A side trip in my quest for knowledge

[kellinator]

Can someone please teach me how to flirt?

Comments

[deza.livejournal.com]

Sure. You just have to come to florida for lessons. ;)

[taybar19.livejournal.com]

you can practice with me, im just 2 hours from you

[shadowkatt.livejournal.com]

I'll teach ya!

First lesson: Don't keep your hips tight. Let them sway when you walk, but don't push it. There's a line between loosening your hips and looking goofy.

[tarpo.livejournal.com]

You mean we aren't already?

[kellinator.livejournal.com]

It appears I am a bad student ;)

[tarpo.livejournal.com]

I'll remind you from now on.. a subtle facial gesture to let you know we are flirting..

I mention that I am subtle as a bag of hammers?

I can do that!!!

[satia.livejournal.com]

I am a brilliant and even outrageous flirt.

[atomicnumber51.livejournal.com]

Some day I will put together my corespondence and 2-day seminar course in flirting... I will be a female Frank TJ Mackey yelling about how guys should, "respect the cunt!"

;-)

Re:

[kellinator.livejournal.com]

Well, you better start sharing your secrets with a certain Ravenclaw or 50 points will be deducted from Slytherin... ;)

[atomicnumber51.livejournal.com]

Hrm... let's see what I can come up with...

0) Smile. A lot.

1) His jokes are funny, even when they're not funny, they're funny.

2) You enjoy taking the time to talk and flirt with him, but if he disappeared, it wouldn't be a big loss for you. Cultivate an air of nonchalance.

3) When he askes you about yourself, give short, cute and vague answers. He thinks he wants to know about you, but he doesn't. He wants to talk about himself, encourage this.

4) Once you're both relaxed, casually touch him. Like brush your fingers against his upper arm when you laugh, pick lint off his shirt, straighten his tie, it doesn't matter, as long as it's a very light, subtle touch. It should be outwardly innocuous and ambiguous. If you two are connecting, he'll know what it means.

5) Ask him about his interests, better yet, ask him what he's passionate about. (I know, it sounds stupid and corny, but it works.) Once he answers, there are two acceptable responses: a) it's something you also love and know a lot about - talk shop, and play the "we have something in common" card. b) it's something you know nothing about, or something you have a reasonable knowledge of, but not in depth - feign ignorance. "No way! You know, I've always been curious about X, but I don't know anything about it!" Let him feel like a stud by letting him be the expert and tell you all about it.

Basicly, it all comes down to: You are charming, desirable, and just a little bit unavailable. He feels like a stud for overcoming that feigned unavailableness. He has to feel like he has charmed you or intelectually impressed you, dazzled you with his razor-sharp wit, or in some other way "proven" his desirableness. All of this needs to happen in a lighthearted way, so that both of you know that deep down it's all a game of ego-stroking.

Wow, this got long-winded fast... and it's not even an exhaustive guide. I could keep this up for pages and pages. yikes.

Re: Speaking as a male.

[atomicnumber51.livejournal.com]

1) did I say fake laughter? Part of the mindset of flirting is that his jokes are genuinely funny to you, even when they're not. It's all in the hed, when you get it right, it's not forced laughter. It's hard to explain.

2) a short, to the point and very general category-type description of what I do is enough. No guy has ever, when first flirting with him been actually interested in what I do. I save that stuff for the first actual date. Maybe it's my own personal experience, since my job both looks boring from the outside, and seems to come off as intimidating. (I work for a consulting firm, doing actuarial analysis of health insurance premiums and reserves. Saying anything more detailed than "I'm a consultant" goes over like a lead zeppelin.)

3) In California hippy-dippy land (heh) this is a perfectly normal question. ;-) I've both asked it and had it asked of me. I'd never say it in a breathy hyper-flirtatious 40's movie star voice, but in a casual, "What make's you tick, what are you passionate about?" way. This has, recently, gotten responses like, "I write music and I'm putting a band togethr," and, "I love skiing and mountain climbing." It's never failed at getting a shy guy to come out of his shell.

Hrm. Maybe it's regional, maybe it's a delivery thing.

