Okay, confession time: I don’t know how to flirt. It was never something I learned from my parents, I didn’t pick it up on the streets, and I never had an opportunity to use it, anyway.
But enough about me. I’m less curious about the mechanics of the darn thing and more interested in hearing how individual Dopers flirt. What techniques do you use when you want to catch the eye of that special someone? What amusing anecdotes do you have from flirting? Or is it easier to just flash a handful of credit cards and beat off the admirers with a stick?
Breathing through your mouth? The other person probably thinks you have sinus difficulties. No smiling? The other person probably thinks you’re a serial killer.
Try eye contact–non threating, that is. The object is to show interest, not make the other person paranoid. Eye contact, in combination with a smile, that casually slides away, then returns is a flirt motion. If a women touches her hair, and better yet, if she touches the other person, is always a good sign.
Of course, some men have been known to subscribe to the idea of flirting by touching themselves, but I wouldn’t suggest that.
Poorly. I got a burger at Hardee’s a couple days ago and the cute girl working there tried flirting with me by asking, “So, how does a skinny guy like you eat a number 8, anyway?”
The only response I could think of was, “It’s easy. I just put it in my mouth and chew.”
IIRC the most important thing about flirting is that you have to be really really relaxed or you’ll just scare the living daylights out of the flirtee. The best way of being relaxed around someone is to get yourself mentally into a place where they are not a threat to you and you’re not worried about their opinion of you. So ideally you should be flirting with people you don’t want to like you.
In which case why bother? Instead of flirting, why not work hard and save money? By the time you’re seventy you’ll have enough money for a place of your own, and cable, and broadband, and you won’t need ANYBODY!
I think not looking at it as a means to an end is a good way to start. Just talk to people. Make the focus getting to know them, and let things proceed where they will. Eye contact helps with that, as does a willingness to be the one to start the conversation.
I think flirting is more of an attitude than any particular “lines” or “moves.” It’s mostly just about being playful, making yourself seem fun and interesting. Smiling and laughing (at appropriate times) never hurts. And flirting usually involves getting a little giddy if the other person is responding well to you. Maybe a (seemingly innocent ) touch on the hand or shoulder while you’re talking…
I know a guy that will, after the second date or so, either paying for dinner or something, will whip out an old paycheck stub and tell his girl to hold it, while he pulls his money out. This is usually the same check stub he uses with different girls. The check is for a large sum of money. I guess he thinks he has to prove something. Sad.
Mostly I puke on their shoes. Then I burst into tears and start sobbing. After a while, if they’re still around, I ask them for a kleenex and blow my nose.
Add me to the “badly” list – both on the serve and the return. On the first one, I always seem to have left the extra wit in my other pants. On the latter, I’m one of the army of men out there who seem to need to have her approach me with a large-lettered plackard and a bullhorn and grab me by the collar to make her intentions known…
Of course, it all depends on how you said that, but I think with the right delivery that’s really funny. But then I figured out a long time ago that my sense of humor doesn’t fit in with everyone else’s.
I also sometimes go for the 3rd-grade-style making fun of the other person. Just don’t do that exclusively. But sometimes, it’s cool. Other than that, smile. A lot. More than you’d like to. And I giggle, apparently, which annoys me to no end. I am not a giggly kind of girl! :mad:
If I’m at a party, I’ll ask a woman to dance. Then I’ll hold onto her really tightly. After the dance is over, I tell her how depressed I am, and how much better she’s made me feel.
Okay, semi-seriously. I maintain that I don’t flirt, but I find it easy to be nice to women. Whenever I start doing small talk with them, my wife tells me I was flirting. So I guess maybe that’s all there is to it.
The thing about women touching their hair is real. But if they start playing with it, or worse, start braiding it, things probably aren’t going too well.
I was hosting a party way back when I was in college, and a very cute woman in my class told me she was in love with me and tried to drag me into my bedroom.
I resisted, because I wasn’t sure I was reading her intentions clearly, I was desperately afraid of overstepping my bounds, and I didn’t want her to get the wrong impression about me. Nothing happened with us, then or ever.
I’m married now, so I don’t need to worry about this stuff any more, but I have no confidence I’d be any better at recognizing the “signals” now than I was then.
“Hey (insert name of female doper who has fessed up to being single and between the ages of 22 and 34, and who appears to have a modicum of smarts), how you doin’?”
So far it’s resulted in some interested correspondence and a few face-to-face meetings, but nothing particularly earthshaking.
