The first key to successful flirting is not an ability to show off
and impress, but the knack of conveying that you like someone. If your ‘target’
knows that you find him or her interesting and attractive, he or she will be
more inclined to like you.
Although this simple fact has been demonstrated in countless
studies and experiments, you don’t really need scientists to prove it. You
already know that when you are told someone fancies you, or hear that someone
has praised or admired you, your interest in that person automatically
increases - even if it is someone you have never met!
Conveying that you like someone, and judging whether or not the
attraction is mutual, clearly involves a combination of verbal and non-verbal
communication skills.
When asked about flirting, most people – particularly men – focus
on the verbal element: the ‘chatting-up’, the problems of knowing what to say,
finding the right words, etc. In fact, the nonverbal element – body-language,
tone of voice, etc. – is much more important, particularly in the initial
stages of a flirtation.
When you first meet new people, their initial impression of you
will be based 55% on your appearance and body-language, 38% on your style of
speaking and only 7% on what you actually say.
Also, their non-verbal signals will tell you much more about their
feelings towards you than the words they use. We show attitudes such as liking
and disliking not by what we say but by the way we say it and the posture,
gestures and expressions that accompany our speech.
The customary polite greeting “pleased to meet you”, for example,
can convey anything from ‘I find you really attractive’ to ‘I am not the
slightest bit interested in you’, depending on the tone of voice, facial
expression, position and posture of the speaker.
Non-verbal flirting
When a man and a woman meet for the first time, both are in a
difficult, ambiguous and potentially risky situation. Neither person knows what
the other’s intentions and feelings are. Because stating intentions and
feelings verbally involves a high risk of embarrassment or possible rejection,
non-verbal behaviour becomes the main channel of communication. Unlike the
spoken word, body language can signal invitation, acceptance or refusal without
being too obvious, without causing offence or making binding commitments.
Warning: some of the non-verbal flirting techniques
outlined in this section are very powerful signals, and should be used with
caution. Women should be particularly careful when using signals of interest
and attraction. Men already tend to mistake friendliness for flirting; if your
signals of interest are too direct and obvious, they will mistake them for
sexual availability. Eye contact
Your eyes are probably your most important flirting tool. We tend
to think of our eyes mainly as a means of receiving information, but they are
also extremely high-powered transmitters of vital social signals. How you look at another person, meet his
or her gaze and look away can make all the difference between a successful,
enjoyable flirtation and an embarrassing or hurtful encounter.
Eye contact – looking directly into the eyes of another person –
is such a powerful, emotionally loaded act of communication that we normally
restrict it to very brief glances. Prolonged eye contact between two people
indicates intense emotion, and is either an act of love or an act of hostility.
It is so disturbing that in normal social encounters, we avoid eye contacts of
more than one second. Among a crowd of strangers in a public setting, eye
contacts will generally last only a fraction of second, and most people will
avoid making any eye contact at all.
This is very good news for anyone wishing to initiate a flirtation
with an attractive stranger. Even from across a crowded room at a party, you
can signal your interest in someone merely by making eye contact and attempting
to hold your target’s gaze for more than one second (not too much more, though,
or you will seem threatening). If your target maintains eye contact with you
for more than one second, the chances are that he/she might return your
interest. If after this initial contact, your target looks away briefly and
then looks back to meet your gaze a second time, you can safely assume that
he/she is interested. If these eye contacts trigger a smile, you can approach
your target with some confidence.
If, on the other hand, your target avoids making eye contact with
you, or looks away after a fraction of a second and does not look back again,
you should probably assume that your interest is not returned. There is still
the possibility that your target is just a very shy person – and some females
may be understandably wary of signalling any interest in male strangers. The
only way to find out is by close observation of your target’s behaviour towards
others. Does she consistently avoid direct eye-contact with men? Does he seem
nervous, anxious or aloof in his interactions with other women? If so, your
target’s reluctance to meet your gaze may be nothing personal, and it might be
worth approaching, but only with considerable caution.
Once you have approached your target, you will need to make eye
contact again in order to strike up a conversation. As soon as your eyes meet,
you may begin to speak. Once a conversation begins, it is normal for eye
contact to be broken as the speaker looks away. In conversations, the person
who is speaking looks away more than the person who is listening, and
turn-taking is governed by a characteristic pattern of looking, eye contact and
looking away.
So, to signal that you have finished speaking and invite a
response, you then look back at your target again. To show interest while your
target is speaking, you need to look at his/her face about three-quarters of
the time, in glances lasting between one and seven seconds. The person speaking
will normally look at you for less than half this time, and direct eye contact
will be intermittent, rarely lasting more than one second. When your target has
finished speaking, and expects a response, he or she will look at you and make
brief eye contact again to indicate that it is your turn.
The
basic rules for pleasant conversation are: glance at the other person’s face
more when you are listening, glance away
more when you are speaking and make brief eye contact to initiate turn-taking.
