Deidream #54: FLIRT

Damsel give 'em stress. I got chronic Cinderella Syndrome.

Feb 14, 2026

UN APERITIVO

An author’s note

Welcome to the twentieth Deidream after last year’s #34: Lover, I’m Ready Now entry, and happy Valentine’s Day. I “fell in love” for the first time at twenty, so that’s a fun coincidence (?)

‘Tis the season of loooooveeeee~ so duh, each entry this month is locked in on that theme. Last year, I welcomed love seriously, spoke fondly of the performances that shaped my idea of “love,” and of the first time the emotion moved me to tears as a child. Last week, I published Rush Order as a fun stream-of-consciousness exercise when I started pondering what it means to fall in love in Times Like These. In 2025, I also published Emotional Cocaine after I realized I’d read more than one hundred love stories in the last five years.

I’ve done a lot of pining. Time for another side.

Consider this the older sister to one of my earliest entries from 2024, #11: In My H.O.E Phase.

“(REDACTED), WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?” HALL OF FAME

Something mad I said to my friends recently.

“I’m not a fuckboy (gendie neutral)……BUT……”

-(REDACTED), about to say some certified Fuckboy shit

MUSE BEHAVIOR

A song I’ve had on repeat lately

Checklist, take it off, what you got? (What you got?)
Pricey so you better have a lot (have a lot, yeah)
A time piece and it don't tik tok (yeah)
If you can't afford my time, then just watch (just watch)

Untouchable (ah), pretty too (ah)
Available (ah), but not for you (yeah)
Too sexy way too fly
You get none of my (gasp)

Been in rotation since it dropped and a staple of Aphrodite’s Daughter, but a recent addition to another playlist of mine I love called I’m a Slut, Get Me Lit. The title is a reference to the Pop Smoke lyric “I’m a thot, get me lit.”

(RIP, I can’t believe we lost a budding hometown hero like that. )

If I had to describe the energy, it’s a mix of songs that make you wanna make out with someone fine whose name you don’t know, songs you’d give your on-and-off again lover a lap dance to, songs you’d give a dub to at a sweaty basement party, and songs that you’d play if you couldn’t be bothered to settle down and were filling your roster with baddies.

Here are some other favorite tracks.

THE MAIN COURSE

Why I’m here. What I’m mulling over.

Am I a flirty tease, or am I just happy being hot and unavailable?

Yes.

In the midst of my past musings on my attraction to men and increasingly complicated relationship with said attraction and their attraction to me12, I realized it wasn’t all bad.

I also realized I have a habit of acting helpless for fun.

I enjoy people’s reactions to my switch-up, and I weaponize the hell out of it when I flirt, if I’m being honest.

Not because I’m scared to be smart or competent aloud, but because you can learn a lot from the way people react to your ignorance or weakness, perceived or actual. I consider this a personality litmus test for how they may react to my actual brilliance once we get deeper into conversation and connection.

Men (positive) especially.

I’ve clocked many a hidden face and exposed many an agenda by paying close attention to how a man handles the switch from ‘semi-pouty, hair flip, giggles’ me to ‘I am grown, you cannot tell me what to do, handle with care’ me within the same interaction.

I’ve also reveled in the sway I achieve when I know an earnest man is trying to impress me or figure me out.

It’s cuuuuuute how hard they try.

It’s the fake-frustrated “oof, I don’t think I know how to open this beer” that had three of them reaching to help me at a house party a few years back. It’s the way their brows shot up when I chugged one faster than my opponent in a drinking game and opened my next beer with perfect ease. The guy who smiled and offered to open my third one for me anyway got my number that night.

Nothing ever came of it, but it was fun.

It’s the breathy and curious “Ooooh, woooow~. I’ve never heard of that place.” that makes the guy on the other end of the line with a great voice for customer service forget he’s supposed to be helping me with my home internet and launch into an explanation of how the place on question is the best place to snowboard but he left because his heart took him to baseball instead. It’s my unashamed “Ooooh, a man of culture and adventure, I see. How sporty.” It’s the bashful “You’ve made my day” and the way he thanked me for being his favorite call of the morning.

Nothing will ever come of it, but it was fun.

It’s the fake-confused furrowed brow and chewed lip before I lose the chess game we’re playing, and the satisfied way the stranger across from me sits back before saying, “We’ll have a chessboard at our wedding because this is how we met,” and the mischevous tilt of my head before I reply “Oh? Will we?” and breeze out of the coffee shop, never to be seen by him again.

