MUSINGS: The Not-Flirt
In the city of make-believe, she was the ultimate maybe.
Los Angeles is a place where people mistake persona for identity. That’s the whole premise of this city—the possibility that if you play someone long enough, eventually it’s no longer a performance. She was one of those girls. Let’s call her Adeline. Or no, that’s too precious. Let’s call her... nothing, actually. She doesn’t need a name. You already know her, everyone does.
She was always at the dinner, at the after-party, at the after-after-party on Mulholland where someone’s dad had bought the view and someone else had brought a guy with a drone to record it. She’d be leaning half-casually against a counter in a Max Mara coat that wasn’t hers, sipping something out of a coupe glass, eyes like bored glass. You’d think: who’s she with? But she was never with anyone. Not like that.
And yet—she was always with everyone.
It’s hard to explain her without sounding unkind. Which is unfair, because she wasn’t unkind. Not deliberately. It’s just that her charm wasn’t something she used so much as something that happened around her, ambient like mood lighting or a very expensive scented candle burning in a Bel-Air bathroom. She could make a man feel like he was being flirted with without ever really doing anything. It was the opposite of seduction. It was anti-seduction. The not-flirt.
She wore her sexuality like it was an inside joke she refused to let anyone in on. The kind of thing that slipped through conversations like smoke—visible, impossible to catch. Rumors followed her, naturally, the way unpaid bar tabs follow rich kids. People said she was closeted. It was the only theory that made sense to them, because in a city obsessed with declarations, her silence read like a statement.
But ask her—really ask her—and she’d do what she always did: redirect, avoid, deny. She’d laugh, toss her hair, accuse you of being obsessed with labels. “Why does everyone always need to define everything?” she’d say, like the concept of clarity was outdated. Or she’d tilt her head and smile in that way that made you feel like you were the one being a little too intimate, a little too curious. Sometimes she’d just blink, sip her drink, and say something disarming like, “Honestly, I think I’m just too self-involved to be in love with anyone right now.”
And just like that, the conversation would vanish.
She dated no one. Slept with no one, as far as anyone could tell, though there were always stories. A producer’s son. A Norwegian DJ. A girl from Brentwood who left her husband and moved to Topanga after they "tried shrooms together at a sound bath." Nothing was confirmed. Everything was inferred.
She had that way of making men feel special—like they were in on something, like they might be the one to unlock her. But nothing ever came of it. She ghosted everyone, including the people who never had her number.
It wasn’t even cruelty. It was sport. It was survival. It was a persona she built so carefully, so exquisitely, that you could almost miss the fact that it had become a cage.
I don’t think she was lying about who she was. I think she didn’t know. Or maybe she did, but she also knew the stakes of knowing. Because in her world—the world of vintage convertibles and hotel rooftop dinners and publicists’ parties thrown for no real reason—being a question mark was more powerful than being an answer.
It was a kind of glamour. A kind of withholding that read as control. And in Los Angeles, control is the most erotic thing of all.
So she remained the not-flirt. The girl who drew every man in, just to let them hover a few feet above her like moths around a halogen moon. She liked the attention, of course. But it was more than that. It was a power she hadn’t yet named. Or wasn’t ready to give up.
Or maybe—just maybe—she was keeping it for the right person.
Who, if the rumors are true, might not be a man at all.
But again: she never said.
And in this city, silence says everything.
It was at a house in the Hills that looked like a Soho House had mated with a luxury rehab—glass and limestone and art books no one had opened. The party had no clear host, just an assortment of people who knew each other from “work” in the way that people in Los Angeles always do. Everyone was dressed like they wanted to be noticed by someone specific. I remember the bar was unmanned, which meant everyone was drinking mezcal because it felt intentional.
She floated in around eleven, wearing something white and architectural, like a dress made of a folded napkin. I found her perched on the edge of a kidney-shaped sofa, half-listening to a man explain his idea for an AI concierge app that no one would ever download. When he stepped away, she turned to me with that half-smile that said thank you for rescuing me, though I hadn’t done anything.
We made small talk, which with her was never really small—it was loaded with subtlety, with practiced ease. And then she dropped it:
“I have a date tomorrow.”
She said it like it was a secret and a dare, and I played along. “Who set it up?”
“My cousin’s girlfriend. He works in finance.”
I raised an eyebrow. “That’s vague.”
“He just moved here from Dallas. Apparently he likes to hike.”
She said “hike” like it was a diagnosis.
“And you’re excited?” I asked, just to see how she’d play it.
“Oh my god, so excited,” she said, too quickly, her eyes widening a fraction too much. “I’ve been in such a rut lately. It’ll be fun to get out there again, you know?”
She said “get out there” like she was referring to a war zone.
But the thing was—she didn’t look excited. Not really. She looked like someone rehearsing excitement, trying it on like an outfit. I’d seen her do it before. She performed enthusiasm like other people performed indifference. It was always a little too clean, too stylized, like a poster for a rom-com she’d never actually go see.
I nodded, and she smiled again—tight and radiant, like a flicked switch. “Anyway, I told myself I’d be open to things this year.”
“Open to men?” I teased, gently.
She tilted her head. “Open to the idea of the idea of men,” she said, laughing softly. Then she looked away, like the thought had startled her.
The conversation drifted. Someone passed a joint. Someone else spilled a drink. But I kept thinking about that moment—her excitement, like a costume she knew didn’t quite fit, but wore anyway because someone told her it was flattering.
The next day, I got a text from her: He ordered a kale Caesar with no dressing and told me his favorite book was “The 48 Laws of Power.” I made it to the valet before dessert.
No follow-up. No analysis. Just the facts. And yet I could picture her perfectly: smiling through the date, nodding at all the wrong times, performing normalcy like it was theater.
That’s the thing about her. She knows how to look like she’s looking. How to feel like she’s feeling. And maybe that’s enough in this city—where the performance so often is the person.