Flirting in Literature

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

On Flirting: a Facilitated Discussion in Chicago, July, 1989 

While cleaning up recently, I opened a boxful of mementos from the '80s and early-'90s, which I hadn't seen since boxing them up for our move to New Jersey from Illinois in 1996, including:

When I was 22-23 and volunteering as a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) youth group advisor in Chicago, I curated a series of literature-snippets. I accompanied each of them with a question or two, and made handouts that read, "On Flirting. Consider the following excerpts and questions and bring your thoughts to this Saturday's discussion."

My first real girlfriend and I broke up the prior spring and I had no idea how to flirt with women. I created the discussion guide to help myself. Growing up, I didn't feel free to flirt, especially not with girls. Perhaps some of the youth also felt unfree, I thought, and what a gift, via this discussion guide, to plant the seed that same-sex flirting with one another was OK:

The first excerpt was from "You're Ugly, Too" by Lorrie Moore, "The New Yorker," July 3, 1989:

Often, when she spoke to men at parties, she rushed things in her mind. As the man politely blathered on, she would fall in love, marry, then find herself in a bitter custody battle with him for the kids and hoping for a reconciliation, so that despite all his betrayals she might no longer despise him, and, in the few minutes remaining, learn, perhaps, what his last name was and what he did for a living, though probably there was already too much history between them. She would nod, blush, turn away.

And then...

Q: Have you ever planned too much, too quickly with someone you've just met?

The second snippet was from *Miss Manners' Complete Guide to Excurciatingly Correct Behavior* by Judith Martin, specifically the chapter, "Courtship (for Participants, Their Friends and Relations)." She wrote of how flirtation done properly was "an end, not a means."

And then...

Q: Have you ever had fun, flirting just for its own sake without it leading to a deeper involvement?

The third bit was from *Jitterbug Perfume* by Tom Robbins, a section, where Ricki hits on Priscilla and is rebuffed.

And then...

Q: Have you ever flirted with someone who was straight or equivalently unavailable?
Q: Ever tried to turn a flirtation into something more? What were the results?

The fourth excerpt was from *Lesbian Passion: Loving Ourselves and Each Other* by JoAnn Loulan, including, "Sometimes just setting rules takes the pressure off."

And then...

Q: Can you cut off a flirtation if it causes you more pain than pleasure? 

The fifth quote was from *The Lost Language of Cranes* by David Leavitt, where two friends consider becoming a couple.


And then...

Q: Have you ever flirted with a friend?
Q: How did you resolve this flirtation?

The sixth bit was from "The Village Voice" by Vince Aletti on June 27, 1989, where he reviewed a book of Bruce Weber's photography, including, "What makes beefcake so compelling now is its nostalgia for innocence."


And then...

Q: Do you prefer seeing explicit or suggestive images? [How about language?] 

The seventh excerpt was from *Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit* by Jeanette Winterson, including:

Poor Melanie, she didn't understand any of them, she just knew she needed Jesus....I went round to Mealnie's and we read the Bible together...and I was delighted. She was my friend, and I wasn't used to that....I talked about her all the time at home, and my mother never responded.

And then...

Q: Have you and another ever shared a passionate pursuit as a substitute for a romance between you two?

The eighth snippet was from *Hey, Dollface* by Deborah Hautzig. It was a Young Adult novel, where two high school girls fall in love, but in the particular scene, they're talking on the phone about a date one of them had with a boy.

And then...

Q: Have you ever tested a romantic prospect by detailing an exciting experience you had with someone else to that person? 

The ninth quote was from "The Rug of Identity" by Jill W. Fleming in *Lesbian Plays,* selected & introduced by Jill Davis. A lesbian couple is trying to rekindle their spark.



And then...

Q: If you've ever been or are now part of a couple, how do you sustain the fliration between you? 

The tenth excerpt was from "The Man in the Brooks Brothers Shirt" in *The Company She Keeps* by Mary McCarthy. It included an exchange between a man and a woman, where the woman is unimpressed initially until the man is familiar with the author of the book she's reading.

And then...

Q: What makes you not want to flirt back?
Q: Initially turned off, what can persuade you to become engaged in a flirtation?

The eleventh snippet was from *The Mind-Body Problem* by Rebecca Goldstein, where a woman and a man begin flirting with each other's intellect, agreeing that mathemeticians are aestheticians.

The twelfth and final bit was from *Self-Help* by Lorrie Moore, with a funny exchange between a man and woman who just met, where the woman is reading *Madame Bovary* in a Doris Day book jacket.

And then...

Q: Which style(s) of flirting do you most enjoy, e.g., eye-contact, intellectual, humorous... 

