From the Indo:
"Is your flirting a disaster?
It’s official – men can’t tell when women fancy them. But the girls too could do with a better understanding of the signals they send to the opposite sex, writes Siobhan Cronin
All smiles: one of the best ways for a girl to let a guy know she is flirting is simply by flashing a big, wide warm smile
Be careful the next time you let your eyes wander across a crowded bar, girls! That careless readjustment of your fringe might be the signal for Lonely Larry to move in for the kill. Where you see a harmless ‘flick’, he spells something else entirely.
Or that irresistible urge to loosen your top button because you shamelessly bought a size 8 instead of your normal 10? Well, that could be the dating equivalent of putting a flashing red ‘open for business’ light above your head.
Men, it seems, just don’t understand us. And while you may wonder what’s new there, well, let’s just say that this time, it’s official.
Researchers at Indiana University recently asked students to test their abilities to spot a ‘come-on’. The students viewed images of women and categorised them as ‘friendly’, ‘sexually interested’, ‘sad’ or ‘rejecting’.
Male students were far less able to spot signals than the females – and they were particularly confused when it came to separating the sexually interested from the No Way, Joses.
The men commonly mistook women’s sexual come-ons as merely friendliness and thought the simply friendly girls were in fact sexually interested in them.
Confused yet? Well, the guys certainly were.
So now scientists reckon us gals have been giving off mixed messages for years – no doubt allowing the male-dominated world of science to globally throw its hands up in horror, in a scientifically-proven version of the Men are from Mars/Women are from Venus theory.
But this doesn’t help us solve the mess that our backwards-programmed antennae have been giving out all these thousands of years.
Author Kathy Lette seemed to sum it up when she announced: “The average bloke either doesn’t realise that we fancy them until we are giving birth to their children in the labour ward; or he presumes all women fancy him all the time.”
That just about sums up the two types of men alright.
But Ireland’s very own ‘Mr Flirt’ says it’s nothing new to him. “Us professionals have known this for years,” says psychotherapist David Kavanagh, who also runs winedaters.ie and offers dating advice to members of maybefriends.com.
“Men have always been notoriously bad at reading signs from women,” he says.
One of the main faux pas of Irish men is thinking that tactile women fancy them. “Guys think that because a girl touches them then she must really find them attractive. But some girls are just naturally tactile and it means nothing.”
Another big myth is when women twirl their hair when talking to a guy.
“This does not mean they fancy that man,” David says, emphatically. “In fact, it very often means the opposite – that they are bored.”
David runs courses in flirting for guys’n’gals who want to make the most of their nights out on the single scene. His ‘Five Go Flirting’ night is an Irish take on that famous Sex and the City episode where Carrie takes her dating class out on the town.
“One of the best ways for a girl to let a guy know she is flirting is simply by a big, wide warm smile. I was showing this to a girl one night when she smiled across the room at a guy she fancied. I walked away from her and within 10 seconds he came over to chat to her,” recalls David.
But he says a girl should be showing four or more of the golden rules of interest, if you want to check whether or not she fancies you.
“One of the big giveaways is if she is looking at your mouth,” he tells me, adding that this probably means she is subconsciously wondering what it would be like to kiss you.
A second obvious sign is if she checks out your bum. Now, unless you are a contortionist, you may need a back-up mate, or a ‘wingman’, to spot this. This is called ‘scanning’, as she assesses posture and physique.
Body language is also a huge clue, says David. “If she starts to massage her neck, stroke her skin, especially towards her chest, then she is definitely interested.”
And pulling her hair off her face, combined with a broad smile, means you have, in effect, hit the dating jackpot.
“When you are strongly attracted to someone, you maintain direct eye contact,” says our expert.
“But your body temperature also heats up by about four degrees which is why women often adjust their collars, or brush the hair off their faces when they are talking to you.”
One of the most fascinating tips, though, was the idea of ‘space invading’. If a woman wants to signal interest, she will often start moving objects in your direction, for example, her purse, or handbag, or glasses – subconsciously of course.
And if the guy starts pushing them back towards her, then this is really bad news for her.
Another obvious signal is the ‘creating intimacy’ method – for example, leaning in to whisper. This gives the other person the feeling that it’s just you and them against the world.
Both sexes tend to ‘preen’ themselves in front of the other, if they are turned on, in the same way that some animal species do. A woman may start picking lint off a jacket, while men tend to puff out their chests and check their belts.
It may be something to do with the fact that men are so poor at reading these signs – although they are fairly obvious and basic once you know them – that women do most of the initial chasing.
Studies have proven that 70pc of women do the chasing to start a relationship. And while that might sound surprising, the trick is that they often let the man think it was his idea. Take the earlier story of the lady in the bar who smiled at her potential mate. He walked over to her, thinking he was making the first move – when in fact he was just reacting to her smile. So she set the whole thing in motion.
Clever, eh?
It’s just as important for women to learn the tricks of the flirting trade as it is for men, says David. Even if it’s the men who need to start identifying them more accurately.
“Have you ever noticed a gang of women in a bar, all looking glum, or maybe with their arms folded? That is very off-putting to a man,” he warns.
“Think of it, we all want to be in the company of happy, energetic people, so if you are smiling and looking like you are having fun, that is how you will attract the men over to talk to you.”
Other studies have also shown that confidence with the opposite sex can be a generational thing. Men and women who are now in their thirties, deemed ‘Generation X’, have less ability to strike up conversations, because they were not given the huge self-belief that their younger counterparts – the Generations Ys – grew up with.
It’s all about self-esteem, and how you portray yourself.
US flirting fanatic Ben Philips thinks he has solved the confidence issues for the Generation X population of Philadelphia with his flirtingintraffic.com website. The idea is, you spot a ‘hottie’ in traffic, you note their FIT bumper sticker details, and then you can check them out on the website and send a message. He claims this method does away with the awkwardness of bars and singles’ clubs.
Somehow, I don’t see this catching on over here. A friend of mine who has had a ‘For Sale’ sign on her car window for the past few months has been pestered by heavy breathers and married men looking for a bit on the side.
It seems Irish men who read the sign think she is for sale, and not the car. Even when we write it down in black and white, they still get it wrong.
Yours in providing a service,
GSH.