I so want to kiss her but is the time right?

What will she do if I kiss her and she is not ready? Will I get slapped?

Oh that deep fear of rejection, my nemesis, stop plaguing my thoughts with doubt.

That’s it, I am going to do it. I am just going to kiss her. We have been talking long enough!

But wait… more talking…

Is it ok to interrupt her and kiss her?

Actually come to think of it do I need to say something before I kiss her?

Why is this so hard!!!??

Kissing a woman was the one thing that was always so confusing to me. It looked so easy on TV and in the movies. Just lean in and kiss her. I only wish it was so simple. So on my journey to understand myself and women I came up with two techniques that I have used over and over to get out of my head and start kissing her.

The important part of kissing is the lead up. You just can’t start kissing a girl out of the blue (well you can but not without really being able to read the situation well). If you are following the Dating Decoded method you know you should have done the following:

• Connect and relate on emotions
• Appreciate her for a character trait
• Make a Statement of Intent based on another character trait
• Understand her Relationship/Social Logistics
• Begin to flirt with something like the “Stop It!” game or other playful teasing if she responds to it (explained in my Dating Decoded Audio Workshop)

If it is all ahead go with the above then it is time to start thinking about kissing her. Here is my two favorite methods for initiating the kiss:

I Can’t.. They’re Watching

I look her deeply in the eyes and confess, “I have been thinking about kissing you for the last twenty minutes, -pause for effect-, but I can’t because the bartender is watching.”

At this point I have to read her a bit. If she seems like what I said is a positive thing or at least she isn’t leaning away or looking very uncomfortable I leave it for a moment for her response. If it is obvious I moved too fast then I just ask a completely unrelated question and keep going. I averted the disastrous rejection. More likely than not though, I have just given her a tool to give me permission to kiss her without being too forward. She will come back with “Really? I don’t think he is watching..”

I lean in to kiss her; right before it happens I pull back and say, “Damn, I just can’t. I think he is watching again.” Grinning a sly grin.

She at this point is racked with anticipation, right as she is about to say something, usually like a stammered “Uh, no.. I REALLY don’t think he is watching..” I lean in and assertively kiss her.

Adapt it to whatever situation you are in. The person watching could be the security guard, the homeless guy, if you are alone in the woods on a hike it could be that you believe big-foot is watching. It really doesn’t matter who is watching as long as it is someone who isn’t really watching.

Shh.. I am kissing you now

This is a technique that you HAVE to exude a confident mindset for. This is an all guts or no glory move but is amazing in its results.

While she is talking to you start staring deep in her eyes and occasionally at her mouth. Reach out and put your finger up to her mouth in a “Shhhh stop talking a moment” gesture. Lean in and kiss her confidently.

After the Kiss lean back and with a sly grin say “There now I can pay attention to what you were saying.”

She will usually stutter a few words and say something to the effect of “uh.. actually I completely forget what I was saying.” Kiss her again.

I remember when a girl asked me how is Bio-Diesel made when I told her I use it in my car. I think I went on for close to fifteen minutes explaining from start to finish the process from turning vegetable oil into Bio-Diesel. She finally stopped me and teased me pretty hard for it. Your date may not find it as endearing.

2 ) Being Condescending

Just because we know a lot about a lot of things never gives us the right to make someone feel stupid. Sometimes simply just taking a moment to ask “How familiar are you with it?” before explaining it as if they were five years old will allow you to save face.

3 ) Know-it-all/always being right

It is hard being smarter than everyone around us (at least we think we are). As soon as I learned to try to see someone else’s point of view fully before explaining my opinion it was a lot more comfortable to be around me. Try to see someone else’s side of things first and relate to it.

4 ) Fashion – Tennis shoes all the time

If you are the guy who wears white tennis shoes in every situation, it is time to go shopping. Buy yourself some nicer shoes for work or casual social events. You don’t have to go crazy but even some more trendy sneakers will go a long way. Sketchers make lots of inexpensive shoes that are as comfortable as tennis shoes but are a little bit more fashionable. You could even branch out and try some more fashionable going out shoes or boots. Just make sure they aren’t too out there if that is not your personality. Women do notice shoes.

5 ) Fashion – Wearing clothes that don’t fit

It is time to stop dressing like the clothes were hand-me-downs. Oversize shirts do not hide your gut or your lack of biceps. The shoulder seam of your shirts should be within an inch of the corner of your shoulder, not down on your arm. Pants should not be baggy; while they shouldn’t be skin tight they should fit well without being too constrictive. Ask a sales woman to help you find sizes that fit and try going too small and too big to understand what the right fit is.

