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Chapter 5 The Art of Flirting
Excerpt

Eyeing
duaang-taa pen nâa-tàang khOng hua-jai (idiom, n.) ดวงตาเป็นหน้าต่างของหัวใจ (สำ, น.)
sòng say-taa (v.) ส่งสายตา (ก.)
lèe (slang, v.) เหล่ (แสลง, ก.)
jÔOng mâi waang taa (v.) จ้องไม่วางตา (ก.)

This well-known expression, “The eyes are the window of the heart,” or duaang-taa pen nâa-tàang khOng
hua-jai in Thai, says that eyes show a way into the heart. An appropriately communicated look can open up a romantic possibility.

Your eyes can “send the look” (sòng say-taa) and presumably a message of love. They can also lèe (lit. “to give a side glance”). In general usage, as an adjective, lèe eyes (or taa lèe in Thai) mean “crossed eyes.” But in this slang usage, lèe, as a verb, gives an indication of interest by glancing at, or keeping an eye on, the love interest. This kind of side-glancing is usually not done too openly, though it need not be done in secret.
When the eyeing is done directly, openly, and confi-dently, it’s called jÔOng mâi w aang taa, “to stare without taking the eyes off (the target)”—kind of like what I did to the poor guy in high school. However, appropriate staring is done only for a short duration—seconds or minutes at most.

Meeting the eyes
mOOng taa (v.) มองตา (ก.)
sòp (saay) taa (v.) สบ(สาย)ตา (ก.)
lòp (saay) taa (v.) หลบ(สาย)ตา (ก.)

Eyeing someone won’t get you anywhere unless you get a response, and a way to test if a receptive response might be forthcoming is to “catch the eyes” of your target: mOOng taa, literally “to look in the eyes.” If the target is inclined to reciprocate, he or she will likely correspond and “meet the eyes” of the pursuer: sòp taa or sòp saay-taa in Thai. You are then one step closer to the heart of your target. But then again, the target may “refuse to meet the eyes” (lòp taa or lòp saay taa). Turning the eyes away from a come-on gaze could mean a number of things from “Oh my God, I’m blushing, I hope he’s still looking at me” to “Oh no, that dufus is looking at me again.” That is why there are many other eye flirting techniques to be learned.

Flirting
jìip (v.) จีบ (ก.)
jìip saw (v.) จีบสาว (ก.)
flóoet (informal, v.) เฟลิต (ปาก, ก.)

Jìip is the simplest Thai word for a range of romantic overtures, covering small flirtation to serious courtship. Say you spot a potential future lover. Your friends encourage you to make a move, to jìip the target; you summon up the courage to initiate a conversation, send a flower, ask the person out on a date, etc. Both men and women can jìip, but even now it’s still more often the men who do the jìip-ing, hence the commonly used term jìip saw, “to court a woman.” When women flirt, it’s called something else, as you shall see a little later.
The English word “flirt” (flóoet) has been adopted into the Thai lexicon for some years, and it is the word that is, in comparison to these slang terms, relatively free of connotations. It is used with both women and men.

Selling/tossing around flirty cakes
khay khà-nm jìip (slang, v.) ขายขนมจีบ (แสลง, ก.)
wàan khà-nm jìip (slang, v.) หว่านขนมจีบ (แสลง, ก.)

Thai people hate to leave words unmolested; we have a propensity to decorate a simple word and give it a new look and a colorful feel. So, the plain jìip becomes khay khà-nm jìip, “to sell a flirty cake.” (Khà-nm jìip is a kind of Chinese dim sum—steamed, bite-size dumplings, mainly of minced pork, each wrapped in an individual yellow wrapper with all four corners “brought and squeezed together,” a technique also called jìip.)
If the act of selling the flirty cakes is indiscriminate, there’s a more precise expression: wàan khà-nm jìip, “to toss around flirty cakes” (obviously hoping that at least one or two would be caught, if only by reflex). Rather an undignified flirting technique in my book, but it is reported to work sometimes. Scenario: Daeng warns her friend Apple not to read too much into Tom’s flirtations because she has seen him wàan khà-nom jìip with countless other women before.

Laying a bridge
tÔOt sà-phaan (idiom, v.) ทอดสะพาน (สำ, ก.)

Historically, Thai people often built houses by a river or a canal, and in order to make it possible for others to visit, a little bridge was built over the water. The idiom tÔOt sà-phaan, literally “to lay a bridge,” now generally means something akin “to offer an olive branch” in English, but in the context of flirtation it means “to initiate flirtation.”

You’d think that heavy work—even figuratively—like laying a bridge would be a man’s job. But no. To tÔOt sà-phaan is usually the kind of thing that women are expected to do. This makes sense when you consider that a woman is not supposed to cross the metaphorical bridge to “hit on” a man. So, why wouldn’t she take it upon herself to lay one so that he would cross over to hit on her?

[Read more in the book.]

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