Reminds me of a story.
Years ago, I was out with a group of friends (most of whom I’ve lost contact with; not relevant). Actually, it was two groups pressed into one: me and a couple of people I knew, a friend of one of those people I didn’t know, and a couple of friends of that person. Make sense? Two groups not known to each other except via the intersection of common friends.
Anyway, the point is, a woman in the other group was flirting with a guy in my group. Her idea of flirting was teasing, saying sort of mean and inflammatory things about guys in general and our guy in particular, but with that twinkle that’s supposed to mean, it’s all in fun, I really like you. (No, I don’t get why this stuff lasts past early adolescence into adulthood either.)
The guy recognized that she was flirting clumsily, and she was pretty cute so he was putting up with it on the chance that she’d sleep with him later, but we could see his fuse starting to burn. Her little digs and snarky attitude were beginning to wear on all of us, but on him especially because she was favoring him with most of her attention.
Finally, he’d had enough. Apparently deciding that the upside of maybe getting into her pants wasn’t worth the downside of tolerating her crap, he snapped at her. Told her to shut the hell up, she didn’t know him, and he was sick of her shit.
She slapped him.
She hit him hard enough to leave a mark and rock his head, but not so hard that he would have a bruise later. Just: whack.
Then she giggled, glancing at her friends. They sort of smiled back at her. She obviously thought this was part of the cute-and-funny escalation of conflict that passed for flirting in her world. And she thought hitting the guy was a joke; she had that sparkle in the eye that said, what are you gonna do? I’m a woman, I get a free slap. You can’t hit me back, ha ha.
Which, after a couple of seconds, is exactly what he did. Hard. Not a backhand: an open slap across the face. WHACK.
Silence at the table. She stared at him in shock. Her eyes were bright, watering slightly from the sting.
He raised his eyebrows at her: That’s what you get.
From that point on, she was exceedingly well behaved, and an hour and a half later, she was in bed with him.
People are strange.