Nothing ever comes of it, but it’s fun.

It’s the “Oh, oops. My laces!” that had a friend of a former friend on his knees in the middle of a dirty New York City sidewalk to tie my shoes while looking straight up at me. “Text me when you’re in my city.” Same friend of a former friend I had an all-night adventure with in NOLA, ending with us sweaty and leaving a jazz club to go straight to a strip club. I out-tipped him, dollar bills passing between us girls like a secret. I made sustained eye contact with him during one of my reward lap dances, just because. We never hung out again — after all, I haven’t been back to NOLA.

Nothing ever comes of it, but it was fun.

It’s the “Mmmm I’ve never been to a dive bar. Are they scary? You’ll watch out for me, right?” that had the man I just met at a comedy show grabbing my hand and leading me to the grungiest dive he could think of as an impromptu first date. It’s us screaming karaoke with other freaks and weirdos. It’s me, grabbing the mic and destroying the place so thoroughly that I stood on stage and had people chanting my name. It’s the salacious wink and finger guns I give to my date, who mimed falling over and later implied he might just believe in love at first sight.

Didn’t work out with him.

Nothing ever comes of it, but it was fun.

It’s the “I do also like girls” and shy touch to the small of my back in the middle of a crowded warehouse in Hell’s Kitchen from a man I had tried to wingwoman into the arms of my best friend. I’d been working SO hard to get this newbie to give my friend his number, too. It was his first weekend in the city, and he had no idea where the gayest parties were. Aware of our power as a duo in only the way childhood friends could be, we’d tag-teamed him by promising him a night that felt like a movie. During a particularly close dance where he was trapped between the two of us, I remember whispering in his ear, “[NAME] is super sweet. He might look intimidating, but he doesn’t bite. I do, though.” To which this adorable little thing, whom I thought was gay, revealed he’d had his eye on me instead while his hands roamed places I thought were foreign to him. His face was at neck level, so I let him give me a hickey and leaned down to give him one too.

(“We match, now. Something to remember me by.”)

We followed each other on Instagram for a while before I forgot his name.

Nothing ever comes of it, but it was fun.

(Know you like the way

I’m lookin’ in this dress.

I can be ya princess, boy

A damsel give ‘em stress.)

It’s the lingering hug I gave to a man I once knew as a teenage boy. It’s the grunt as he releases me to give me a once-over since we hadn’t seen each other in at least five years. It’s the smile he gives me when he says, in front of my old sweetheart, “Damn, girl. I knew I shoulda got at you in high school.” and the way he gasped when I said, “Be nice to me tonight and it’s not too late if we’re ever in town again at the same time.” knowing full well we’d likely never be because he was returning to the military.

Nothing ever comes of it, but it was fun.

It’s the “It’s my first time with this liquor. Do you think you can show me how to take it?” that slips out when someone offers to buy me a drink.

It’s the “I’m more shy than I appear, don’t make me blush,” when a man asks to paint me and leaves me with his info and a kiss to the hand. I currently use his card as a bookmark.

It’s the accidental eye contact made with a stranger when I sang the words,

(“Aphrodite told me a secret,

she said you can keep it.”)

at an open mic.

It’s the way he swallowed with visible nerves when he complimented my voice afterward, and I “shyly” asked, “You really like it? Thanks.” before going home perfectly alone.

Part of the rub fueling my longing for love, beyond my desire to finally find my Person, is that I don’t actually feel like looking.

I’d rather….attract.

And honestly, I love being deeply unserious about my attraction. I’m a flirt. I love changing the entire trajectory of someone’s night and disappearing like I was a dream the whole time. Especially since….

deep breath

I’m not actually that into the people I flirt so heavily with….which is why I flirt with them so well.

(((((DID I LIVE LONG ENOUGH TO BECOME A FUCK BOY INSTEAD OF DYING A HERO???))))

Simply put, I’m a “likes to play with her food” kinda gal, I guess?

And I’d stop… if it wasn’t

So.

Much.

Fun.

I know my soulmate will probably see right through my charade, though.

Because if my pull, if my lure, my siren song is undeniable even in my most unserious of encounters, flings, and temporary loves,

Imagine the pull when I fall in Love forreal.

Onward.

TOUCHING GRASS + THE CAMERA GOES ‘POP, POP, POP, POP, POP, POP’

A nature hobby that keeps me grounded + A cool picture I took or a photo that moved me.

