So, I was wondering...if you're meeting a group of friends for dinner, and you are the second member of the party to arrive, and you go in to the restaurant bar to discover the first member of the party to arrive (a male friend) in the process of chatting up a cute girl, is there a universal girl hand-signal for, "Do carry on; I've got no territorial claims on this guy"? Because there was a slight moment of awkwardness where I think said cute girl was trying to size up where I fit in, and while the awkwardness quickly passed (she worked in marketing communications for a local tech company; I told her I was a tech writer; we geeked out), I feel like I kind of disrupted the momentum. For which I feel a little bit guilty.

Not that said guy friend was hurting for attention from cute girls last night, but that's not really my story to tell. Except to say that some of my friends are terrible flirts. Or rather excellent flirts. And when you get two or three of them together, hilarity ensues.