Flirting --- a new pastime?
When the belief ‘variety is the source of life’ and worried in the realm of love, flirting was the result. Human mind always craves for new experiences; it delights in change and is always bored with known things and persons. It is strange that the charm of a thing vanishes as soon as we have possessed it.
One wonders if the two popular maxims, “it is better to marry than to burn” by St. Paul and “one must always be in love : that’s why one should not marry” by Oscar Wilde, inspired flirting. Of course, young people modified the word “ marry” into flirt. In fact, it came into being partly through dissatisfaction with the conventional pattern of living, and partly due to an increasing demand for freedom in every walk of life.
Now, “What’s wrong with flirting? Polygamy was respectable in the past; why then condemn our practice?” asks the twentieth century youths with their scientific bent of mind who have began to question all the traditional moral values. And anyone condemning it is suspected of sour grapes. Now, let us look at it without any bias or prejudice against it. What takes place is indeed universal: the beginning, when young man or girl falls in love is very sweet--- it is an exhilarating experience. At this moment, the young lovers are ready to leave the whole world for the sake of love. Then comes the middle stage of ‘dating’ which is meeting at a restaurant or a park at a fixed time. And thus intimacy grows. But before love ripens further both the lovers soon come to discover “This is not the kind of man (or woman) I longed for.’ Yet none expresses his dislike, and carries on a pretence of love. But inwardly there is always a search for the company of his choice. Soon the young man comes to realize that he has wasted considerable money on cinema, restaurant bills and gifts in vain. But he does not give up his hope. To get rid of bitterness of frustration, he tried his luck with others. And if one were blessed with the supernatural gift of omniscience, one would have been greatly amused to see how some young man or woman is talking about his or her first love to twenty lovers at different times.
What about the flirting of married couples? The man’s complaint is so universal. His life has been doomed by marrying so unworthy a woman. Only a magnimous person like him could tolerate her; any one else in his place would have divorced her. She is too immature to appreciate his genius; too sentimentally jealous to allow him to associate with other women. So he comes to the conclusion that all women are agreeable except his poor wife. And what does the unhappy wife say to her new lover (who is, perhaps, still new after being rejected by twenty women)? “He is a bully, and always preaches the gospel of fidelity to me. When sick, a very amiable lover; in health, a cunning escapist. He must have done some virtuous deeds, otherwise why can’t I leave him?”
Flirting is a reaction against the traditional ideal of faithfulness, devotion to a single person. The picture of uneventful, placid married life no more appeals to the modern youth. But, isn’t often what is outwardly pomous and thrilling, inwardly very empty, swallow, and soul-disturbing? Flirting destroys one’s self-respect as well as respect for the object of one’s love. Without this sense of respect no relationship can be happily enduring. Reciprocal respect is the essential condition in love. Exultation in youth, strife in married life and bitterness in old are – such is the lot of those who flirt. A faithful, old-fashioned lover may occasionally fell bored: a flirt, in the long becomes tried of life itself. And he sees one solution open to him: jumping out of the window.