only a brief comment, at this point. while the cute & flirty description feels alien to me, I do have one little bit of stereotypically feminine behavior that might be worth mentioning in this context, which oddly enough stems from a stereotypically masculine perspective (?). I don’t like admitting that I don’t know something. not a pretty attitude, I know. in writing, esp. in email, I can ask for help and not feel like I’m abasing myself. okay, so that’s extreme, but you get the idea.
in person and on the phone, I sometimes (often?) take the stance of playing dumb, going all the way to “I don’t know anything” when I need to ask for help. with most people, it only works once per subject, but usually that’s all I need. and oddly enough, it usually does work, although listening to C deal with people on the phone, it might not work as well as a more self-confident stance. he’s astoundingly effective dealing with people on the phone, much more so than I am.
is playing dumb a girly tactic? if one assumes the other part of girly, that is, not feminine but immature, childish or childlike. a girl, after all, is not an adult female, but a child female. and children are “dumb” (at least when it comes to having specific knowledge) by default.