To flirt or not to flirt

Usually, the myriad of featured relationship or dating articles that appear across the top of Yahoo! or MSN aren't intriguing enough for me to move my hand even an inch and click on the link. Either that or I know that I can't possibly gain anything from reading them except some slight sense of confusion. Take for example "Seduction Dos & Don'ts" from Carmen Electra. Or "Dating a 'Crazy Cat Lady' ". Better yet "Good Man. Bad Shoes". I think I've made my point. But recently I came across this article that actually sparked a little bit of interest for me -

Why Flirting Can Help Your Relationship.

Before I go off on my usual rant, to be fair here are a couple reasons why the author believes this to be true:

Flirting Gives You Confidence
What flirting allows you to do is feel like you're impressing another person and being attractive to another person - without the baggage, stigma, and pressures of the next step. Bringing that sexual and romantic confidence back to your relationship helps you - and strengthens the relationship across the board.

Flirting Keeps You Sharp
Every once in a while, flirting can reinforce that primitive need of feeling valued. And that little innocent dialogue with some stranger in a bookstore may be all the kick-start you need to lose a little weight or change up your hair or whatever it is that you want to do to make yourself feel better about yourself. Which has benefits for everyone involved.

Flirting Lets You Build Up Sexual Energy
Some shrinks say it's OK to fantasize about anyone you want and build up a head of steam - as long as you, well, go ahead then and release that pent up energy with your partner.

Flirting Reminds You How Good You Have It
The fun of flirting is that there are no strings attached. Just some good ole banter with jokes, laughs, and some well-timed sexual innuendo. Fun at first. But when you think of the long process that comes after, it makes you realize that what you've got at home is exactly what you want.

The most probable reason why I felt compelled to read this story was because my first instincts were "OH HELL NO". In all honesty, who gives their significant partner a free flirting pass? I sure as hell don't know anyone. I mean I understand flirting when it just sorta just happens because you're being nice to someone and whatever; I'm taking about the cases where it's totally unintended. But I can't grasp the idea of purposely going out and flirting with people so that you feel better...about your relationship? Can anyone try to convince me otherwise?

The author does have some validity in his points, but overall I sense a recipe for disaster. Someone who is used to flirting without feeling guilty at all will be less likely to see the repercussions from doing this habitually. Each time it happens it's another potential disaster in the making. Why intentionally open your relationship to something that could break it apart? Friendly small talk - we all know how it starts...

Even if you trust your partner 100% and there's no way that they would ever do anything to jeopardize things, there's always the person on the other end. You may have no intention of furthering the conversation into anything more than some laughs and casual chit chat, but the other person doesn't know that. Sending mixed signals in any situation to any person almost always complicates things more than they need to be.

I'm not trying to say flirting is evil or you should never do it, but I wouldn't go so far as to promote it. I think if you feel the need to flirt with other people, maybe it's your relationship that needs some work.

Agree? Think I'm uptight? Those thoughts and others are welcome for comments :]