It's confession time. Not like every week isn't a confession, but this is real confession, like only between you and us. Here goes: We here at The Hookup are bad flirts.

The good news is that we've identified the most common methods by which we seriously screw up the act of flirting.

First, most of the time we aren't even aware we're flirting. It sounds weird, but it's true. To us, it's just banter and witty one-liners. But apparently, getting all giggly and flashing our grandmother's Cherokee cheekbones imply that we are looking for attention. And then out of nowhere, someone asks us out, and we have no idea how we got there.

Secondly, we are notorious for trying too hard. You know that typical "I-can't-believe-I-said-that" scene in just about every movie with a romantic subplot? Well, that's what happens when we try to flirt on purpose.

To prevent banging our heads to punish our stupidity, we try to emulate our friends whom we consider flirt-friendly. WWOFFFD? – or What Would Our Flirt-Friendly Friends Do? – we ask ourselves.

Well, for starters, they would zero in on a gorgeous man and just do it. Sadly, it's the part about zeroing in that we forget. So we end up spraying those in our immediate vicinity with hair flips, batted eyelashes, suggestive banter and the whole assorted mess.

It usually goes pretty well, until one of two people responds: either someone we want to attract or someone we so do not want to attract. Oddly enough, both types are thrown for a loop when we come at them with full flirting force, only to reveal that the flirting force isn't really anything close to the real us.

But every once in a while, we're unaware of our own strength. We have moments when everything that should be banging bangs and everything that can possibly pop is popping, and you can practically hear a bass line bouncing to the way we walk. Sigh. We like days like that.

If you're a bad flirt like us, you know those times are the ones you hold out for. And we've come up with a plan of action to make those times happen more often.

We call it "practice." We won't get better at flirting if we don't practice, right? So next time you're eyeing a cutie in the bookstore (we dig the intellectual type), smile. Go chat him up. Ask him questions, make him laugh, find little ways to convey your interest. (We recommend touch. Not invading-personal-space touching – that would be bad. Just something light, but meaningful.)

You might be surprised at how easy flirting can be once you make a conscious effort to do it. Then you may find yourself with the unique problem of having too many men clamoring for your time and attention.

To join the Flirt-Friendly Friend club, e-mail Bridgette at brwilliams@quickdfw.com.