Why don’t Kiwis flirt?

I’d forgotten how Australia smells. But as soon as I stepped off the plane last week, it punched me up the nostrils like a drug dealer’s cologne. That’s because Australia largely does smell like drug dealer’s cologne. It smells like Versace Eros, mixed with top notes of sunscreen, hot earth and cashed-up bogans on tour. I love it.

Everywhere you go you can smell the pong. Blokes pour aftershave over themselves each morning like they’re oiling a Christmas turkey. And the girls are the same, dousing themselves each night like they’re preparing to burn decades of incriminating documents.

Boy, have I missed this. See, I don’t think perfume is just a smell. I think it’s a little wink to the world. The aromatic aromas wafting along the streets are symbolic of one of the biggest differences between them and us.

And that is that absolutely everyone in Australia flirts. Not just the guys, but every girl, every pensioner, every supermarket cashier or 70-year-old bus driver with her jaunty purple perm who takes every opportunity for a wink, joke or ‘‘darrrrrrl’’.

After three years away, I’d forgotten just how ubiquitous it is. The Australians pour charm into every conversation like they’re running you a bubble bath. (It’s not a particularly classy bath, but still.) After three years locked in NZ, it was enough to make me clutch at my bonnet strings. Kiwis don’t flirt. Ever.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in a New Zealand bar will not talk to you unless absolutely plastered. And our girls are just as bad. Our primary public mating ritual seems to be insulting dudes, then leaving. And you can forget casual charm from the cashier scanning your bananas. There’s no space in our culture for everyday Eros.

Ialways warn my single friends about this when they move to NZ. No-one will approach you the way they would in Australia or America. And it makes me sad when I realise how much more flirtatious other countries are.

I don’t mean I want to be propositioned every time I buy a Lotto ticket. Quite the opposite. But what I miss is that other countries know the difference between flirting and hitting on you.

Flirting is when you grease the wheels of the conversation by flattering someone; a man, your mother-in-law, your superbly permed bus driver. You don’t actually intend to get with them. Whereas hitting on someone is when you’re actually trying to sleep with them.

Other countries know this distinction. So they’re happy to sprinkle mildly flirty fairy dust over everyday conversations because it’s fun and everyone knows it doesn’t mean anything. Plus, who doesn’t like the odd unexpected compliment? It raises the spirits like adding baking powder.

But we don’t understand that here. We only understand polite friendliness or being absolutely trolleyed and grabbing you by the face. So if you try a bit of casual charm, everyone assumes you’re hitting on them. We just don’t have the capacity to think of flirting as anything other than a come-on.

And not only is that a little irritating, but it’s just so . . . juvenile. I hate admitting that Australia is better than us at anything. But it feels like they’re swanning around, having discovered some great secret to spicing up the everyday mundanity of existence. While we’re still hiding behind the clouds of dry ice in the corners of the hall at the school disco.

All I can hope is that maybe one day we’ll grow up and chill out.