This flexible little phrase seems to have more than one meaning. I think it is an Americanism with the Aussie equivalent being ‘messing about’. I’m checking my perceptions here so please bear with me.
Does it firstly mean doing something with a less-than-serious application to getting it done?
Does it also mean experimentation with permutations in the hope that trial and error will provide a solution?
Does it also apply to romantic trysting, petting and the foreplay-type exploration?
Finally, does it also mean sexual or marital infidelity?
In the interests of fighting ignorance and all that, of course.
I know it to mean all those things. Also, a couple more things. Horseplay, such as throwing balled-up gloves, on the job is fooling around. Dabbling in something new can be fooling around. Harry’s fooling around with woodcarving. Darlene’s fooling around with cocaine, and I’m worried about her.
I’d add good natured teasing or ‘joshing’ (a term I picked up from a 7 year old friend of mine). “Just joking” = “just joshing” = “just foolin’ around.”
But if the participants named are of opposite sex and over, say, age 10, that will be taken 99% of the time to mean “having sex or darn close to it”. The other meanings will get crowded out
“Bob & Suzy were foolin’ around.” means they were having sex, not that they were lazily wasting an afternoon at work.
Even “Bob & Suzy were foolin’ around with their motorcycles” would make me think first of riding off into the countryside to find a shady spot for sex, rather than that they spent the afternoon in the garage tinkering with their bikes.
I wouldn’t think that sex would be part of that statement. My interpretation would be that they were merely tinkering with motorcycles. Any information about whatever sexual activity they may have engaged in would have to be specified further. As in, “Bob and Suzy were foolin’ around with their motorcycles, and then they were just . . . foolin’ around.”
Now, if Bob and Suzy were foolin’ around on their motorcycles (as uncomfortable and dangerous as that sounds), then I might assume a sexual component there. Or perhaps Bob and Suzy were foolin’ around on the mountain. At the mountain. At the lake. In the car. Those also I’d assume were sexual.
I think the difference with the motorcycles is that you can “fool around” on a motorcycle and many non-romantic couples do. Two best friends goofing off, tinkering with the mechanics of the motorcycles, riding around the back roads, hanging out—that’s foolin’ around with motorcycles.
I guess some activities are more specific and therefore you can fool around with them. If Bob and Suzy were foolin’ around with crochet, I’d assume that yarn and crochet needles were involved, but no sex. If Bob and Suzy were foolin’ around with the computer, same thing.
Mmm, yeah, I agree with those possible definitions.
Romantically, I take it to mean that a couple is surreptitiously spending time together, up to and including sex, though the speaker might not necessarily know with certainty to what degree.
No one has mentioned the subtle difference between foolin’ around for trysting purposes and foolin’ around as infidelity. If one member of a couple is foolin’ around, does the meaning necessarily refer to infidelity or can it be covered by one of the other meanings?
In other words, what context would necessarily mean that a member of a couple who is foolin’ around is definitly being unfaithful? If you are told that your SO is (simply) foolin’ around, would you get suspicious? “Hey Bob, did you know that your Suzie is foolin’ around”? Would that alert you to possible infidelity? Or could Suzie be repairing her motorbike, or wasting time, or working on a problem using trial and error?
