not flirting, just friendly..

I have been told that I flirt. That I am a flirt. I’m not by any means trying to imply that I don´t. Anyone who knows me would laugh at me if I even tried, apparently I have been practicing this activity as long as any of my family members can remember as my grandmother is happy to tell anyone who is willing to listen.
In fact I like flirting and I will even go so far as to claim that without it life would be just a little bit less fun and am certain that many situations can be improved by a little flirting.

On the other hand, sometimes I don’t think I am flirting and then people still claim that I am. I am not sure what to make of this. I really don’t think I am so unaware of my behaviour that I do it constantly without even realising.
Come to think of it, what is the definition of flirting anyway?

flirt v
1. vi to behave in a playfully alluring way
2. vt to flick or jerk something

n
somebody who behaves in a playfully alluring way

Encarta® World English Dictionary © 1999 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Developed for Microsoft by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

Aha. Playful. This must be the key-word. So. What if I am behaving playfully but not in an alluring, but in fact a friendly way? When does playfulness cross the line and become flirting? I could argue that just being playful always has a certain allure to it and is by that definition always flirting. Another possibility is that the presence of allure part can be determined by the 2^nd or even 3^rd party and is therefore always a matter of interpretation, even an imagined factor.

‘Allure is in the eye of the beholder’?

I think in fact that simply being playful and nice can often be mistaken for flirting because if you are nice to the people you meet they are generally more inclined to liking you, and are also more like the conclusion that you might like them in turn. Often they will be right in assuming so, although the nature of this liking might not be clear at this point. I can recall more than one occasion where I hoped and even assumed that someone was flirting with me when in fact, they were just interested and enthusiastic about whatever we might have been discussing.

Does this indicate that if some people’s mischievous eagerness, or even just honest friendliness is commonly mistaken for flirting that perhaps people in general are not friendly enough,. On the other hand some people might argue that I, or anyone else who is subject to frequent accusations of flirting, should reduce their friendly- and or playfulness to avoid these kinds of misunderstandings.

A third option, and probably the most realistic one, is to accept that flirting will always be subject to interpretations and therefore misunderstandings and if we can’t beat it, we might as well try and learn how to deal with it.