6 ) Fashion – Out of date clothes

Wearing a t-shirt or sweatshirt that was your parting gift from high school is not a statement of loyalty; it’s a statement that you are too lazy to buy new clothes once in a while. Retire your clothes if they are out of date. I usually try to not wear clothes longer than one to two years and sometimes three if I don’t wear them that often. Subtle changes over a few years actually show up and while people may not point it out, it makes you look dated.

7 ) Texting or emailing while talking

I have a bad habit of surfing the web when talking to friends and even women. If you are having a conversation, put down the game, the phone, the email, etc. Pay attention and be in the conversation

8 ) Being defensive when teased

Roll with the punches. Learn a bit of Disqualification and stop defending yourself, they are only teasing.

9 ) Asking for feedback on a date

This is a big one. Don’t ever ask how you are doing on a date. Don’t ask whether she likes you or not or if she is having fun. Nothing shows more insecurity then checking in frequently on a date. Have fun and enjoy your time together. If she is not into you, or not having fun, that is her responsibility to end the date or tell you. It only makes it awkward for you to ask. If she says no, what are you going to do about it? Getting to the second date will tell you more than any answer she gives you.

10 ) Self Deprecating

Comedians are great at self deprecating humor. Leave it for them to do or learn to use Disqualification. While you shouldn’t be bragging, conversely don’t put yourself down. It shows a lot of insecurity. I mean honestly when a woman tells me she is fat, I almost want to smack her. It is like fishing for a compliment, I don’t want to pander to her insecurities. You shouldn’t make women feel that way either by putting yourself down.

Not everyone gets flirting. It is a special playful rapport that is like a tennis game. If you don’t return the ball the game is over. In my efforts to learn flirting I stumbled a lot and either was too forward or too oblivious to see when it was hit my way. I also know plenty of women who are just as bad. I recall one woman who I was joking around and gave her a very small playful hip bump (physical flirtation). She takes her one misstep and completely ignores it and continues the conversation. A classic example of letting the ball go by.

Flirting is all about lobbing a few tennis balls over the net until you get a return. If the person you are flirting with doesn’t return any of them you are going to have to take another approach. In fact in the method that I teach there are plenty of ways to move forward and be successful without being a good flirt. I should know I had to learn something that worked even while not being a good flirt. When you do get someone willing to flirt back with you it is an exciting fun way to amp up the sexual tension.

The first step in good flirting is to start with some small innuendo and see if they pick up on it and run with it.

Me: Well I can see why it might be difficult to explain, I’m sure they got a bit distracted talking to you.
Her: Oh really, then why is it you aren’t having any trouble?
Me: I had to fortify my defenses against your feminine charm before I came out.
Her: Oh, and how are they holding up?
Me: Well if you keep looking at me that way, I’m doomed.
Her: Well in that case. –she stares deeply in to my eyes-
Me: You win; I guess I’m just going to have to kiss you now.

Notice it started off very subtle and each time she went with it, I intensified it strongly. You know you have succeeded when she blushes, all of a sudden turns shy, or playfully hits you.

Her: I’m kicking myself now for it.
Me: Careful those sexy legs are dangerous!
Her: Nah, they are just for show.
Me: Good cause I am enjoying the show. -sly grin-
Her: -hits me in the arm playfully-

Flirting will naturally escalate to a certain point and is a great way to move things forward. If she keeps returning your flirtation, you keep going with it. If she stops by playing shy, blushing, or hits you playfully, that is a sign to stop that line of flirting for a moment and go back to normal conversation and start again with more subtle flirting. The game is simple. You throw a few flirtatious comments out until one gets accepted and returned (even if it is just an acknowledgement and a willingness for another to come) and then you make the next one a little more obvious and direct. Each time you get a return flirt you keep intensifying it until she stops returning the flirt or the flirting is diffused by her acting shy or she does the playful arm hit and or says something like “You’re bad!”

Flirting takes practice, and you are going to have to be ok with making mistakes. Sometimes you won’t get any of your flirting returned and sometimes you might come off a little too forward. That is where learning sexual barriers will come in because they will give you surefire techniques to save yourself if you were too forward. Sexual barriers work even when your with someone who is not very flirty. For a good discussion of Sexual barriers check out Sexual Escalation – Audio

Good luck on your flirting adventures and remember to have fun and don’t take anything too seriously. Get your flirt on!

Some general signs of flirting include:

Eye Contact: Does this person make eye contact with you? Do they continue to make eye contact with you? In other words, do your eyes meet repeatedly? When they do make eye contact do they hold your gaze for several seconds? These are sure signs someone has noticed you and is interested.

Pupil Size: When you get close enough to someone to have a conversation, check out their pupils. Are they bigger? I am not talking about if you are in a poorly lit environment where everyone’s pupils have to be large in order to see. When people like what they see, their pupils increase in size and they tend to blink more. Dilated pupils are also a sign of sexual arousal.

