted with the waiter at a restaurant (I still maintain my innocence), but in general I don't make a habit of waving at strange fellows for no reason.

I just wish I had a T-shirt that echoed my sentiments. What shall it say, "Class Non-Flirt?" I can't decide if that would draw the boys in that we-love-a-challenge way or repel them in that um-whatever kind of way.

To all the hearts I've troubled with my own errors, however, I wish I could apologize. To that dude in the restaurant in Chicago, I'm sorry I flirted. Seriously, I just wanted you to bring me my soup while it was still hot.