The key words here are ‘glance’ and ‘brief’: avoid prolonged staring either at
the
other person or away.
The most common mistake people make when flirting is to overdo the
eye contact in a premature attempt to increase intimacy. This only makes the
other person feel uncomfortable, and may send misleading signals. Some men also
blow their chances by carrying on a conversation with a woman’s breasts, rather
than looking at her face.
Interpersonal distance
The distance you keep from the other person when flirting is
important, because it will affect his or her impression of you, and the quality
of your interaction. Perhaps even more importantly, paying attention to the
other person’s use of distance will tell you a great deal about his/her
reactions and feelings towards you.
When you first approach an attractive stranger, having established
at least an indication of mutual interest through eye contact, try to make eye
contact again at about 4ft away, before moving any closer. At 4 ft (about two
small steps away), you are on the borderline between what are known as the
‘social zone’ (4 to 12 ft) and the ‘personal zone’ (18in to 4ft).
If you receive a positive response at 4ft, move in to ‘arm’s
length’ (about 2ft 6in). If you try to approach much closer than this,
particularly if you try to cross the 18in ‘personal zone/intimate zone’ border,
your target may feel uncomfortable. The ‘intimate zone’ (less than 18in) is
reserved for lovers, family and very close friends. If you are close enough to
whisper and be heard, you are probably too close for comfort.
These distance rules apply particularly in face-to-face
encounters. We will tolerate reduced interpersonal distances when we are side
by side with someone. This is because when you are alongside someone, it is
easier to use other aspects of body language, such as turning away or avoiding
eye contact, to ‘limit’ your level of involvement with the other person.
You can therefore approach a bit closer than ‘arm’s length’ if you
are alongside your target – at the bar counter of a pub, for example – rather
than face-to-face. But be careful to avoid ‘intrusive’ body-language such as
prolonged eye contact or touching.
If you have misjudged the appropriate distance, in either a
face-to-face or side-by-side encounter, the other person’s discomfort may show
in his/her body language. Your target may attempt to turn away or avert his/her
gaze to avoid eye contact. You may also see ‘barrier signals’ such as folding
the arms or crossing knees, or rubbing the neck with the elbow pointed towards
you. If you see any of these signs, back off!
Finally,
remember that different people have different reactions to distance. If your
target is from a Mediterranean or Latin American country (known as the ‘contact
cultures’), he or she may be comfortable with closer distances than a British
or Northern European person. North Americans fall somewhere between these two
extremes. Different personality-types may also react differently to your approach:
extroverts and those who generally feel at ease in company will be comfortable
with closer distances than introverts and shy or nervous types. Even the same
person may vary in tolerance from day to day, according to mood: when we are
feeling depressed or irritable, we find close distances more uncomfortable.
Posture
Most of us are quite good at controlling our faces – maintaining
an expression of polite interest, for example, when we are really bored to
tears, or even nodding when we really disagree! But we tend to be less
conscious of what the rest of our body is doing. We may be smiling and nodding,
but unconsciously revealing our disagreement by a tense posture with tightly
folded arms. This is known as ‘non-verbal leakage’: while we’re busy controlling
our words and faces, our real feelings ‘leak out’ in our posture.
When flirting, you should therefore watch out for signs of this
‘non-verbal leakage’ in your partner’s posture – and try to send the right
signals with your own posture.
Your partner’s ‘non-verbal leakage’ can give you advance warning
that your chat-up isn’t working. If only his/her head is turned towards you,
with the rest of the body oriented in another direction, this is a sign that
you do not have your partner’s full attention. Even just the feet starting to
turn and ‘point’ away from you can be a sign that his/her attention is directed
elsewhere, or that he/she is thinking about moving away. Leaning backwards and
supporting the head on one hand are signs of boredom. ‘Closed’ postures with
arms folded and legs tightly crossed indicate disagreement or dislike.
More positive signs to watch out for would be a partner’s body
oriented towards you, particularly if he/she is also leaning forward, and an
‘open’ posture. These are signs of attentiveness and interest or liking.
Experiments have also shown that females are more likely to tilt their heads to
one side when they are interested in the person they are talking to. Men should
beware, however, of automatically assuming that these signs indicate sexual interest. Women should be aware of men’s tendency
to make such assumptions, and avoid signalling interest too obviously.
Another positive sign is what psychologists call ‘postural
congruence’ or ‘postural echo’: when your partner unconsciously adopts a
posture similar to yours. Mirror-image postural echoes – where one person’s
left side ‘matches’ the other person’s right side – are the strongest
indication of harmony and rapport between the pair. If the position of your
partner’s body and limbs appear to ‘echo’ or ‘mimic’ your own, particularly if
his/her posture is a mirror image of yours, the chances are that he/she feels
an affinity with you.
