You'd love this show man
Recently becoming unexpectedly single I've had to think a bit more than usual about how I look and carry myself, maybe that's a bad thing and shows some things about the way I think about how I look and why I do things, but that's not my point. My point is I realised how much I overthink the meaning of each detail of how I look and come off to people.
I would tell friends how one way I'd flirt with a customer at work is to give them advice on how to use loyalty cards to do very low level embezzlement when they get expensed drinks for their office - pretty sexy right. My thinking which I would methodically explain to friends making a face perfectly between confusion and boredom was that when I would give this advice I was letting this customer in to a secret that we were keeping from their bosses, I'm letting them know I have no issue breaking minor rules (sexy yet likely not a murderer) and that for whatever reason (let them fill in the blanks) I've chosen to share this industry knowledge with them.
"Jesus man just give them a free drink and smile"; the response I've got from multiple friends who I've told this convoluted plan to. Obviously to some extent there's a clear lesson here: grow up and get more confidence and you'll be a lot better at flirting. The other thing I noticed is that most people aren't sitting planning out the secondary and tertiary impacts of each action and idea, it just doesn't come up partly because this kind of thinking is relatively self-centred, imagining that the world around you thinks exactly like you but also a lot of people simply don't view something as lovely and special as romance with the eyes of a plotter.
My focus for this piece is barely on flirting, but demonstrates well the ideas behind why I'm so aggressive in my recommending of films to friends.
A favourite phrase of mine is "Have you seen X?" normally recommending a film that is important to me but also one that I am confident the person I'm speaking to would love. I'd just got dinner with my best friend lately and asked him whether he'd watched some things I sent over to him, he replied "no, you know I can't watch everything I'm sent". Maybe he is being sent hundreds of links and recommendations a day, but I doubt it. He told me I have a high expectation level for when I recommend something, often following up and asking people if they watched it when I next see them.
This got me thinking about why that is and led me to contemplate why I think about things in the way I do and what meaning I take from something as simple as a recommendation. For me, a recommendation made by a close friend who knows you is a weighty proposal, the implication is: I think of you, I know you, I consider your interests and passions, I have found something that I think matches with the things you love, I'm making the effort to tell you that there is one more thing in the world you have the opportunity to love.
Obviously this isn't the case with all recommendations, when my boss tells me to watch true crime netflix documentaries I think that his recommendations are more based on what he loves instead of any of my interests as he doesn't really know me at all.
All I say with this is that there is often complicated and sustained thought behind it when someone recommends a film, book, tv show or anything. If someone knows you well and is a friend, you should trust them, listen to their recommendations and go out and go to that park they tell you about. To me, it's the sign that I think of you beyond our physical encounters and allow my trust in you to be a motivator in my own decisions.
As well though, it's possible I'm just overthinking this, no one has yet responded well to the flirtatious embezzlement suggestions.