You're Such a Flirt! (not that there's anything wrong with that!)

I was reviewing several AZ-based press releases that had been posted online. This one caught my eye.

The Audacity of Flirt – A Message of Change and Hope
You can feel it in the air. A sense that things could be better, much better. Your
pulse is pounding; your senses tingle with anticipation – you are hopeful and
ready for change. No, you’re not watching a presidential debate – it’s
Springtime!

Hope springs eternal in the human heart, but many of us wouldn’t
recognize a budding romance if it winked from across the room. Flirting
expert and hopeful romantic, Joann Cohen, wants to change that. Enrollment
is underway for her introductory class, “Charming School–What They Didn’t Teach
You.” Don’t miss another Spring fling because you winked when you should
have fluttered, talked when you should have listened, pouted when you should
have puckered, or worse – you did nothing.

Sure, the strong silent types always won the girl in Hollywood’s
romantic vision. And shy and demure may have worked in Jane Austen’s
lifetime. But, if you’ve been employing those techniques, or others, to no
avail, Joann has a message for you: have the audacity to flirt! Make
that move, but be subtle. Better still: recognize when someone is
flirting with you! After attending Joann’s one-hour session, you will
learn:

• How to Flirt for Success
• Identifying Your Not-So-Secret Admirers
• Who Is Most Likely to Welcome Your Attention
• Flirt or Potential Stalker? Don’t Make Them Guess
• Innocent Flirting to Innocent Dating, and then…

Besides being a "flirting expert," the woman who is leading this workshop claims to be "an accomplished life coach with a Masters degree in Human Relations and Counseling and advanced study at the International Coach Academy."

So just to be clear. . . this is a workshop on how to flirt, how to be a better flirt (so as to not be mistaken for a stalker!) and how to win friends and influence people by flirting (flirting for success).

I find it a sad commentary on our society when:

1. People have to be given instruction in how to flirt. Seems most of us were pretty good at it in our school days. And if the other party wasn't interested, he/she said so. There was no confusion.
2. Flirting is considered a means of getting ahead—"flirting for success." Whatever happened to work hard, put in your time, and pay your dues? Women—and men—using sex (or sexual innuendo) to get ahead at work. . . sounds like Hollywood's notorious "casting couches" of days gone by (hopefully). And how long before someone screams "sexual harassment"?
3. People have to be given instruction in how to recognize "not so secret admirers." If they're "not so secret", just how dumb do you have to be to not recognize his/her advances?

I suspect this is another indicator of a "hook-up world," where sex is totally disconnected from love, where wide-open unadulterated hedonism rules the day, and where I flirt with you tonight, and your sister tomorrow, and maybe your mother the next night.

Does the Biblical injunction against adultery extend to flirting? Is flirting—with someone other than your spouse—clearly forbidden? Or do we sometimes frown on it because of where it might—intentionally—lead?

Let the conversation continue.