When flirting, you can also use postural echo to create a feeling of togetherness and harmony. Experiments have shown
that although people are not consciously aware of someone deliberately
‘echoing’ their postures, they will evaluate a person who does this more
favourably. If you ‘echo’ your partner’s postures, he/she will not only feel
more at ease in your company, but will perceive you as more like-minded.
This technique obviously has its limits. We would not suggest, for
example, that a woman in a mini-skirt should ‘echo’ the open-legged sitting
posture of her male companion. But if he is leaning forward with his left
forearm resting on the table, she could create a sense of common identity by
‘mirroring’ this aspect of his posture – leaning forward with her right forearm
on the table.
In addition to these ‘generic’ signals of interest, there are
specifically male and female posture signals which are often seen in
flirtatious encounters. These tend to be postures which enhance the masculine
or dominant appearance of the male, and the femininity of the female. Males may
adopt postures which make them appear taller, larger and more impressive, such
as placing hands in pockets with elbows out to enlarge the chest, or leaning
one hand at above shoulder height on a wall to appear taller and more imposing.
Females either adopt postures which make them look smaller, such as drawing the
knees towards the body when seated, or postures which draw attention to
physical attributes attractive to males, such as arching the back to display
the breasts, or crossing and re-crossing the legs to draw attention to them.
Gestures
As well as overall body posture, the gestures we use can signal
interest, attraction and invitation – or discomfort, dislike and rejection.
When flirting, it is important to be aware of these non-verbal
cues, both in ‘reading’ your partner’s body-language and in controlling the
messages you are sending with your own gestures.
In conversation, gestures are mainly used to enliven, clarify and
‘punctuate’ our speech, or to show responsiveness to what the other person is
saying. In a flirtatious encounter, the amount of gesticulation, the directions
of the gestures and the co-ordination of gestures can indicate the degree of
interest and involvement your partner feels towards you.
Different cultures vary widely in the amount of gesticulation that
accompanies their speech (Italians say that you can silence an Italian by tying
his hands behind his back), and even within a single culture, some people
naturally express themselves more through gestures than others. Generally,
however, someone who is interested in you will be more lively and animated in
conversation, using more gestures when speaking in order to keep your
attention, and more responsive gestures to show interest when you are speaking.
Similarly, you can signal interest in your partner, and keep his/her
attention focused on you, by enhancing your speech with appropriate gestures:
shifting your hands or head slightly at the end of sentences, using downward
hand movements to emphasise a point, ‘projecting’ what you are saying towards
your partner by open-palm hand movements and so on. When your partner is
speaking, you can show responsiveness by nodding in agreement, throwing up your
hands in surprise, bringing them together in a ‘silent clap’ of appreciation,
etc.
Researchers have found that nodding can be used to ‘regulate’
conversations. If you make single, brief nods while your partner is speaking,
these act as simple signs of attentiveness, which will maintain the flow of
communication from the speaker. Double nods will change the rate at which the other
person speaks, usually speeding up the flow, while triple nods or single, slow
nods often interrupt the flow altogether, confusing speakers so much that they
stop in their tracks. So, if you want to express interest and keep your partner
chatting with you, stick to brief single nods.
You can also watch for gestures which indicate anxiety and
nervousness, such as hand-clasping movements and palm-rubbing. As a general
rule, anxious gestures are directed towards the anxious person’s own body
(known as ‘proximal’ movements), while ‘distal’ movements, directed away from
the body, are a sign of confidence. As well as watching for these signals in
your partner, you can control the impression you are making by using more
confident, ‘distal’ gestures. As with posture, the greatest involvement and
harmony is achieved when gestures are synchronised – when the movements of one
person are echoed or reflected by the other. You may have noticed that this
tends to happen naturally between people who like each other and get on well
together. Watch pairs of lovers in a bar or pub, and you will see that they
often tend to lift their drinks and take a sip at the same time, and that many
of their other body movements and gestures will be similarly synchronised.
Psychologists call this ‘interactional synchrony’ or ‘gestural dance’, and some
of their research findings indicate that the timing of matched gestures may be
accurate down to fractions of a second.
Although this synchronisation normally happens without conscious
effort, you can use it as a highly effective flirting technique. If you feel
the conversation is not flowing easily, or you and partner seem awkward and
uncomfortable with each other, try to be more sensitive to the patterns of
his/her gestures and body movements, and to reflect these in your own body
language.
If your partner spontaneously begins to synchronise his/her body
language with yours, this is a sign that he/she feels comfortable with you. Men
should not assume that it necessarily indicates sexual interest, however. Women
can avoid creating this impression by reducing synchronisation, adopting a more
‘closed’ posture and avoiding the use of gestures which are specifically
associated with flirtatious behaviour. In experiments, female hair-flipping and
head-tossing were among the (non-contact) gestures most often regarded as
sexually flirtatious, along with repeated leg-crossing and movements designed
to draw attention to the breasts.
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