Flirting

I am the first person to admit that I am a horrible flirt. And I mean that I am bad at it. I don't know how to do it. I can't always tell if someone is doing it with me, I don't know how to respond to it, and I can't tell if they're flirting with/without intent. I also get scared that flirting will lead me down a path with someone that I am not comfortable going.

I decided that I better educate myself in the art of flirting. The weird thing is, I didn't go about it in the way I normally learn how to do a thing. Normally, I go out and buy a book and study everything I can about a subject. And to be honest, I have perused through the self-help aisle in the bookstore and glanced through a few "Flirting for Dummies"-type books. They all seemed a little contrived to me.

So, how did I educate myself, you ask? Well, I just went out there and took advantage of some flirting opportunities and just went with them!

The first one started with a running friend of mine. We had been e-mailing about some stuff and next thing I knew, there was this full-on flirting happening. And the flirting continued when we saw each other in person, which was a big new step for me. Usually, I would cower when confronted with real live flirting, but for some reason this time I just allowed myself to go with it. Now, I don't think this flirting will lead to anything because I'm not particularly attracted to this guy and I don't think we'd really be compatible, but the flirtatious exchange is a lot of fun and good practice.

The next one kind of came out of the blue. There's always been a lot of innocent banter on the running discussion board I am on. I think I wrote about the flirting that started with one of the guys in a recent entry. Well, things have kind of escaled from there because now we've taken our communication off-line and are bantering back and forth quite a bit during the day. The funny thing is, he works right across the street from me so we were even joking about being able to wave to each other from our windows. We're actually going to see each other at a group meeting on Saturday night, so it will be interesting to see how things pan out in person. It's easy to flirt from behind the relative safety (and anonimity) of your keyboard, but a whole other thing to do it in person. He said he'd be late getting there, so I'll be nice and relaxed after having had a few beverages (but not too many!).

Anyway, I'm not looking at either of these things as anything more than some innocent flirting and giving me some practice in a much needed skill.

The other by-product of this flirting has been an increase in confidence. I've actually had a lot of feedback lately from people (both male and female) who have noticed it. In fact, I've even noticed it. I'm not 100% sure where it's coming from, but I'll take it!

I think part of it came when I finally got to a point where I was able to release some of my hangups about my weight and how my body looks. It was almost like magic that as soon as I did that, that the burden I was previously carrying was replaced by confidence. I fully admitted/disclosed my weight. I ran around in my bathing suit. I stopped making apologies for my size. And in return, I really started to like and appreciate the person I've worked so hard to become.

People always say that the biggest turn on is self-confidence. I'm going to keep trying to put that one to the test.

***

On the exercise front, I am totally bagged. Rule #1 of training: don't do hard workouts on back-to-back days. The quality of both workouts suffers and you just end up tired and prone to injury and sickness. In fact, I started to feel a bit of a scratchiness in my throat this afternoon. I bought some zinc lozenges at the drug store, so hopefully that will help to nip this in the bud.

Last night's workout was a 2x10-min tempo run. We did a 2.75K warm up (17:07), followed by some drills/strides. We then did a 5-min out-and-back, where we had to run at 85% effort for five minutes, then turn around and run back at the same level of effort (thereby being 10 minutes in total). The goal was to get back to where you started, which would indicate an equal pace for the return lap. We then got 2 minutes rest before doing it all over again. I managed to get to the same turnaround point the second time around, which meant that I was able to hold my pace on the second set. I think I covered about 950m on the way out and another 950m on the way back (twice). So, including the warm-up and cool down run, I ran a total of about 9.4K.

I had planned to ride my bike tonight because I took Monday as a rest day, but I am just so bagged from my last two days' workouts that I'm taking the night off. I'm going to swim after work with CL tomorrow.

I have an appointment with my AT at 7AM tomorrow, which will be good. Hmmm, I better go shave my legs! Ha ha.