blogger profile

Charlene Ross

Special Education Instructional Assistant and aspiring writer

I'm a 40ish happily married mom living in the suburbs of Southern California and trying my hardest to have a life more fun and interesting than that sounds! After college I went to work in the music industry which sounds exciting, but actually I was an overworked, underpaid, stressed out assistant ...

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Flirting with Waiters

Especially hot, young waiters

Inspired by Kim and Tina

First Tina mentioned hot waiters in a response to one of my posts, then Kim wrote a blog inspired by my response to Tina’s response (wow!I don’t know if I’ve ever inspired anyone before –that’s pretty cool!), so while I don’t have story that can top Kim’s (check it out if you haven’t already http://skirt.com/node/10872), I thought I’d write a blog of my own about one of my favorite things in life:  flirting with hot waiters…

A smart waiter will flirt with you to make more money.  I know this because when waiters flirt with me I always increase their percentage -a lot, and I’m a good tipper to start with - and because a lifetime ago I used to be a smart cocktail waitress who would flirt herself into big money.  (Well big money for a college student working as a cocktail waitress anyway.)

I don’t know when it occurred to me that I really liked flirting with waiters, but I have always been a flirt.  I think I was one of those 2-year-olds who flirted with any adult she came into contact with.It’s just how I communicate.  The thing about waiters is that they are easy to flirt with because you have this forced communication with them.  If you’re out with your girlfriends why not flirt with the waiter – it’s fun, safe, and he’s certainly not going to try to take you home with him unlike the divorced dude at the martini bar who chats you up, buys you a drink without asking, and then expects some action.  (Sorry guy, I’ve got a husband waiting for me at home – the action will be all his!)

When I go to restaurants with a group of girlfriends I will ask the hostess for a section with a cute waiter.  I’m not kidding.  I have no shame.  Earlier this year a group of us were celebrating a friend’s 50^th birthday and I said to the hostess, “We’re celebrating a birthday, can we have a cute waiter we can flirt with?”  She was about 20 and my request gave her that deer-in-the-headlights look as she obviously didn’t understand how 40 and 50-year-old suburbanites like to have fun.  In fact my request seemed to send the whole restaurant into a tizzy as they had to move tables and have servers switch sections to accommodate us.  Even the manager got involved by asking us if there was a problem with the waitress.  No, we told him, we just wanted a little eye candy to help us enjoy our celebration a little more.  It was pretty funny watching the whole circus.  The joke ended up being on us though as the waiter was cute, but he was not a flirt.  He had the personality of a rock.  A cute rock, but a rock nonetheless.  We still had fun, a lot of fun, but it would have been nice to spice things up a bit by flirting with that cute boy.

In Vegas for my 40^th I requested a cute waiter who would flirt with us and got the same look from the same type of hostess.  That hostess was apparently jealous of our confidence and beauty at such an advanced age and was obviously trying to be petty and mean (that or she was really bad at her job) because our waiter was flirting, but not with us – he was gay.  And not the least bit cute. Hey, I’ll even flirt with a gay waiter (and have many times), I don’t care, like I said, I don’t want to go home with him, I just want to have some fun.

Two years ago I went out to a sports bar on a Sunday afternoon with my dear friend Rita and our good guy friend Pat who lives in New York.  Our waiter was hot.  And young (26 or 27 I think – I asked him, but I don’t quite remember).  And flirty.  Very flirty.  Rita and I were having a lot of fun.  Rita and I met Pat in Ireland in 1986 and I brought a photo album of the trip.  Pat started showing my new found boyfriend pictures of me with 80’s hair and make-up.  Truly, one would think I had stock in Aqua Net and drugstore black eyeliner.  “You look hotter now,” Hot Waiter said to me.  I was happily starting to forget my family at home but then Pat, always a trouble maker if you ask me, pulled out the picture I had shown him of my kids and said to Hot Waiter, “Look here’s a picture of her kids.  Aren’t they cute?”  “Dammit Pat, he was totally into me, why do you have to ruin it?” I said.  “It’s okay, I’m still into you,” Hot Waiter said.  Not only hot, but smart - a liar, but a hot, smart liar.  When the bill came I asked him if there was something he would accept for payment in lieu of money.   “C’mon in the back with me right now,” he said.   “Really?” I asked.  “Yeah, c’mon, let’s go.”  I laughed it off as Pat took the check from me and paid like the gentleman that he is.  I know the guy was kidding, but wouldn’t it be nice if he wasn’t… (Not that I would have gone into the back room with him, I’m just saying it was nice if he really wanted to.)  Rita and I paid the tip.  I think we left him something like $50.  I told you he was smart.  (Or maybe we were just drunk and stupid.)

The last story I’ll tell is one where my girlfriends and I went out to a trendy, local Italian restaurant with a martini bar attached that seems way too hip for our little corner of suburbia.  We lucked into the only hot, young waiter there – and for once I didn’t even ask.  He was in his late 20’s and he turned on the flirt the second we sat down.  “Yay,” I said to him, “We got a cute waiter who likes to flirt.”  “Oh yeah, you did,” he answered, “and I will be flirting with you ladies all night long.”  And he did.  And we all had a lot of fun.  I have friends that work at that restaurant and I later learned he has quite a reputation.   Apparently he likes the ladies, no matter what their age and actually has taken quite a few – actually make that quite a lot - of them to some back room, or some dark corner, or the back of some divorcee’s SUV.  Yuck!I’ll keep it to just flirting thank you very much.  (And trust me, when I’m done flirting with waiters my husband always has a very happy night when I get home!)

I asked a friend recently when I would be too old to flirt with waiters.  When I’m 50?  I have friends that are 50 or very close to it and still look fabulous. (One who is 48 and still looks fantastic in a bikini – bitch!)  60?  My mother is 61 and is still gorgeous (though I don’t think she flirts with waiters.)  I don’t want to look ridiculous (well more ridiculous than I already do) like some pathetic modern day version of Blanche DuBois calling out “Young, young, young, young man” to some poor guy who’s just trying to serve me some soup and a martini (because you know, I’m so old I’ve lost all my teeth.)  “You’ll know when it’s time,” she answered.  “It’ll be like going to a club and dancing.  Sure the dancing is still fun, but we’re just there to dance, not meet guys.  When you’re too old you’ll still enjoy the meal, but you won’t feel the need to flirt.”  “But what if I don’t know and I make a fool of myself?”  “Just like you promised to let me know when I start dressing too young, I promise to let you know when it’s time to stop flirting with waiters.”  Thank God for good friends who always have your back.  Even if having your back is telling you when to stop flirting with waiters.  As she said, at least I’ll still enjoy the food.