Throughout the years of my consciousness
around the genders, male and female, I have been submissively kind and forward
to the females in my life, and to the males as well (but more towards the
females). Whether a classmate, a crush, a colleague, a friend, or a partner, I
have always found myself, in a sense, falling for them. Being a nice person
myself, as expressed by others, have helped me slip some of these flirtatious
compliments intentionally. Later, as I got interested in writing and found out
that I was really good at it, the habit of praising others came even more
easily to me. Then, a couple of years back or so, a colleague whom I admire for
her gorgeous looks and kind personality, labelled me as a dil-pehnk, translated as a
person who throws his heart at everyone. This word was new to me, and
surprisingly so, it captured in some ways, exactly the surface motives behind
my praises, or let’s call it niceness. As
this word grew on me, I never actually succeeded in detaching myself from this; it stuck with me as a reminder that my niceness was after all nothing but a
dirty act of flirtation to lure others into my zone, or something.
First flirting, then being niceness as well, have
become an unwritten taboo thing to do nowadays. In the wake of this, I have now
grown to hesitate to give out compliments, especially to people of my age, because
I am worried about just how they might react to it. Would they think I am
interested in them? Would they think I am cheap? Would they think I am being
advantageous in any sense? Or on the more positive side, would they actually
believe that I am being truly nice and that there is no past and future to these compliments that I am communicating? All
these worries about being a person who wears his heart on his sleeves, have had
its effects into the other areas of my life too. For example, I may then begin
to hesitate to pass my gratitude to the important people in my life who are not in my age group because I now have
built this notion of not saying what could be taken as a really cheap trick to
captivate other people. And as reverse effect, I might, at worst, start
thinking the same about other people who are being nice to me. These contemplations
add to my doubts that I am actually, against my belief, a flirtatious prick who
is insincere with his words.
But the good news is that I survived the death
of my being naively nice to other people. Thanks to The School of Life and their videos regarding flirtations
and liking someone, I am now able to navigate and judge my own feelings
myself, rather than letting someone else do it very badly for me. So here goes my defense for being a dil-pehnk.
First of all, I am nice. Like truly nice. But
that should not mean that I do not think about the ends while approaching a new
girl, making a new friend, or saying something too forward about a person I
adore, it means that I am aware of my those thoughts and their consequences,
therefore I am able to stop them from interfering with the deep and meaningful
small act that I am performing. This, so to speak small act, is usually named flirting or the way my colleague explained
it, being a dil-pehnk. But what
really is flirting and is it really an unacceptably cheap thing to do these
days? Flirting, as said by the founder of TSOF,
Alain de Botton, is a reawakening of a
person to their own attractiveness. Isn’t that already good enough to just
shift our perspective about flirting from something really horrible one can do
to a friend or a crush, to something we should all do, all the time, and to all
people we care about? With some grace and well-chosen words, a true flirt has
the magic of making even the most ordinary things blossom to their extraordinary
glories that lie deep within them.
In this grand and holistic sense, being a
flirt or a dil-pehnk then becomes the nicest thing you can be to someone or
even something. Flirting isn’t only about being keen towards the
beautiful eyes of a crush, the perfect nose of that celebrity (Selena Gomez), the kindness of saying a
truly meant welcome, the impact of a warm handshake, or the pulling of a
genuine, weak smile – but it is also about being present and attentive towards
the ignored joys and beauties of almost everything around us. Whether it is the
start of spring and flowers are bursting out, or the late fall where the
weather calls for us to walk a little slower and take in the moments; whether
it is the warm sun shining on you, or the grey sky that directs you towards
serene melancholy; whether it is the playfulness of animals early in the
morning, or the bright, popping colors of the fruits and vegetables – being a
flirt, or in other words, being attentive becomes a form of praying and an act
of true love.
But it is not always holistic! And my
colleague when she called me a dil-pehnk, was pointing to something more disturbed
inside me: it was loneliness. Most of the times, we flirt without knowing what
we are really flirting about, therefore, we may end up using it for the wrong
means. We feel lonely because we think we are not enough for ourselves and that
someone of something out there has the key to our fulfillment and completion. We
think we are not enough because we are not aware of ourselves and our
significance, and we are not aware with ourselves because we think others, and
not us, is worth flirting with. Looking at it from this way, flirting with others
for the wrong means translates into the flirtatious person’s being lonely and his or her desperate need for human connection and warmth. But
what exactly are those wrong means which we might use flirting for? The most
obvious one is having many girls or boys at once to avoid being lonely, and ditching
them once their prettiness starts to bore us. And from a vulnerable point of view,
we may flirt for we are desperate for someone to flirt back with us, and by
doing so, end our screaming loneliness in our alone times. Now these means are wrong
because the person flirting is in a really unstable and dangerous position –
unstable because he is not certain about what he or she likes in you and most importantly,
why? And dangerous because he or she might be using you as a means to end his
loneliness rather than an end which he truly admires. And as I come to think of
myself, I was both unstable and dangerous as well. So why am I defending being
a dil-pehnk?
It is because that word wrestled with my gut
feeling for two reasons: one, it contradicted with my true niceness towards
other people which I knew I had deep inside me; and it made me think I am a
people-user. Secondly, and this is what led me to explore myself and this
topic, it redirected those flirts that I used to give away to others, towards myself
as well. This changed me from being an unstable and dangerous flirt to being a
truly nice one – or an awakened dil-pehnk.
You see, only when you know who you are, in both the good and bad terms, then
can you truly appreciate the goods in others, and help them cope with their bad
sides as well. But there is also a very important thing to remember here: you are not always enough to help yourself
all by yourself. Because sometimes a
mirror shows you more than you could ever see about yourself. That is why it
makes such a big difference when you start exploring yourself first, and then, you
start seeing the beauty and significance of all the things around you: in your friends’
loyalty and hard-work, in your colleague’s attire, in your partner’s way of
loving you, in the abundance and softness of the sand on beaches, in the leafs
and their shapes, in the struggles of many animals – and most of all, in the presence
of your own. First, know thy self, Socrates said it ages ago, and then when you
have the eyes and the feels to see the good in others, wear your heart on your
sleeves gracefully and shamelessly. And do not worry, for by that point, it all
comes naturally and it is actually – all pure!
I would like to end my essay with this line that might sum it all up: in a true act of flirt, we are actually loving
our own selves.