Don’t Freak, Just Flirt

Embrace Your Inner Flirt

Last week I caught up with a friend of mine for coffee. She’s a MILF, no doubt about it. Over coffee she recounted how she had been walking the dogs in the local reserve when she caught the eye of a younger and very attractive man. This man seemed keen to strike up a conversation and headed towards her. She froze. She freaked out and she bolted in the opposite direction. Why? Because she thought that the closer this man got to her, the sooner he would realize that she was “old”. And that thought terrified her the most. To flirt was simply not an option.

While walking me through her dilemma in some detail, I had a flash-back to being pregnant years ago and walking down our main road to the beach. Our suburb in Sydney is notorious for its beautiful people. A rather hot, topless, muscular young man was heading towards me in the opposite direction. For one brief moment I forgot I was 8 months pregnant and flashed a flirty smile at him. He was really young, he looked at my bump, he looked terrified, he blushed and he bolted. I was a pregnant predator – a new low.

But at least with this experience under my belt, I was able to empathise with my friend’s park-side predicament.

Last year, I was at a conference overseas and shared a taxi with three other colleagues. One of the colleagues was a male peer – same age, same background and a parent of 3 children, like me. The other two were Gen-Yers. One lady was recounting to the other that she had a boyfriend, who quite frankly, was a little dull and wasn’t lighting her fire, but “that’s to be expected because after 26 years old, you just don’t get those butterflies anymore when you meet somebody. So maybe I should just stick with him.”

Obviously, the first thought that jumped to my mind was , “The shit Gen-Yers Say.” My male colleague and I looked at each other smirking and then felt compelled to call out this Gen-Y rubbish for what it was.

We advised our younger colleague to dump her man and find someone else, stressing that the “electricity” and the “butterflies” are critical to attraction and most certainly do not stop at 26 years of age. And that people meet at all ages and find themselves drawn to each other at all ages. They weren’t buying it.

So the taxi ride ended with me despairing for the younger generation and wandering what other f@#*ed up theories Gen-Yers have about life.

But I digress….

Back to my friend and my piccolo latte.

I read an article recently about the French and the art of flirting. Flirting with the opposite sex is a critical cultural norm in French society, which enables men and women to feel playful, sexy and vital at any age. And it doesn’t need to progress to anything other than flirting. It is flirting for flirting’s sake. And I think that’s awesome.

Confidence comes from within. And while we women age and feel a bit crap about it, so do the men. And they lose their hair as well as everything else sagging around them. Aging is what we do. With it comes experience and better conversation. And props to all of us that continue to find the opposite (or same) sex attractive as we age. If we didn’t, our spark would be gone and we might as well pack up and leave the world.

Living 40 To The Max is about finding your Fun. So think like the French and embrace your inner flirt.