Smiling: Does this person smile when they are talking to you? Smiling is a BIG signal. It reflects a whole range of positive emotions. If someone is smiling at you they are trying to send you the signal they are enjoying themselves and in the flirting world, smiling can go a long way to making someone feel comfortable and be open to being approached.

Personal Space: This is a biggie and one of the most important body language cues to look for and be aware of. If they enter your personal space, this is an excellent sign that they want to get closer to you. But beware and pay attention because if they enter your space too quickly, they’re more aggressive and you may not want to pursue it further.

Mirroring/Moving in Synch: Does the object of your attention change their body movements to compliment yours? Do they make the same sort of body movements? If so, they are trying to establish a comfort level and show their interest.

Face to Face: When someone is interested in you they face you when talking to you. They also position their body so their knees, legs, feet, and arms extend in the direction of the person they are interested in. Keep in mind if the opposite is happening, they turn away, cross their arms and exhibit very closed off body language. If this is what you are getting from the object of your affection, it is time to move on to someone else because they are trying to show you subtly they are not interested.

Attentive Listening: Is this person paying attention to what you are saying? Are they focusing on your conversation rather than looking around the room? Do they seem interested in what you are talking about? You can tell if someone is genuinely interested in what you are saying versus being fake and making small talk while looking for the escape hatch.

A word of caution: we all know flirting can be fun and exciting and lead to opportunities to interact with others. But one thing that is not mentioned enough when discussing this subject is that people need to exercise caution when getting to know new people. Meeting new people is great but we need to remember that every one has pure motives. So please exercise good judgment when giving out personal information such as phone numbers and addresses. If you click with someone you have been flirting with and you both decide you want to take it to the next level, start by getting an email address or cell phone number and meet in public for your first couple of dates. Until you get to know someone and feel comfortable be smart. If someone really likes and respects you they will be willing to take it at your pace.

Coming up next….gender specific flirting signals.

The first thing to remember is not to take it too seriously. Flirting is meant to be a fun way to break the ice. Don’t go into thinking that you are going to date each person you flirt with or you are setting yourself up for a bunch of big letdowns. Try not to be nervous. Keep in mind that if your flirting is not reciprocated, chances are you will never see the person again anyway. Look at it as an adventure in learning, because if you pay attention, each attempt you make will improve your skills.
Before we go any further with what to do, let’s talk about what NOT to do. Rule number one: don’t flirt with someone you are not interested in. You may end up hurting someone’s feelings. And that is not cool. Don’t use people as practice if you will not be receptive to their reciprocation. You need to practice to hone your skills but make sure it is with someone who you really want to get to know…whether or not that is the outcome. Use sincerity.

Second, pick the appropriate time and place. A funeral, for example is not generally considered the best time and place. Also, if there is someone at work you are interested in, proceed with caution. If you are seen blatantly flirting with a co-worker, or worse, a boss, you will most likely be viewed as unprofessional. Not to mention that many workplaces have policies about dating among employees.

Third, don’t try to be someone or something you are not. People can spot a phony a mile away. What people appreciate the most is when someone is genuine. There is no substitute for it. Put yourself in the other person’s place. Would you want someone to feed you a total line of crap?
It is almost time to get down to the nitty gritty as they say, and talk about what to do to get your flirting off on the right foot. However, there are some general tips to keep in mind as well. If you start out with the aim of just having a conversation with someone rather than focusing on flirting with them, it will help you relax. Also, talking to someone in general is the best way to know if you do want to take it to the next level and flirt with them. They may open their mouth and what they say may be the biggest turn off to you. That has certainly happened to me. Many times have I picked a man out of the crowd, found him attractive and tried to initiate a conversation with him only to change my mind about flirting with him, much less pursuing him after he opened his mouth and was either rude, obnoxious and sometimes even flat out boring. Thank goodness I found out before I sent the signal that I was interested by flirting!

Remember that compliments go a long way and they are a great ice breaker. But be careful! Something you think is a compliment may be misinterpreted and offend someone. And again, the most important thing is to be sincere. Also, whatever you talk about, try to keep it positive. No one flocks to someone who puts out negativity.

If you don’t feel the other person is reciprocating or into you, walk away. Don’t follow them around the bar or party or wherever you are and keep trying. Not only will you look like an idiot, you will look like a stalker. Just accept it as no harm, no foul and move on.

Still to come…more tips and specific instructions for great flirting!

Flirting is fun, daring, and can be cultivated into an art form. How many times have you spotted someone across the room and felt like a magnet is drawing you to them? They catch your eye, peak your interest and when you try to get their attention and they give it to you, there is that Zing! feeling that rushes through you. The excitement, the newness, the possibility that exists as that moment! There is nothing quite like it.