I wonder what became of those LGBTQ youth in Chicago. Today, they would be ages 44-51. Hope that those who wanted to learn to flirt did and found the loves of their lives eventually, like I did. 

In a State of Anticipation

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

Anticipation and Agitation

Ever since graduating, I have been reading whatever I want, including Billy Collins' poetry, the rest of *Carry the One* by Carol Anshaw, the science fiction issue of "The New Yorker" even though I'm not historically a big sci-fi fan, and now, a few Dara Horn novels from the library at my sister Deb's recommendation. Otherwise, though, I'm agitated by the bonus time I have. Just writing about it decreases the agitation a bit, though, so I'll keep going.

It's like I'm uncomfortable with sitting still till I figure out how to spend the time. An IBM mentor said, "You could spend more time with Pat, you could become a volunteer...." Another friend to whom I bemoaned my less-than-routine exercise regimen over the past several months said, "Now, you'll have more time for exercise."

I have been trying to spend more time with Pat, though I'm finding that I keep feeling compelled to do more in the work realm to fill the gap, like last night: We were going to eat out and I was doing LGBT Community stuff for IBM past 6 pm on a Friday. And I didn't even realize Pat was waiting for us to head to dinner.

As far as volunteering, do I work with LGBT youth? Do I do something with animals? Do I become a docent?

Certainly, I have more time to blog now. Do I start vlogging (video-blogging)? This might be among my more tedious posts, but it's actually helping me to splay my anxieties here. If I have time back, I need to be using it well. What if I just get swept up into the mindless part of Facebook? What if I use social media as a tranquilizer, rather than as a way to feel more connected to humanity? What if I just become average again? When I was in school, I was special because I was heroic -- working full-time while studying part-time. How virtuous. Now, I'm just another person, going to and coming from work.

I want to be special always. I want not to pressure myself so much. Why can't I just relax? The classic observation that therapists and all of my close friends have made is: "You're very hard on yourself." I want to be more at peace. After all, I'm far from how I was in my early-20s: daydreaming with a spoon of ice cream in my hand, then mouth, then hand, then mouth, telling myself, Any day, I'm going to start writing. And it'll be published and loved by millions, and I'll be famous. A childhood friend remarked recently that she just assumed she'd be famous and it hasn't happened yet. Me neither. Still, since my 30s, I have written and then blogged routinely, have had a creative job, and since my mid-20s, no longer numbed myself with sugar, so that's huge. Who am I trying to convince? Myself.

More to Anticipate Anxiously

The other thing that's happening is I'm feeling agitated about Pat's and my upcoming trip to Israel, which Pat is giving me as a graduation present. I want so badly for her to love it like I do. I find Israel to be an addictive place. I need to go back there at least every decade, now that I can afford to. This is Pat's first trip and I wish I could wipe away her worries about terrorism. She's coming with me to Israel with the same attitude I had about going with her to Alaska: I knew she wanted to go, so I went. Last night, Pat said, "But you liked the glaciers and the whales." She realized that those were the high-points for me. I also liked swimming in a community pool in Juneau and reading on the ship. And the ship's naturalist, who looked and sounded vaguely like Alfred Hitchcock and who gave great lectures.

I keep saying, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised, and I hope she is. In addition to wanting to control Pat's reaction to a whole country, I'm feeling anxious about seeing family while we're there. Pat & I have been together for just about 20 years and yet these relatives, other than my first cousin Maishe, who's been here for a Bar Mitzvah, have never met her.

Israel can be fraught with danger for me, too, though different from the danger that worries Pat -- the danger of flashbacks to my early, tortured romantic reaches, all of which were ultimately thwarted there: a lovely Israeli girl at 15; at 20: a Costa-Rican guy on his way to Jewish conversion; a Jewish-American guy, who also went to the University of Michigan; a Jewish-Australian guy with Israeli parents; a French woman, who was also deeply closeted then, and who was also on her way to Jewish conversion; a tall, handsome Orthodox-Jewish-American guy for whom I wore a modest skirt on our one date; two Jewish-American women I met through my program, a couple of months apart; and a wonderful Israeli childhood friend who became a gorgeous, rugged-looking, gracious-acting man -- the ultimate clue that I could not be attracted to men sufficiently to make a life with one.

If I catalog all of this Israel-based romantic fumbling, maybe I'll feel less haunted by it. Instead of feeling celebratory about this trip, I'm feeling overwhelmed at the prospect of being in Israel for the first time with someone who loves me back and with whom I've been in a healthy, 20-year relationship. In all of those cases of misbegotten cupidity, the people loved Israel, but didn't love me. Finally, I'm with someone who loves me, but who does not necessarily love Israel. It's not that she dislikes Israel, it's just that she isn't drawn to it -- kind of like how the objects of my affection in Israel ultimately felt about me. I have to go meet some friends shortly, by 9:30, so I wonder if I will want to write more later, or if I've already said more than enough....