Viewpoints from the other camp

[wolfieboy.livejournal.com]

This wouldn't work for me on a few levels.

1) If they're not funny, they're not funny. finding a way to make them funny would work but really isn't necessary.

2) nonchalance can easily be mapped into rejection. Mae West: A man is more interested in a woman who is interested in him than a nice pair of legs.

3) What an utter and complete turn-off. Next! If I can't find out about you and what you like, then you are either a) too shallow to care about or b) not really interested and wondering how you can get away.

4) straighten his tie? That's assuming a *lot* of intimacy. Brushing the arm, keeping eye contact, casually resting your hand on his arm work though.

5) The first part of this works. One of my favorite questions that I ask when I feel a rapport building is "What motivates you? What gets you going?" But I need to know this about you as well as expressing my own.

It's a game of give and take. Otherwise it's just a modified form of "Oh, you're so big and strong!". *shudder*

The greatest gift that you can give is attention. While flirting concentrate on him. As he shares of himself, share of yourself to the degree you are comfortable. Aloofness, vague anawers, and unwillingness to share of yourself as I share of myself are the best ways for me to move onto the next person.

[atomicnumber51.livejournal.com]

3) My answer to "so, what do you do?" is: "I'm a consultant, I work for one of the big four accounting firms," Not, "I do actuarial analysis of health plan premiums and reserves." There is definately a place for short, fairly vague answers. That doesn't mean I won't interact, but you're not getting my life story or, for that matter, too many identifying details in a bar. Too many psychos out there.

4) I'll be the first to admit, I'm a very physical flirt, I get into a guy's personal space pretty much as soon as his body language signifies he won't mind. I'm a big fan of the flirtatious lint pick/tie straighten, this works best when the tie isn't actually crooked or there is no actual lint.

I always give a guy plenty of hooks to get talking. The key from my perspective is not to make him do all of the work, but to guide the conversation so that he has a lot to say. And that takes a lot of subtlety, but the key at all times, like I said in my first comment, is to genuinely make the guy feel like he's really impressing me, and that I find what he has to say interesting. I can hardly do that with, "uh uh, whatever"-type responses.

[seaofsin.livejournal.com]

be yourself, smile, and make eye contact

[fridgemagnet.livejournal.com]

Actually, something occurs to me... there are different types of flirting. There's deliberate goal flirting where you want to get off with someone, and there's casual flirting where you just want a bit of interest for a little while but it's just part of the usual social thing. The latter is pretty harmless, I don't mind if my girlfriend does it (which she does) and I do it myself.

Anyway, I think the important things are:

1. "I'm interested in you, but I'm not desperate". You express interest through little things like eye contact, fleeting physical contact depending on the situation, taking an interest in what they're saying. But there always has to be the sense that you might disappear if they don't do anything about it, otherwise they don't try and it's no fun. So if they're starting to move off the topic of you, impressing you or concentrating on you, you start mentioning or implying other alternatives, but always leave them an easy way back in.

2. "I'm going to make you feel good for talking to me, so you want to talk to me again." People like talking about themselves, usually, so you listen to them and display that what they have to say it interesting to you ("tell me more about the Lord Of The Rings", "that's a really interesting thing to say" etc). If they like to listen to you instead, you have to go on about yourself and prove you're fascinating, which is harder work and usually not worth it.

[indiepunkrock.livejournal.com]

I'd be happy to help.

although I think it's important for you to know that my current tactic is to chase down the boys I think are cute on campus and ask for his name. So far this has been unsuccessful..but I get a lot of names that way.

[atomicnumber51.livejournal.com]

This is directed at guys, but it makes a lot of good points about a lot of dating/relationship things.

Yes, written by ESR, yes, Eric Raymond, *that* Eric Raymond, Open Source Eric Raymond.

[Sex Tips For Geeks]

no, but...

[sujata.livejournal.com]

If you master flirtation, would you be kind enough to tutor me? Who knows, someday I might haul myself outta this funk and decide it's time I found Mr. or Ms. Right. *wry grin*