Flirting serves more than one purpose. The first is obvious-it allows you to show someone you are interested. It also tells us if the interest is reciprocated. It can be a prelude to a courtship or something more casual like a sexual encounter. It can also be done as a form of entertainment, or just for fun. This, unfortunately can lead to hurt feelings on the other person’s part as they may be taking it seriously and not be aware that it is all just being done in fun. However what a lot of people don’t realize is that flirting, whether you are the flirter or the flirtee, can really boost your self confidence. We feel good about ourselves when someone flirts with us because we know someone finds us attractive. And when we flirt successfully and get the message across to someone we are interested in it can feel like hitting a home run at the World Series. Sadly, once we get into a relationship, flirting with our partner is often the first thing to go.

Sometimes, when I am out at a bar, restaurant or other public venue I like to sit back and people watch. I find this fascinating. As a sexuality educator I find one of the most interesting experiments is to watch the interactions between people in these situations. In short, watch them flirt! Next time you are in a bar take a look around and watch the body language and behavior of others. If you pay attention you can tell who is interested in whom, and how successful their efforts are. If you pay close attention you can spot people who want to flirt but can’t quite get up the nerve and the people whose flirting skills leave something to be desired.

Indeed, flirting is s skill that comes harder to some. When that person is you, it can be intimidating to watch others flirt with someone, often the same person you desire, with such ease. They seem like a natural.

The flip side of this, of course, is also knowing when someone is flirting with us. Sometimes we are in our own orbit and completely oblivious. Sometimes we don’t pick up in the signals. Sometimes we may think someone is flirting with us but are just not quite sure.

So, in the next few articles I write, we are going to take a serious look at flirting. How it is done by men and women. Are there differences between the genders? Can you tell when someone is flirting with you? How?

Stay tuned and see…..

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Flirting Fascination
The science of flirting. The capacity of men and women to flirt turns out to be a remarkable set of behaviors embedded deep in our psyches.

By: Joann Ellison Rodgers

Exactly how do we signal our amorous interest and intent in each other? It’s been trivialized, even demonized, but the coquettish behavior indulged in by men and women alike is actually a vital silent language exchanging critical-and startling-information about our general health and reproductive fitness.

“She was,” he proclaimed, “so extraordinarily beautiful that I nearly laughed out loud. She… [was] famine, fire, destruction and plague… the only true begetter. Her breasts were apocalyptic, they would topple empires before they withered… her body was a miracle of construction… She was unquestionably gorgeous. She was lavish. She was a dark, unyielding largesse. She was, in short, too bloody much… Those huge violet blue eyes… had an odd glint… Aeons passed, civilizations came and went while these cosmic headlights examined my flawed personality. Every pockmark on my face became a crater of the moon.”

So Richard Burton described his first sight of a 19-year-old Elizabeth Taylor. He didn’t record what happened next, but a growing cadre of scientists would bet their lab coats and research budgets that sometime after that breath-catching, gut-gripping moment of instant mutual awareness, Liz tossed her hair, swayed her hips, arched her feet, giggled, gazed wide-eyed, flicked her tongue over her lips and extended that apocalyptic chest, and that Dick, for his part, arched his back, stretched his pecs, imperceptibly swayed his pelvis in a tame Elvis performance, swaggered, laughed loudly, tugged his tie and clasped the back of his neck, which had the thoroughly engaging effect of stiffening his stance and puffing his chest.

What eventually got these two strangers from across the fabled crowded room to each other’s side was what does it for all of us-in a word, flirtation, the capacity to automatically turn our actions into sexual semaphores signaling interest in the opposite sex as predictably and instinctively as peacocks tan their tails, codfish thrust their pelvic fins or mice twitch their noses and tilt their backs to draw in the object of their attention.

Long trivialized and even demonized, flirtation is gaining new respectability thanks to a spate of provocative studies of animal and human behavior in many parts of the world. The capacity of men and women to flirt and to be receptive to flirting turns out to be a remarkable set of behaviors embedded deep in our psyches. Every come-hither look sent and every sidelong glance received are mutually understood signals of such transcendent history and beguiling sophistication that only now are they beginning to yield clues to the psychological and biological wisdom they encode.

This much is clear so far: flirting is nature’s solution to the problem every creature faces in a world full of potential mates-how to choose the right one. We all need a partner who is not merely fertile but genetically different as well as healthy enough to promise viable offspring, provide some kind of help in the hard job of parenting and offer some social compatibility.

Our animal and human ancestors needed a means of quickly and safely judging the value of potential mates without “going all the way” and risking pregnancy with every possible candidate they encountered. Flirting achieved that end, offering a relatively risk-free set of signals with which to sample the field, try out sexual wares and exchange vital information about candidates’ general health and reproductive fitness.

