Hida Bukkorosu said:
why? cause i was worried she might be underage and that people would think i'm some kind of pervert or something...
but now i feel like i blew a chance to talk to a really cute girl...
is my fear reasonable? is there an accepted way of asking a girl if she's old enough to be flirted with or not?
Being able to pin down an age within a couple years is pretty essential to being a single guy in our culture. Practice. Many women are not offended by age questions, but a few are really offended, so I'd try to avoid it. Generally though, if you think she's under 18, chances are she is. On the other hand, there's no law against a friendly chat either, and, at least in a Taco Bell, you don't want to start in with the actual chatting up until you've got a basic idea who you're talking to and until you can tell whether she's into it. The initial innocent conversation is only a significant faux pas if there happens to be a parent* or boyfriend (or girlfriend) hanging around, and naturally you've done the PB(G) scan before any of this happens. If you're an experienced single guy, you've almost subconsciously been tracking everyone in the vicinity since you arrived in order to determine their relationships to potential dateables.
The rules are different in a pick-up spot like a bar though - you can advance the chatting up considerably if there's a social presumption of receptiveness. On the flip side, certain environments require a higher standard of receptiveness indication, like you don't chat up people who are at work (waitstaff, prostitutes, police officers, judges, etc.) or people in captive situations (airplanes, family reunions, GenCon games, cells, juries etc.) unless they give a big flashing green light that even the dullest nerd would notice.
Generally in the captive situation, if you do dare to go for it, it's best to hold off on any direct chatting up until near the end of the period of captivity so that potential post-brushoff awkwardness is of limited duration. Smarter women usually can tell when it's coming, so they'll typically give you hints about their availability, casually mentioning something like "oh, my boyfriend likes pretzels too." There is a certain element that consciously conceals such information just because they like the flirting game though, and I figure it's OK to proceed with flirting in that case, if only for the practice, but one should be aware that a lack of data isn't a positive or negative.
This being said, the non-pick-up spot cold flirt is a pretty low-percentage way of meeting people, but it is possible to do it without being excessively obnoxious. I've probably ended up with more friends than dates thereby, since random encounters aren't very selective for singleness or basic compatibility.
*This holds also for adults, as even if you're 30, it's really awkward to flirt with someone while your mom is 10 ft away.
