How to Play Hard-to-Get to Keep a Fly Attracted to You
So you’ve got a fly in your house. Don’t get excited yet. Flies are finicky creatures. They will often leave just to play with garbage, and I’m not talking about lowly-reviewed video games here. Flies will chase literal trash.
But fear not! My guide will help you up your attractiveness to match trash itself because, as the famous saying goes, one fly’s trash is that fly’s treasure.
1. Make the fly chase you:
A fly will often act aloof when it first meets you. It’ll move towards a window, pretending it wants to leave. It may even bump against the window repeatedly, trying to sell the image that it has more important things to do than spend time around you.
Suuuuure.
Call out its bluff: open the window.
Well, well, well, would you look at that! Suddenly, the fly refuses to go out. Suddenly, it would rather stay and buzz about the room the whole time instead of passing through the large open window in front of it.
You’ve turned the tables around by telling the fly you can live without it, so now it has to chase after you.
2. Give it just enough reasons to stay:
Of course, you can’t rely on a fly to make good decisions. What if it leaves in a fit of emotion? Then where will you be?
You could plop a cup over the fly so it doesn’t leave. But you don’t want to seem controlling. Hm, perhaps if the cup was transparent? No! Still controlling. Shame on you for considering it.
Instead, leave some fruit out in the open air where it can rot. Now the fly is sure to stay. Remember: the way to a fly’s heart is through its stomach.
You can also pretend you want to be rid of the fly by swinging at it with a flyswatter. Intentionally miss each time to stroke the fly’s ego by making it feel it was agile enough to dodge you. It’ll associate feeling good about itself with being around you, while you can continue to pretend you don’t want it around.
3. Don’t be too available:
Look, I get it. It’s been a while since you had a fly enter your house. You’re excited. You feel like you have butterflies in your stomach, as the fly brought in food-borne illnesses.
But if you’re too available, it will lose interest. Look at the fruit you left out in the open. It just sat there, available, until the fly eventually got bored and left.
When the fly hovers over your head too long, wave it away. If it keeps returning, get up and leave the room. Honestly, this will be healthy for you too, as flies are notorious for dumping all their emotional baggage on others: prattling on and on until everything they say sounds like a buzz.
4. Live your own life:
Own your independence.
You can drop all the right signals: staying perfectly still, not blinking, and holding out your arm, but the fly won’t land.
And yet, when you give up and watch a movie instead, in the most tense scene, the fly bull rushes into your ear.
The lesson here is to live your own life instead of obsessing over the fly. This will make it want to be around you, the fun person enjoying their life! The fly will be all like “Whoa, so many TV lights and sounds? What’s all the buzz about? Buzz Buzz Buzz!”
Flies are attracted to fun people who win at life. That’s why they’re not visiting your loser neighbors who refuse to invite you over unless you promise to shower first.
5. Test their faithfulness:
All said, you’re not the only option most flies have. You see the confident, swaggering way they fly around? Other insects flit around anxiously, but the calm, collected fly goes places in its own time. This self-assurance and confidence attracts many to a fly.
To put it in words Donald Draper would appreciate:
Frogs want to eat them, and mosquitoes want to be them.
That’s why you need to test a fly’s loyalty to make sure it will choose you over other options. Set up some bright lights in the room. Even throw in a bug zapper. With all the options in sight, if the fly still chooses you, you’ll know you can trust it to stay!
… But if it leaves:
If the fly moves towards the bug zapper, let it.
Value yourself. Remind yourself that you’re fun, and amazing, and deserve more than a fly that will leave you to chase certain death the first chance it gets.
Look, you have to be patient. It takes time to find a fly that lacks the navigational skills to leave you, and lacks the visual acuity to notice bright lights. Just remember that there will always be more flies for you to choose from. They breed very quickly.