“Flirting is a negotiation process that takes place after there has been some initial attraction,” observes Steven W. Gangestad, Ph.D., an evolutionary psychologist at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque who is currently studying how people choose their mates. “Two people have to share with each other the information that they are attracted, and then test each other” on an array of attributes. Simply announcing, ‘I’m attracted to you, are you attracted to me?’ doesn’t work so well. “It works much better to reveal this and have it revealed to you in smaller doses,” explains Gangestad. “The flirting then becomes something that enhances the attraction.”

It is an axiom of science that traits and behaviors crucial to survival-such as anything to do with attraction and sex-require, and get, a lot of an animal’s resources. All mammals and most animals (including birds, fish, even fruit flies) engage in complicated and energy-intensive plots and plans for attracting others to the business of sex. That is, they flirt.

From nature’s standpoint, the goal of life is the survival of our DNA. Sex is the way most animals gain the flexibility to healthfully sort and mix their genes. Getting sex, in turn, is wholly dependent on attracting attention and being attracted. And flirting is the way a person focuses the attention of a specific member of the opposite sex. If our ancestors hadn’t done it well enough, we wouldn’t be around to discuss it now.

A silent language of elaborate visual and other gestures, flirting is “spoken” by intellect-driven people as well as instinct-driven animals. The very universality of flirting, preserved through evolutionary history from insects to man, suggests that a flirting plan is wired into us, and that it has been embedded in our genes and in our brain’s operating system the same way and for the same reasons that every other sexual trait has been-by trial and error, with conservation of what works best.

Like any other language, flirting may be deployed in ways subtle or coarse, adolescent or suave. Nevertheless, it has evolved just like pheasant spurs and lion manes: to advertise ourselves to the opposite sex.

Flirtation first emerged as a subject of serious scrutiny a scant 30 years ago. Irenaus Eibl-Eibesfeldt, now honorary director of the Ludwig-Bohzmann Institute for Urban Ethology in Vienna, was already familiar with the widespread dances and prances of mate-seeking animals. Then he discovered that people in dozens of cultures, from the South Sea islands to thc Far East, Western Europe, Africa and South America, similarly engage in a fairly fixed repertoire of gestures to test sexual availability and interest.

Having devised a special camera that allowed him to point the lens in one direction while actually photographing in another, he “caught” couples on film during their flirtations, and discovered, for one thing, that women, from primitives who have no written language to those who read Cosmo and Marie Claire, use nonverbal signals that are startlingly alike. On Eibl-Eibesfeldt’s screen flickered identical flirtation messages: a female smiling at a male, then arching her brows to make her eyes wide, quickly lowering her lids and, tucking her chin slightly down and coyly to the side, averting her gaze, followed within seconds, almost on cue, by putting her hands on or near her mouth and giggling.

Regardless of language, socioeconomic status or religious upbringing, couples who continued flirting placed a palm up on the table or knees, reassuring the prospective partner of harmlessness. They shrugged their shoulders, signifying helplessness. Women exaggeratedly extended their neck, a sign of vulnerability and submissiveness.

For Eibl-Eibesfeldt, these gestures represented primal behaviors driven by the old parts of our brain’s evolutionary memory. A woman presenting her extended neck to a man she wants is not much different, his work suggested, than a gray female wolf’s submissiveness to a dominant male she’s after.

Since then, researchers have turned up the intensity, looking, for example, at compressed bouts of flirting and courtship in their natural habitat-hotel bars and cocktail lounges. From observations at a Hyatt hotel cocktail lounge, researchers documented a set of signals that whisks a just-met man and woman from barroom to bedroom. Her giggles and soft laughs were followed by hair twirling and head-tossing; he countered with body arching, leaning back in the chair and placing his arms behind head, not unlike a pigeon puffing his chest.

If all went well, a couple would invariably progress from touching themselves to touching each other. The first tentative contacts could be termed “lint-picking.” She would lift an imaginary mote from his lapel; he would brush a real or imaginary crumb from her lips. Their heads moved closer, their hands pressed out in front of them on the table, their fingers inches from each other’s, playing with salt shakers or utensils. Whoops! An “accidental” finger touch, then perhaps some digital “dirty dancing,” more touching and leaning in cheek to cheek. By body language alone, the investigators could predict which pairs would ride up the elevators together.

Social psychologist Timothy Perper, Ph.D., an independent scholar and writer based in Philadelphia, and anthropologist David Givens, Ph.D., spent months in dimly lit lounges documenting these flirtation rituals. Like the ear wiggles, nose flicks and back arches that signal “come hither” in rodents, the women smiled, gazed, swayed, giggled, licked their lips, and aided and abetted by the wearing of high heels, they swayed their backs, forcing their buttocks to tilt out and up and their chests to thrust forward.

