since I'm obsessively worried, i might as well post a hypothetical situation here that hopefully will always stay perfectly hypothetical (fat chance!) and noone will end up searching for solutions to this very icky problem.

ok, say you're in college (or highschool) and you are obviously being friendly with both genders, cause you can't just offend anyone. (and also presume that you're single.)

so lets propose a number of hypothetical situations.

A girl/guy comes up and starts flirting with you. how do you react? how do you gently tell them that you simply (and gently) are not available even though you're completely single and not on shidduchim? My mashpiah said to say that "i'm taken" or "i'm engaged" and leave it at that. (and the answer when asked who to, is presumably "I don't know yet", although I'm not sure that this is how you would point it out.)

B you're making friends and end up slowly and gradualy getting close to a non-jew or non-frum jew(who can't/wont mekarev themselves of their own volition), and eventualy said person starts throwing hints your way/asks you out and tells you that they like you alot.

how do you respond? (assume that you're going to be around this person for the rest of the time you're at school.) how do you deal with someone who has a severe crush on you, who previously was a trusted friend? how do you let them down gently, without hurting them and without them walking away and feeling angry and making your life misserable later?

C, similar to B except reversed, you're attracted to them. how do you force yourself to keep away?

D same as B and C except you're mutualy attracted to each other. How do you deal with it? how do you keep from crossing boundries or sending signals or generaly furthering and deepening the relationship? is cutting off all contact feasable? (assume you're in a total year class of less than 100 students, which means they're pretty much unavoidable)

in all of the cases, hwo do you explain the facts of life to them, that A you simply arent available and are waiting for shidduchim, and that B even if you were available you can't be because they're not jewish. C what do you do if said persuer decides to "save you" from the horrors of an arranged marriage? (just FYI most of the people I've met said that shidduchim sounded pretty cool as long as you still had the right to refuse.)

is there anything that the question is missing?

Some flirting is more joking than a preamble to marriage. I think most non-frummies would find it very weird if someone just all of a sudden popped out with "I'm engaged" after some innocent flirting. Also, there are several ways to shut down flirting with no explanation required. My favorite is simply to not flirt back, most people get the hint. If not, there's always the eye-roll, turn away and start talking to someone else.



I would think this is highly unlikely unless you've been leading them on.



If you're not responsive, most people will take the hint and drop it. You can always play innocent and pretend you never noticed. Of course, the important thing is to NOT FLIRT BACK.



You start flirting with someone else but you're not frum enough for her?



No, don't send mixed signals. Don't send flirting signals. If you don't initiate or respond flirting, it will either not happen or die out quickly.

To be continued. . .

Hmmm. Methinks a "facts of life" discussion could quickly get into a demonstration which would be bad. Best to avoid it.



Why are you explaining any of this to them? Why do they need to know? You could just not be interested for any number of reasons which you don't need to explain. Repeat after me: I do not need to justify every single action or belief to everyone else.



Dunno, dude, it's your question.

...

Why can't you simply be uninterested? I'm not understanding the dilemma. Flirting doesn't mean they want to date you and from what I see it's pretty much standard. I wasn't the Jew and seperate. I studied with my classmates (even males-in the school library) and once got into a kind of awkward situation (just made plans for a male classmate to tutor me via text message during class-it was the only option-and my prof started telling us that's how he met his wife. The guy was a flirt and that was kind of funny but he didn't need any sort of explanation.

all the resolutions in the world wouldn't change how desperate I feel.

Perhaps I misunderstood. You're worried about someone flirting because you feel you're too desparate to withstand the temptation? I interpreted your questions as being that you were worried that you would hurt the girl's feelings because you weren't interested.

both.

A. not to have female friends.

if you can't keep it only within the classroom's walls as classmates and nothing else, i do think it's the best answer, given the situation. (sorry, but "i'm engaged - to whom? - i don't know yet" sounds... weird to me)

B, C, D. not to have female friends.

sorry, i do think this is the only way for you not to get into troubles and/or hurt.

What's wrong with just saying, "I'm not interested."?

which means having no friends.

You can have guy friends.

guys don't make any sense.

they're just weird.

Than be friends with the girls. Forget what anyone tells you, do your thing.

sorry for being impossible.