Here are a couple of lovely things I got myself as a gift this month~

Last year, I bought these glasses. They arrived on Vday 2025, and before I put them on, I said, “May love lead my sight. May the future come to me swiftly.” AND DIDDDDDD.

Had some growing pains with my garden that made me cry A LOT, but fuck it, we ballllllll. Got to work anyway, and am celebrating my 1st anniversary. A year ago this week, still navigating the FREEZING COLD, volunteering in this garden made me fall in love with my community all over again and started me on a breakneck path to dedicating myself to land stewardship.

I am not so much touching grass right now as I’m touching snow, and I dug out our garden a few weekends ago. It was my first time really shoveling snow, and I was INCENSED because I was alone and tired.

I really thought about giving up on it…

(Through my studies, I have learned that gardening is not easy, and this was a season of growing pains. Still, the promise of bloom in the spring and summer keeps me going.)

…until my neighbors thanked me so sweetly. That’s what it’s all about, babyyyyyy. I also had my first shift working at the botanical garden as a volunteer gardener, and it was sooooo fun.

Love in every seed planted, care in every relationship built, and stewardship even when it gets hard. The great news is that I’m buildin’ this tough urban farmer’s body one shoveled sidewalk at a time. I once told someone that, beyond needing to release my aggression, I started boxing (and am returning to dance more seriously) because I realized I wasn’t strong enough to garden, and they laughed, but I was serious.

(DIGRESSION: Why do people think I’m kidding when I be deadass…do you know how strong you have to be to garden? A couple hours doing that work and I promise you, you’ll be laid out a whole day after.)

Having the strength not only to shovel snow but also to break through pounds of ice was only possible because I’ve been training to do more eco-stewardship that involves manual labor.

Stronger and stronger still.

NERD (AFFECTIONATE)

Whatever nerdy shit I’m into lately.

Classes have been going well, and I’m in the full swing of my winter/spring semester.

I’ve been thinking about rereading the Odyssey this summer because I happened to be thinking about Penelope3 last week. In the story, she fends off more than 100 suitors because she wanted to be faithful to her hubby who was a real Nobody (HARR HARR HARR).

Penelope and the Suitors, John William Waterhouse (1849–1917) via Aberdeen Archives, Gallery & Museums. I think it’s time for me to admit that Waterhouse is in my Top 10. Look at the way the suitors are painted, I’m cracking up. The way the women look is also KILLING ME.

Something something, metaphor for fidelity written by a man….that’s cute and all but I’m gagged mostly by the fact she pretended to be weaving a burial shroud for twenty years and told them she’d pick another husband when she was done. Whole time, she was undoing it at night.

AND THEY STILL WAITED? AND COMPETED WITH MORE THAN A HUNDRED OTHER MEN? AND YOU BELIEVED HER FOR TWENTY YEARS?

What kind of legendary fine shyt was she???

I love the girlies who are clever and fine and fine and clever ykwim?

Also been thinking about Scheherazade of 1,001 Nights4 where she purposefully marries a violent king who became a woman-murdering tyrant. Each night, she tells a story so good that it leaves him desperate for more, and eventually, the king stops tripping out because she’s so smart and pretty. Like…she said “I can outsmart him and fix him” AND DIDDDD AHAHAHA.

Scheherazade, 19th-century painting by Sophie Anderson via Wikipedia

Like, ladies, is it problematic to be so fine you can trick men you don’t want into leaving you alone and/or being better people with the power of your words and denial?

Maybe.

Anyway, put these classics back on my TBR.

PERFECT STRANGER

A love letter to someone I’ll never see again.

via the Mayor’s Office of Climate & Environmental Justice

To the Man Who Held Open the Train Doors That One Time in 2019,

I love you, Perfect Stranger. Your gentle “I got you” when I made it, made me weak(er) in the knees than I already was.

For the first time in a long time, I actually cared enough to think, “I hope I didn’t look a damn fool in front of this guy. Oh my GOD.” It had been so long since I felt that feeling that I nearly laughed aloud in surprise.

I’d been shattered, you see. You were the first guy to catch my eye in a long while.

And you had the nerve to smell good, too. I can’t with you. Whoever put that white gold band on your left hand must have been a saint in their past life. I saw it when you hit the little wave you gave me as you walked onto the platform at your stop. That wave gave me heart palpitations, unrelated to the fact that I had literally leapt into the train after running up those steps.

Good for them. Good for you.

With someone so pretty and casually thoughtful at their side, I know life must be a hoot.

I think of you sometimes when I hold the door for someone else.

I love you, Perfect Stranger.