The men arched, stretched, swiveled, and made grand gestures of whipping out lighters and lighting up cigarettes. They’d point their chins in the air with a cigarette dangling in their mouth, then loop their arms in a wide arc to put the lighter away. Their swaggers, bursts of laughter and grandiose gestures were an urban pantomime of the prancing and preening indulged in by male baboons and gorillas in the wild. Man or monkey, the signals all said, “Look at me, trust me, I’m powerful, but I won’t hurt you.” And “I don’t want anything much… yet.”

All the silent swaying, leaning, smiling, bobbing and gazing eventually brought a pair into full frontal alignment. Face to face, they indulged in simultaneous touching of everything from eyeglasses to fingertips to crossed legs. Says Perper, “This kind of sequence-attention, recognition, dancing, synchronization-is fundamental to courtship. From the Song of Songs until today, the sequence is the same: look, talk, touch, kiss, do the deed.”

The fact that flirting is a largely nonexplicit drama doesn’t mean that important information isn’t being delivered in those silent signals. By swaying her hips, or emphasizing them in a form-fitting dress, a flirtatious woman is riveting attention on her pelvis, suggesting its ample capacity for bearing a child. By arching her brows and exaggerating her gaze, her eyes appear large in her face, the way a child’s eyes do, advertising, along with giggles, her youth and “submissiveness.” By drawing her tongue along her lips, she compels attention to what many biologists believe are facial echoes of vaginal lips, transmitting sexual maturity and her interest in sex. By coyly averting her gaze and playing “hard to get,” she communicates her unwillingness to give sex to just anyone or to someone who will love her and leave her.

For his part, by extending a strong chin and jaw, expanding and showing off pectoral muscles and a hairy chest, flashing money, laughing loudly or resonantly, smiling, and doing all these things without accosting a woman, a man signals his ability to protect offspring, his resources and the testosterone-driven vitality of his sperm as well as the tamer side of him that is willing to stick around, after the sex, for fatherhood. It’s the behavioral equivalent of “I’ll respect you in the morning.”

“I can’t tell you why I was attracted to her the instant she walked into my office,” recalls a 32-year-old screenwriter. “It was chemistry. We both flirted and we both knew it would lead nowhere. I’m happily married.” The statement is almost stupefyingly commonplace, but also instructive. Each of us “turns on” not to mankind or womankind but to a particular member of the opposite sex. Certain stances, personal styles, gestures, intimations of emotional compatibility, perhaps even odors, automatically arouse our interest because they not only instantly advertise genetic fitness but they match the template of Desired Mate we all carry in our mind’s eye.

As with Dick and Liz, or any couple, the rational, thinking part of their brains got them to the place where girl met boy; they had the event on their calendars, planned what they would wear, arranged for transportation. But in that first meeting, their capacity to react with their instinct and hearts, not their heads, overrode their cognitive brains. Otherwise, they might: not have had the nerve to look at each other.

The rational brain is always on the lookout for dangers, for complexities, for reasons to act or not act. If every time man and woman met they immediately considered all the possible risks and vulnerabilities they might face if they mated or had children, they’d run screaming from the room.

It’s no secret that the brain’s emotionally loaded limbic system sometimes operates independently of the more rational neocortex, such as in the face of danger, when the fight-or-flight response is activated. Similarly, when the matter is sex-another situation on which survival depends-we also react without even a neural nod to the neocortex. Instead, the flirtational operating system appears to kick in without conscious consent. If, at the moment they had met, Dick and Liz had stopped to consider all the possible outcomes of a relationship, they both would have been old before they got close enough to speak.

The moment of attraction, in fact, mimics a kind of brain damage. At the University of Iowa, where he is professor and head of neurology, Antonio Damasio, M.D., has found that people with damage to the connection between their limbic structures and the higher brain are smart and rational-but unable to make decisions. They bring commitment phobia to a whole new level. In attraction, we don’t stop and think, we react, operating on a “gut” feeling, with butterflies, giddiness, sweaty palms and flushed faces brought on by the reactivity of the emotional brain. We suspend intellect at least long enough to propel us to the next step in the mating game-flirtation.

Somewhere beyond flirtation, as a relationship progresses, courtship gets under way, and with it, intellectual processes resume. Two adults can then evaluate potential mates more rationally, think things over and decide whether to love, honor and cherish. But at the moment of attraction and flirtation, bodies, minds and sense are temporarily hostage to the more ancient parts of the brain, the impulsive parts that humans share with animals.

If flirting is a form of self promotion, nature demands a certain amount of truth in advertising. “For a signaling system to convey something meaningful about a desirable attribute, there has to be some honesty,” explains Gangestad, “so that if you don’t have the attribute you can’t fake it.” Just as the extravagant colors of birds that figure so prominently in their flirting rituals proclaim the health of animals so plumed, humans have some signals that can’t be faked.

