My default theory, Teppy, is "when in doubt, assume clueless."

I may just have to punch him in the throat.

I may just have to punch him in the throat.

I'll come down and help. I think he loves the idea that you have a crush on him. It's an ego boost for him. And he thinks that by throwing you a bone by flirting, he's being a nice guy. Clueless booger. Mixed messages are a shitty thing to do to someone you've just shot down.

I had a gay friend who thought it was cool when straight women had crushes on him. He would flirt up a storm with these women and do other things to encourage the crushes.

My default theory, Teppy, is "when in doubt, assume clueless." There's just a lot of clueless out there. It's a variation on "Never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence."

Ginger is wise. I suspect that some combination of clueless and juliana's descriptive dance thing is closest, but tough to tell without meeting the doofus in question. As someone highly signal-oblivious myself (but hey, not -that- oblivious, I hasten to add), this would be my best guess.

Thanks, y'all. I can claim all I want that I know I'm swimming against the genre current, and that therefore it may take longer to get published, but it the long run being different and having a distinctive voice are Good Things, so that's fine with me. But when it comes down to it, what I want is for the world to Recognize My Genius, preferably in the form of a three-book contract, which I would've loved to have gotten for my first book, but am prepared to accept from any of my A-list publishers this January, as soon as the WIP is out the door.

Want it all! Want it now!

I had a gay friend who thought it was cool when straight women had crushes on him. He would flirt up a storm with these women and do other things to encourage the crushes.

Textbook case of asymptotic distribution of eigenvalues for damped string equations.

I have nothing against the idea of flirting as entertainment. OTOH, all parties need to be entertained and realize that it isn't going any further.

Flirting with someone that you had to let down just a couple days ago because she had hopes -- definitely of the not good.

I think juliana's hit it on the head, but Cash is right too, he should know better.

dead from the sexy

My work is done.

Is that always wrong? The ego stroke from being crushed on? Or is it because he's being so "My mouth is saying no, but my eyes are saying yes."