How long has flirting been around

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. 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 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. 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. 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.

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. 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.

You may also see 'barrier signals' such as folded or tightly crossed legs, 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. 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. Leaning backwards and supporting the head on one hand are signs of boredom. 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. 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.

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.

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.

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. 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.

An ability to 'read' and interpret the facial expressions of your partner will improve your chances of successful flirting, as will awareness of what you are signalling with your own expressions. Some expressions can be effective even from a distance, as in the 'across a crowded room' encounter with a stranger. The 'eyebrow-flash', for example, which involves raising the eyebrows very briefly — for about one-sixth of a second — is used almost universally as a long-distance greeting signal.

When you see someone you know, but are not near enough to speak, the eyebrow-flash shows that you have noticed and recognised them. We all use this non-verbal "Hello! Watch a video of Andrew and Fergie's wedding, for example, and you will see that Fergie performs frequent eyebrow-flashes as she walks down the aisle. Social etiquette does not allow a bride to call out cheery greetings to her friends and relations during the ceremony, but the highly sociable Fergie is clearly unable to refrain from signalling the same greetings with her eyebrows.

If you are desperate to attract the attention of an attractive stranger across a crowded party, you could try an eyebrow-flash. This should make your target think that you must be a friend or acquaintance, even though he or she does not recognise you.

When you approach, your target may thus already be wondering who you are. You can, if you are skilful, use this confusion to initiate a lively discussion about where you might have met before. Such conversations inevitably centre on possible shared interests or friends or habits, and invariably involve mutual disclosure of at least some personal information.

As you will learn from the 'Verbal flirting' sections of this Guide, these are essential ingredients of successful flirting. So, assuming your target finds you attractive, an eyebrow-flash with appropriate follow-up could leapfrog you into instant intimacy. Two warnings are necessary here: 1 If your target does not find you attractive, the eyebrow-flash strategy may backfire, as the confusion over whether or not you already know each other will be experienced as unpleasant and annoying, rather than amusing.

If your target is attracted to you, this may be more evident in facial expressions than in words. Studies have found that women are generally better than men at reading these expressions, but that both sexes have equal difficulty in seeing through people's expressions when they are controlling their faces to hide their real feelings. The problem is that although faces do express genuine feelings, any facial expression that occurs naturally can also be produced artificially for a social purpose.

Smiles and frowns, to take the most obvious examples, can be spontaneous expressions of happiness or anger, but they can also be manufactured as deliberate signals, such as frowning to indicate doubt or displeasure, smiling to signal approval or agreement, etc. Feelings can also be hidden under a 'social' smile, a 'stiff upper lip' or a blank, 'inscrutable' expression. Despite this potential for 'deceit', we rely more on facial expressions than on any other aspect of body language.

In conversation, we watch our companions' faces rather than their hands or feet, and rely on their facial signals to tell us what effect we are having, and how to interpret what they say. By the late s, all earlier meanings of the word had begun to die away, so that by the turn of the century the modern meaning of flirting had fully established itself in the language.

The days of fluttering hand-held fans and glances across ballrooms might be long gone, but flirting remains with us. But with over posts to reformat, well—apologies, this might take a while It is therefore difficult to know whether it was common, and whether it appeared under the influence of the English verb or, conversely, whether the use of the latter was influenced by it.

And the following is from A Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues , by Randle Cotgrave bagasse , baggage , quean , jill and punk mean prostitute : Bagasse: feminine.

This is first recorded in The essayes, or morall, politike, and millitarie discourses of Lord Michaell de Montaigne , a translation of the Essays by Michel de Montaigne ; John Florio , teacher of languages, lexicographer and author of Anglo-Italian origin, used flurting to render French hochant du nez : Diogenes […] flurting at Alexander.

And particularly shewing, The Distresses that may attend the Misconduct Both of Parents and Children, In Relation to Marriage , an epistolary novel by the English printer and author Samuel Richardson : She was not one of those flirts , not she, who would give pain to a person that deserved to be well-treated.

In the New English Dictionary edition , as the Oxford English Dictionary was known, the earliest recorded use of the noun flirting in the sense of the action of playing at courtship , is from The Tatler of 30th April reprint It is matter of much speculation among the beaux and oglers, what it is that can have made so sudden a change, as has been of late observed, in the whole behaviour of Pastorella, who never sat still a moment till she was eighteen, which she has now exceeded by two months.

However, the following meaning of French fleureter is very close to one of the senses of the English verb flirt ; it was recorded by Randle Cotgrave in the above-mentioned French-English dictionary : Fleureter. Like this: Like Loading Follow Following. Sign me up. Already have a WordPress. Log in now. In , Jeffrey A.

Hall and Chong Xing published research that suggests there are five different styles of flirting. In , they followed up on this research by breaking down each style into a series of verbal and nonverbal behaviors. Here are some key behaviors of each type, as described by Susan Krauss Whitbourne on Psychology Today :.

You can take a quiz , developed by Hall to figure out which style best describes you. If you're flirting with someone perceived as higher status than you, being more subtle will lead to more success, according to research. A study conducted by University of Pennsylvania professors found flirters who can adjust how overtly they flirt will have the best success. If successful, flirting can lead others to think you are also funny or creative, as well as attractive.

The website analyzed 60, messages on dating apps to find the words that got the best responses. Women messaging men first receive responses less often, but using the word "nice" works best. Scientists have long speculated on how pheromones, or chemicals released by your body that have an impact on people around you, contribute to physical attraction.

A study out of Florida State University found men who were exposed to pheromones released by ovulating women were more likely to drink alcohol and flirt with women. For you. World globe An icon of the world globe, indicating different international options. Get the Insider App.