Waist-hip ratio is likely one of them. It’s no secret that men snap to attention and even go dry at the mouth at the sight of a shapely woman. Science has now calculated just how curvy a woman has to be to garner such appreciation: the waist must measure no more than 60 to 70% of her hip circumference. It is a visual signal that not only figures powerfully in attraction but is a moving force in flirtation. And unless steel-boned corsets stage a comeback, it is an attribute that just can’t be put into play unless it is real.

In simplest terms, says Gangestad, waist-hip ratio is an honest indicator of health. Studies have shown that hourglass-shaped women are less likely than other women to get diabetes and cardiac disease. They are also most likely to bear children, as hips take their shape at puberty from the feminizing hormone estrogen.

“The literature shows that women with a 0.7 waist-hip ratio have a sex-typical hormone profile in the relationship of estrogen to testosterone, and that women with a straighter torso, meaning a waist-hip ratio closer to 1:1, indeed have lower fertility,” Gangestad reports. “It appears that males have evolved to pay attention to this cue that ancestrally was related to fertility.”

The virtually visceral responsiveness to physical features in flirtation may also be as good a guarantee as one can get that a potential partner shapes up on a hidden but crucial aspect of health immunity to disease. Scientists know that the testosterone that gives men jutting jaws, prominent noses and big brows, and, to a lesser extent, the estrogen that gives women soft features and curving hips, also suppresses the ability to fight disease. But looks have their own logic, and bodies and faces that are exemplars of their gender signal that their bearer has biological power to spare; after all, he or she has survived despite the hormonal “handicap.”

Take the case of such elaborate male ornamentation as peacock tails and stag antlers. In the 1980s, evolutionary biologists William Hamilton and Marlena Zuk linked such features to inborn resistance to disease parasites. Antlers and tail feathers are known to be attractive to females of their species and are major machinery of flirtation. But developing and maintaining such extravagant equipment is costly, taking huge nutritional resources and even slowing the animals down, making them more vulnerable to predators.

The only animals that can afford such ornamentation are those with tiptop constitutions. So, like big bones, big horns, big tails and big spurs in animals, jutting-jaws are honest markers for a healthy immune system. Scientists point out that such features are in fact respected by other men as well as attractive to women. Studies show that tall, square-jawed men achieve higher ranks in the military than do those with weak chins.

Whatever specific physical features men and women are primed to respond to, they all have a quality in common-symmetry. That is, attributes deemed attractive have an outward appearance of evenness and right-left balance. Unlike the color and condition of tail feathers, symmetry serves not so much as an honest marker of current health status, but as a signal of a general capacity to be healthy. Symmetry, says Gangestad, is “a footprint left by your whole developmental history.” It alone explains why Elizabeth Taylor, Denzel Washington and Queen Nefertiti are universally recognized as beautiful-and full of sex appeal.

“Bilateral symmetry is a hot topic these days,” beams Albert Thornhill, a biologist at the University of New Mexico and a pioneer in the study of symmetry in attraction and flirtation. He and Gangestad believe it is a marker of “developmental precision,” the extent to which a genetic blueprint is realized in the flesh despite all the environmental and other perturbations that tend to throw development off course.

Recent studies conducted by the two demonstrate not only that women prefer symmetrical men, they prefer them at a very specific time-when they are most fertile. “We found that female preferences change across the menstrual cycle,” Gangestad reports. “We think the finding says something about the way female mate preferences are designed. Because the preference for male symmetry is specific to the time of ovulation, when women are most likely to conceive, we think women are choosing a mate who is going to provide better genes for healthy babies. It’s an indirect benefit, rather than a direct or material benefit to the female herself.”

In their study, 52 women rated the attractiveness of 42 men-by their smell. Each of the men slept in one T-shirt for two nights, after which the women were given a whiff of it. Prior to the smell test, all the men had undergone careful calipered measurement of 10 features, from ear width to finger length. Those whose body features were the most symmetrical were the ones whose smells were most preferred, but only among women who were in the ovulatory phase of their menstrual cycle. At other times in their cycle, women had no preference either for symmetrical or asymmetrical males.

The preference for symmetry is not limited to humans. Thornhill first stumbled upon symmetry two decades ago, during experiments with scorpion flies in Australia, Japan and Europe. He noticed that females chose particular male flies on the basis of the level and quality of “nuptial gifts,” nutrients passed to the female during courtship and mating.

“That was the first inkling I had that insects were very sophisticated about their mating strategies,” Thornhill recalls. But the more time he spent recording the sexual lives of scorpion flies, the more he realized that the females were selecting partners long before they sampled any gifts, and they were reckoning by the symmetry of the males’ wings. “I discovered that males and females with the most symmetrical wings had the most mating success and that by using wing symmetry, I-and presumably the fly-could predict reproductive fitness better than scent or any other factor.”

