You're Such a Flirt

In the last five years, I've become a bit more closed off. I don't smile, I awkwardly grin at someone for a second as I keep moving past them. I'm always keeping aware of how I speak to someone.

"Hi!" "Hi."

"Hello, how are you?!" "Hello, how are you?."

"Oh god, I hope they don't think I'm flirting." I worry inside my head.

I was a cute kid, that's not ego, it's something I was told constantly. I was always very polite, friendly and shy when I met new people, or if I was interacting with people who were working. Thing is, sometimes my friendliness would be confused with flirting. When you are a child, having that elementary "oh my god You LikE HiM!" moment, you cannot help but laugh in embarrassment, especially when the [grown man] you were just speaking to is still standing 3 feet from you. I was around 10-12.

I laughed in that moment, but I was not laughing in the same way you would as if your friend was calling out that you had a crush. I was laughing because I didn't know how to react in that moment. I laughed, but it was not the first, nor the last time, it would happen. It made me question myself. At some point, I myself would mistake my friendliness as flirting. I would confuse myself, I would start overthinking every interaction I had with people.

Is my aunt right? Am I a flirt? I thought I was just being nice.

I think this person is cute. Do They know I was flirting? Was I even flirting? How do I even flirt?

Am I laughing too much? Am I smiling too much? Stop smiling.

I would almost always get friend zoned by my crushes, get hit on by people I only thought of as a friend. I would always be accused of cheating, mostly because of my sexuality, but also because I always came off as "flirty". I became terrified that I was leading someone on, I let partners isolate me friend our group of friends because I was "flirting with all of them". How do I know if I'm flirting?

I was a child, I didn't know how to make friends. People my age hated me, People who were older thought I was precious. People my age thought I was weird, I didn't know how to interact with people my age. Everyone in my life was much older, or a lot younger. I was born at a weird time. I could barely make friends, I was stuck around adults, I was treated as a child while in the same breath being told to grow up. I couldn't be nice, but I had to polite.

I'm 24 now, I have my real life and online friend groups, I don't need anyone else. They're my family, why should I try to meet new people? In the last year I had made friends, three guys, they fell for my. I told them, day one, that I'm not looking for a partner. One guy wanted to marry in a year, the other accused me of cheating, and the third got upset because I was having issues with other guys on my snapchat and he "wanted me all to himself". I'm done trying. I'll keep my groups, everyone else can leave me be. I want to live my life. I want keep the light in a dark room, but people just want to make that light red.

People have become confused about what is polite and what is attraction. That confusion is damaging to developing minds, because it took me a decade to learn about the subtle sexualization that I spent most of my life being exposed to. It's still happening today, as well. If I show any bit of interest in someone, they're "my boyfriend" or "my girlfriend". I've learned to ignore it for the most part, but it still gets annoying to hear it.

Little girls, and little boys, let them be kids. Let them be nice without confusing their kindness with something they're too young and innocent to understand. I didn't know what flirting was, I only knew that I was being nice. Let kids' be kids.