How about a story with that HNT?

Up a tree

"What's your game, mister?" my friend asked.
"My game...?"
"Yeah, does your wife know you're reading Cece's blog?"
"My...? What!?"
She pounces on me: "Does your wife know you're cheating?"
"I'm doing what!? How is that cheating? Cece doesn't have a clue who I am!" Sheesh! I'm never telling this one about Blonde's blog! "...and she's married, besides!"
"So?"
"I'm... Uh..." Clearly, this conversation is off in some place that I have no footing for. Like earlier, when I apologized to a guy in the parking lot for being momentarily in his way, and he assumed I was asking for a beating. He waited for me and tried to call me out. What is it with people?
"And what about L? Is flirting with her ok? Do you think she's attractive?" she asked.
"Well, sure, but... Hey, I'm not going to act on it, if that's what you mean."
"Not really, but what's stopping you?"
!!!
"I have boundaries that I choose to live within. My reptillian brain absolutely finds smart strong beautiful sex-charged women attractive, and that's real. But it's what I choose to do about it that makes me who I am."
"That's not really what I mean," my friend asks. "Is it safe to flirt with her? How do you stay safe? Is she attracted to you?"
"I... uh... yeah, wow. I don't know that she is. How could she be? She's so amazing, why would she be attracted to me?"
"There!" said my friend, a big triumphant glow on her face. "That's what I mean. So, do you get that you could be attractive to someone like her?"
I skipped a beat. "No. I don't. Huh." I noticed a crack in the armor around my heart. I said, "As long as I pretend she couldn't possibly be attracted to me, then I am safe. But when she... I can see now it's possible she really does find me attractive." I start to wonder what's wrong with her--
"Stop right there, mister, don't think that next thought!" Too late, but I did suspend that cycle. My friend says some more things, but I'd already gotten lost inside my head and begun to think about how I might not only be alluring, but also lovable. What have I been protecting my heart from? Who have I been protecting my heart from? Has my wife been married to me all these years out of... I don't know, pity? Do I think she "settled" for me? If I am truly attractive, do I have the power to be truly faithful to my wife?

Later I have a different conversation that goes to the same place with the question, What am I really flirting with? I discover that I'm really flirting with joy. Do I get it that Love is coming at me from all around? Is the long-term apathy I feel, the result of not letting this Love in?

So I'm on the lookout for any and all Love signals God sends me through the Universe: smiles, free sunglasses, random props and people who have the courage to ask me pointy questions. Or flirt wholesomely.