Since then, Thornhill and colleagues around the world have conducted more than 20 separate tests of symmetry of everything from eyes, ears and nostrils to limbs, wrists and fingers. Even if they never speak a word or get closer than a photograph, women view symmetrical men as more dominant, powerful, richer and better sex and marriage material. And symmetrical men view themselves the same way! Men, for their part, rate symmetrical women as more fertile, more attractive, healthier and better sex and marriage material, too-just as such women see themselves as having a competitive edge in the mating sweepstakes.

Flirtation, it turns out, is most successful among the most symmetrical. Men’s bodily symmetry matches up with the number of lifetime sex partners they report having. Symmetrical men also engage in more infidelity in their romantic relationships-”extra-pair copulations” in the language of the lab. And they get to sex more quickly after meeting a romantic partner compared to asymmetrical men. They lose their virginity earlier in life, too.

When women flirt with symmetrical men, what their instincts are reading might once have been banned in Boston. Male symmetry is also shorthand for female sexual satisfaction. Gangestad and Thornhill surveyed 86 couples in 1995 and found that symmetrical men “fire off more female copulatory orgasms than asymmetrical men.” Women with symmetrical partners were more than twice as likely to climax during intercourse. Thrills are only a short-term payoff, however; female orgasm is really a shill for fertilization, pulling sperm from the vagina into the cervix.

Successful as symmetrical men are at flirtation, it’s only their presumably better genes that women really want. Women definitely do not prefer symmetrical men for long-term relationships. There’s a definite downside to getting someone with really good DNA. Symmetry, Gangestad explains, affords those men who possess it to take a dastardly mating strategy. His studies show that symmetrical men invest less in any one romantic relationship-less time, less attention, less money and less fidelity. They’re too busy spreading around their symmetry. “They also tend to sexualize other women more,” Gangestad reports. “It may be that males who can have the most access without giving a lot of investment take advantage of that.”

A guy who will stick around and help out with parenting is on most women’s wish list of qualities in a mate, Gangestad concedes. “I wouldn’t exclude the possibility that men have been doing some direct parental care for some time, and so a preference for that might also have an evolutionary basis.” But also on a woman’s wish list from an evolutionary standpoint would be someone who is going to provide good genes for healthy babies. Unfortunately, says the Albuquerque researcher, “what can and does happen in a mating market is that those things don’t all come in the same package.”

Although the signals and semaphores of flirting are largely devoid of explicit content, the style with which one flirts can be downright revelatory. “How a person flirts honestly reveals some important qualities about an individual,” says Gangestad. Symmetry isn’t everything; there are signals of more subtle skills.

In some species, the females watch the males fight each other and then choose the one who can hold the central territory But we humans are more differently evolved creatures with more complex lives in which our higher faculties presumably contribute something to success, whether it’s surviving in primitive equatorial caves or sophisticated urban ones.

Enter creativity, humor and intelligence. Deployed in flirting, they disclose more about an individual person than all the antlers do about leching animals. “They are likely saying something important about our very viability,” says Gangestad. “When we can engage in humor and creativity, they act as an honest signal that we’ve got a reasonably well put together nervous system. They may indicate there’s some developmental integrity underneath our brain.” And a certain ability to withstand whatever challenges life throws a person’s way.

What’s more, our basic social ability to “read” another’s facial gestures and emotional expressions acts as a fact-checking system in flirtation. It enables us to glimpse the tone of a prospective mate’s inner life and to check for the presence or absence of psychological weakness. And in fact, women are pretty good at doping out information about such important attributes-even when they get very little time to make a judgment.

In a recent set of studies, Gangestad and a colleague extracted one-minute segments from more extensive videotaped interviews with men not in committed relationships. The brief segments were then shown to women who were asked to rate the men on a variety of characteristics, including how attractive they’d be in a pair relationship. The women were able to make judgments about each man’s intelligence, ability to be caring and how nice he seemed. They also paid attention to another set of characteristics-how effective a man was likely to be with other males, how socially influential he was.

The men who were rated most attractive for long-term relationships scored high on both sets of characteristics. But what may be most notable about the study was that women’s observations, from a mere snippet of videotape, were remarkably accurate. They correlated closely with the men’s ratings of their own personality.

After two people share the information that they are attracted, then, through the way they flirt, they may unwittingly let on more about themselves. “It becomes a testing ground as well as an information-revealing process,” says Gangestad.

Thus, while we appear to be pre-programmed with an urge to wile or wiggle our way onto another’s mental radar screen, we also seem psychologically constituted to pay rapt attention to looks and actions intended to be sexually appealing. Otherwise, neither Liz and Dick nor any two contenders would have a reliable, safe or peaceful means of communicating attraction and getting to the more durable business of courtship, mating and commitment to the offspring that will carry our DNA into the next generation.

Psychology Today Magazine, Jan/Feb 1999
Last Reviewed 19 Jan 2006
Article ID: 575