The usual feckless pseudo-threats.
Shit…my cover’s blown! :eek:
I think **The Devil’s Grandmother ** is right. I meant feigning interest. I wouldn’t expect a stranger to be affectionate unless maybe they were on E. OTOH, while I’m secure in my looks, I have had guys dart over near closing time who may or may not have been able to distinguish me from a wet hole in the ground, so perhaps there was some feigning attraction after all. I don’t need confident bravado, but distracted desperation is hardly attractive.
But why the (stem) word hit?
Thanks
Q
Both my sisters told me at different times that my friend has hit on them at parties. When I mentioned this to him*, he just about bust a gut laughing. He was a bit of a flirt in those days, but never one to try in earnest to get women in bed. And my sisters, while not dogs, are far from irresistible.
*In passing–all parties involved know I could not care less whether he was or not.
To me flirting is a real or feigned interest, playful or serious, direct or indirect, and the goal can be innocent fun, sex, or a relationship. I can flirt with someone I have an interest in, but also with someone I don’t. There’s someone at work I flirt with all the time but I have no interest in dating her. (And she knows it.) Hitting on someone is exactly the same thing, but the interest is real.
I’m not sure there are behaviors that are the cause of “X’s hitting on me.” so much as perceptions.
Case in point–I throw New Years parties for my extended circle of friends from time to time. One of those friends is a cute single redhead chick. Two of them are single men of wildly different life approaches, but one is ostentatiously Christian and one is not. Man A (the ostentatious one) was practically doing everything but the backstroke straight up her dress–guiding her away from other men, hanging on every word, talking about Jesus, etc. Man B sat next to her and chatted about the goings on and nothing personal a few times in the night while mingling.
Given her preferences (she’s also one of my few very Christian friends), however, Man B was judged to be a shameless, horribly pushy flirt. And she wanted Man A’s contact information.
So yeah, not sure there’s a useful answer to that one.
As for hitting on someone? When I do it, it’s physical contact. I can joke and flirt and whatever all in good fun, but if my hand so much as brushes your shoulder or I hand you your coat or something, I’m almost certainly interested (or we’re close enough friends that we’ve already settled the question).
Skald, I would venture to guess that the answer to the question “Can you articulate exactly what you mean by the statement “X was hitting on me”?” is best answered in a paraphrase of Justice Stewart’s definition of hard-core pornography
In other words, the topic makes for an interesting discussion/thread, but a precise definition only exists in YMMVille.
I googled around a bit and and didn’t come up with much, but it seems that this is the case:
The original meaning of “hit” was to “meet with” or “come upon.” Hit the road, hit the bottle, hit someone up for money, hit it off with someone. The meaning of violently striking something is a later usage of the word.
I’d like a better explanation, though. Maybe I’ll hit google a bit more.
Well, as the inspiration for this thread, I feel I should comment.
IMHO, the difference between “flirting” and “hitting on you” is when there is an overt or covert connotation of sex (or at least some heavy petting as they taught us in sex ed class). For example, causal conversation, jokes, playful touching and the like are all forms of flirting. If a girl says something like “I really want to make out with you”, “I give really good massages”, “help me find the bathroom”, “where is your room?” or “I am really good at sex” (all things that have been said to me at some point in my life so this is not theoretical), that is a girl hitting on me. She does not need help finding the bathroom. She is not interested in coming to my room to see my lavalamp. Typically, I am agreeable to a woman giving me a massage or making out with me.
Or, more often than not, a woman will continue to give you various signs that eventually you should be asking her such things.
But basically, again IMHO, it is essentially when you basically put it out there that you are interested in more than just flirting. Allthough, I may use the terms interchangably.
Your red-head friend’s assessment of the two men point out exactly the thing that drives men nuts. If Man A didn’t mention Jesus, she’d be calling him a harasser. Man B did nothing pushy - yet it was so perceived. It all boils down to “is the attention liked”. And that’s a problem - how does one know it’ll be liked before it’s attempted? I’m so glad I’m not single.