I was hanging out with some friends yesterday as part of a birthday party event -- the first of my friends in this circle has now turned 30, so it's going to be a year of big deals for people.

I was chatting with her husband about the observation made back in June about how flirting was something I'd stopped doing for awhile, then started back up again and so on. He said he'd noticed as well that I'd stopped flirting and that it had been a fairly clear message of 'hands-off' that he'd seen. I asked what he meant, and he said that typically I had some kind of project with me, I'd be seated on a couch somewhere and wouldn't be as engaged with the group as before, etc. He said it seemed fairly obvious what the message was.

I realized today that it was a bit of the same message I was sending when I was at home with the Smooshy back then. Now granted, I was in my semi-obsessive phase and was very focused on finishing a number of different projects, but I did the same thing at home; sitting on the couch, working on a project, not really inviting physical contact.

Man, was my libido dead back then. :P Now, when I hang out with friends, I'm generally sitting sprawled near one or more of them, I'll give or get backrubs, hugs or just comforting touches, and I've sat on more than my fair share of laps in the last while. Although I do think my libido was never as high as it is now, it certainly goes to show how things changed for me back then.

Of course, people put it down to the relationship with the Smooshy being serious and exclusive, which I'll grant it was, but I think around the time the projects were out in full force, there wasn't much of a sex drive around -- and apparently that influences my interactions with my friends, too.

It's still weird for me to think that flirting is such a major part of my personality to my friends that it's an observable difference when it's gone. Curious.

Anyhow, another few days and I leave for Indiana, to visit a friend I've had about 20 minutes of conversation with since we made the plans. This is gonna be a weird one. :)