The Subtext of Seduction

14. As soon as one begins looking for signs of mutual attraction, then everything that the beloved says or does can be taken to mean almost anything. And the more I looked for signs, the more there were of them to read. In every movement of Chloe's (in my case J's) body, there seemed to be potential evidence of desire - in the way she straightened her skirt [as we crossed into Early Northern Painitng] (or the way J sat, slanted, with her legs stretched towards my seat in the lecture?), or coughed bvy van Eyck's The Marriage of Giovanni Arnolfini, or handed me the catalogue in order to rest her head on her hand. And when I listened closely to her conversation, it too revealed itself as a mindfield of clues - was I wrong to read a degree of flirtation in her remark that she was tired or her suggestion we look for a bench?

(Essays in Love, Alain de Botton)

Note: Chloe's fictional and single, J isn't.