How do you tell if a girl is flirting with you? Especially if you are a girl?

In my Lifedrawing 2 class, there is a girl (well, duh). She's absolutely gorgeous, seems quite friendly and reasonably intelligent, and incidentally draws really well (not that it's necessarily a consideration, but it didn't hurt that her bra-wearing self-portrait was extremely well-rendered).

Several times she's given me compliments on my work in class or made small talk with me. Today she took the drawing board next to mine (while the majority of the easels in the room were still unclaimed) and struck up conversation with me throughout class time. We were talking about the model's particular body peculiarities and how different models' proportions and structures are easier or harder to draw, and she began using her own form as an example. "See, I have a really short torso-- my belly button is all the way up here..."

Oh geez. Please don't ask me to stare at your torso (any more than I already have been).

I have no "gaydar" for women. Men I can pick out fairly easily and on at least two occasions have predicted it before he himself knew it. Women? If she's not wearing rainbows, double-venus-symbols, or a t-shirt saying "Yes I am, and no, you can't watch," I've got no way of telling which way(s) she swings. Go figure.

I also have no skills in or refined knowledge of flirtation. I can't really do it, being prone to doing things like conversing with my shoes, temporarily losing my grasp of basic grammar and extensive vocabulary, tripping over my own feet, and generally finding ways to make myself look more inept than usual. I also have a hard time recognizing when other people are trying to flirt with me; usually I only realize it in retrospect, after having done something that in retrospect was probably mean. Hence, my dilemma.

Hans, being who he is, says she's obviously hot for me and I should suggest private lifedrawing study sessions. Maureen asked how long her hair was. (Longer than mine is, so no help there. If she was visibly queer this wouldn't be nearly as much of a dilemma.) Paul (Hans' roommate), like me, had no idea.

My wishful thinking says anything's possible, but then again, my natural pessimism says that given the usual statistics there's about a 90% chance she's just being friendly.

Oh well.

Labels: love/sex, Teh Gay