How do you recognise it?
Years ago, I used to talk to boys and men in the same manner as I talked to girls and women. I smiled, made jokes, talked about all kinds of topics.
Is that flirting?
Years later, I stopped talking to boys and men in the way I talk to girls and women. To males I then smiled less, made fewer jokes, talked less about anything.
Is that negative?
I got criticized for talking to boys and men, then when I talked less to them, I got criticized too.
What on earth is the proper behaviour then?!
In my family and our Pakistani friends, while I was growing up, it was never the same. Sometimes when certain people came to our house or we visited them, the females were in a separate corner or even a different room from the males. Then other times, when we had other people visiting us or us visiting them, it didn’t matter, males and females were together in the same room and everyone talked to everyone. It just depended on the situation.
But how to behave around non-Pakistanis? Sometimes they react negatively if I do talk to males, then they react negatively if I don’t talk to males. I don’t get it.
What I would really like to know is, what on earth is flirting? Is what I did flirting (talking, smiling, joking) ? That can’t be flirting. Or am I wrong, was that really the definition of flirting?