Best Wishes for Welcoming New IBMers

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

Later today, I will speak with up to 100 IBMers, who are volunteering to help new IBMers feel more welcome, faster at IBM India. Here's what I will say, and I'm confident that none of them will see this entry prior to the meeting:

The inviting danglers commanded my attention when they began hanging from the ceiling several days ago: My head kept bumping into them; I’m sitting, and so you might not know that I’m really tall.

By the time Sapna and I agreed that I would be able to join you today, nearly 100 new GrassRoots members had joined the community, and so you don’t need tips on community building from me. Instead, thinking back to what would have helped me when I joined IBM, I’ll ask you to consider my top five best wishes for welcoming new IBMers, and then I’ll offer tips on sustaining a community.

Before I jump into the wishes, I need to say how lovely it is to be invited to meet and encourage you in your essential and friendly mission! Thank you for your leadership in volunteering to help new IBMers feel at home and productive more quickly.

Now, I’ll contrast your marvelous mission with my experience when I joined IBM in New York City in 1996:

At our Midtown location, 590 Madison Avenue, I took the elevator to the 5th floor, where a security person photographed me...unflatteringly. And then a kind woman said, “Welcome,” and handed me a binder, and said that I would find everything I needed to know inside it.

Guess what the binder contained? An eight-minute welcome video by our CEO at the time, Lou Gerstner, and, according to the introduction of the thick content inside, 40 hours of instructions on getting my Lotus Notes ID and other basic processes…none of which I read. Instead, I relied on the kindness of my new peers, who had gone through the same thing, in many cases, just a number of months prior to me.

A decade later, while I was setting up the LEADing@IBM booth at 590 Madison’s fast_forward event, the woman who gave me my welcome-binder greeted me; she was still part of HR, though no longer had that job, and she remembered having welcomed me on my first day. I’d like to tell you that it was a warm reunion.

That would be untrue, though. I didn’t remember her at all. I was flattered and amazed that she would have remembered me and so I quickly rose to the occasion, but the reality was that she had not made a huge impression on me, as her welcoming role had been so narrowly defined – unlike IBM India’s ingenious Royal Blue Ambassador and Connections Advisor programs. She was just someone who handed me a big package full of boring reading material….The video, of course, was decent, but….

I’m telling you this story because you are poised to mean so much more to the new IBMers than that woman was able to signify for me. Remember the part of the story, where I said that the people who helped me most were my colleagues, my peers – the ones who had learned how to navigate IBM just months and even sometimes just weeks before I had. And I was also lucky to have peers who had been with IBM for many years, who helped me succeed, too.

Whatever tenure you’ve had at IBM, you’re doing a mitzvah in helping new IBMers feel part of, rather than apart from, the amazing organization that is IBM. Who knows what “doing a mitzvah” means?

[If no one:] I’ll teach you now, as I offer my top five best wishes:

My Top Five Best Wishes for Welcoming New IBMers

As GrassRoots Community members, I wish you would:

1. Help new IBMers understand the beauty in being part of a globally-integrated enterprise:
• IBM does business in 164 countries and cultures (In my culture, which is Jewish in addition to American “mitzvah” means “good deed”)
• You will work with, and lead, people from all over the world
2. Share what makes you proud to be an IBMer
3. Be an agent for helping new IBMers explain how their role aligns with the IBM global strategy; encourage discussion with their manager (IBM strategy, at internal URL)
4. Show new IBMers that IBM is the best place to be from a:
• Leadership development standpoint
(internal URL)
• Professional development perspective (internal URL)
5. Encourage new IBMers to join or start a diversity network group:
• Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender (GLBT) (in process; contact me directly for further information, at...)
• People with Disabilities (PwD) (internal URL)
• Women’s (internal URL)
• Guidelines for starting a diversity network group (DNG) (internal URL)

Perhaps you’ve already thought of all of these tips and so maybe I can offer another five tips on how to sustain a community. As I said upfront, I see you’re already successful at building a community.

My Top Five Tips for Sustaining a Community

1. Be needed; keep your sense of purpose and mission thriving
2. Go global; find or help launch counterparts beyond India
3. Turn it into a leadership incubator, and make new leaders
4. Sponsor summits and speaker series, whether F2F or online
5. Stay active on the Wiki (internal URL), trading best practices and having fun.