What Happy Couples Know About Flirting After 40

The best flirt I ever watched work a room was fifty-eight years old. Silver bob, reading glasses on a chain, a laugh you could hear over the band. Twenty-five-year-olds in bandage dresses were standing around posing like furniture, and every man at that party ended up orbiting her.

She wasn't trying to look young. She was having the time of her life, and it was contagious. She teased. She asked real questions. She told one slightly filthy story about a cruise ship that I'm still not allowed to repeat. And when her husband came to collect her, she kissed him like they'd just met. Every man in the room wanted to be that guy.

You're not too old. You're out of practice.

Flirting isn't a body type. It isn't a libido level. It's a skill, and skills go rusty when you don't use them. That's the good news: rusty isn't broken.

Young flirting is an audition. Grown-up flirting is two people who already made the team showing off for each other.

The unfair advantage of a long marriage

A twenty-five-year-old flirting with a stranger is guessing. You have inside information. You know his ticklish spot, his secret pride, the story he loves to retell, the exact look that used to make him lose his train of thought. Crappy wives use that inside information exclusively for criticism. Use it for mischief instead.

Reference something from your early days with a wink. Catch his eye across a dull dinner party with a look that says 'we will be discussing that man's toupee in the car.' Put a hand on the small of his back in the kitchen for no reason at all. Shared secrets are flirting. So are callbacks. So is laughing at him like you still think he's funny — because you probably do, under all the laundry.

Bodies change. Appeal doesn't retire.

Hormones, sleep, health — life happens, and none of it is a moral failure. If something physical is getting in your way, a good doctor is your best friend, and nobody should push you past what feels good. But you don't need perfect skin to tell a dirty joke. You need presence, nerve, and a little practice.

Let him flirt back

Plenty of men stopped flirting at home because it got them an eye-roll and a reminder about the gutters. If he makes an attempt — even a clumsy, dad-joke-grade attempt — play along. Make it worth his while to try again. Then go be the fifty-eight-year-old with the cruise ship story. The room's waiting.