Flirt the wrong way and get a scarlet letter for life (due to the immortal presence of digital information and the availability of near-perfect search tools).
"Flirt the wrong way" to one person could mean "gross violation of my person" to someone else.
This is of course a generalization, and details matter, but if we're going to err on one side or the other, erring on the side of the person being involuntarily affected vs. the person taking voluntary action is probably the better call, at least until all the details emerge.
And yes, pitchforks tend to come out long before all the details emerge, but that's a bigger problem (that we do need to solve)..
There's no one correct way to respectfully flirt, but if you consistently make an effort to be (1) genuine, (2) interested, and (3) confident, you'll often find it's not hard to be respectful. Overall, just get out and meet people with the goal of meeting people and making friends and it'll come naturally.
Just like anything else, get out and try, and keep track of what works and what doesn't.
It depends on the culture. For most Western cultures, it is a private affair between the two potential partners. It is not unlike corporate sales. You signal that you are in the market. You tell a little about yourself. Ideally you spend most of the time asking about the other person. Polite interest.
Which goes with the meme that was recently going around to the effect, that what happens a lot of time, is that someone who is just being nice gets interpreted as flirting, while the person who is trying to flirt comes across as creepy.
Which tends to just be another way to restate that happy outgoing/extroverts are going to find it easier, because they are unintentionally sending signals.
I have made many many mistakes while flirting and somehow have survived unscathed by whatever you are referring to. The trick is not to treat professional networking events or contexts as a chance to meet a girlfriend!
>I have made many many mistakes while flirting and somehow have survived unscathed by whatever you are referring to.
Call yourself lucky then. It's of course anecdotal but I have seen both extreme ends of the spectrum.
Two, both physically very attractive, friends having ass-grabbing competitions at the club and both taking very attractive women home.
On the other hand a shy guy who was pulling all his confidence together and chatting up a girl at the bar, got shot down big time and from then on had the reputation of being a "creeper".
If you ask women, they will usually tell they want to be approached neither on the street nor the store, nor library nor public transport. They reinforce that idea by by wearing earphones, only staring at their phones, evading eye-contact.
So that leaves bar and clubs, you think? Well. they also do not like to be approached these places because they went to the club/bar for dancing/drinking with their friends.
Actually I think the trick is to be young. By the time you are 22 you should have had a lot of experience flirting. If you can squeeze all your mistakes into your teenage years, you’ll have a much better chance of doing well socially as an adult.
N=1 but I knew a guy who had a Twitter hate campaign run against him because he asked this girl out on a date nearly a decade ago. She (recently) sent emails to his boss and his PhD advisor claiming that he sexually harassed her, and publicly called for others to do the same in hashtag-laden tweets. Instead people who knew him at the time came forward and defended him, saying her story made no sense. This girl was struggling with mental illness and was very vocal about it on social media so that may have been a factor.
Thankfully there were no consequences for him, just a lot of awkward conversations.
I think this is an extraordinary case and it's not likely you'll be "cancelled" for flirting. But when anyone in the world can publicly slander you, it's your word against theirs, and the only thing you can really do is report their tweets...
Isn't this the whole point of the article? Like, if one knew how to flirt better one would be able to flirt without getting into trouble.
It seems like part of flirting is being able to figure out the other person's response and either stopping the flirting or know that they're enjoying it and keep flirting.
(I'm saying all this like I'm an expert or something but yeah, I could use a 'Flirting For Dummies' book myself :) )
I would definitely agree. People at large are loath to err on the wrong side, so they take a conservative approach. Of course the bad actors have no such qualms and will continue being slimy.
Social gatherings where people are there to meet others.
You can flirt at other times but you need other people to be clearly interested in that behavior (I mean, that’s true at all times but let’s be real about context). For most people commenting here on HN, I don’t think they know when that time is or maybe the nuances of flirting that are safe.
> For most people commenting here on HN, I don’t think they know when that time is or maybe the nuances of flirting that are safe.
And, like all activities, you learn the nuances and signals by trying, and failing.
Except, failing can have disastrous consequences in this age that does not forget (Google, Facebook, et.al.), and does not forgive (zero tolerance policies, harsh CoC penalties, etc).
> Except, failing can have disastrous consequences in this age that does not forget (Google, Facebook, et.al.), and does not forgive (zero tolerance policies, harsh CoC penalties, etc).
Avoid flirting places where there's a zero tolerance policy or CoC that forbids it, then. Avoid hitting on people at work (yours, theirs, ours; the cashier at the grocery store almost certainly doesn't want to be propositioned in a customer service context) and conferences.
Bars don't have these. If you flirt and get turned down, it's not going on your permanent record unless you refuse to take "no" for an answer or you're assaulting/harassing.
People can and do take pictures of the 'offenders' at bars, gyms, even at the park, and post about how creepy they were on social media. Even if they aren't flirting, but just look silly or menacing or ugly or whatever.
This might not be a legal permanent record, but it will be there for discovery permanently. Social Media's propensity to do facial recognition on posted pictures will only help with this 'discoverability' of undesirables.
Online dating. Not Tinder. For shy dudes, a person's presence on a dating site is about the most obvious sign that they're open to being approached that you can get. Contact 50, chat with 10, meet 3, have a relationship with 1. Numbers may vary based on height and money.
Haven't been on online dating in a while, but a 20% response rate seems astronomical compared to what most guys get.
Even when I did get a response, I was stood up more often than not. Online dating is a meatgrinder for men. If you're not tall and white it's really not worth having an account at all due to the toll it takes on your mental health.
This is all true (not sure about the "white" part but the "tall" part definitely appears to hold true). But as an introvert, it's been an effective way to just get past the cold introduction hurdle. Met a couple wives this way. Snort.
Flirting is the skill of determining if someone is attracted to you, then indicating your attraction to them and communicating that back and forth in a playful manner. Because of that, of course being attractive is required for flirting.
However, that doesn't mean that you must be handsome. There's a lot more to attractiveness than just appearance.
Appearance, however, forms the first impression that you must struggle to overcome if you’re average or below average. In meat-markets like bars, tinder, and dating sites, few women want, or need, to look much further than your looks.
It’s also legitimately dangerous to flirt at work - a place where we might spend enough time with a woman to get past appearances and into personalities - because a single misunderstanding due to poor flirting skills can lose you your job.
Obligatory disclaimer that I’m not trying to downplay how much women can be harassed at work, on the street, in the bar, on messaging apps, etc.
It’s a big world, and you must remember that you are the heir to a long lineage of sexual success stories stretching back to the dawn of time.
Most people can be attractive to someone somewhere with a mild amount of effort, it’s just that they don’t put in that effort.
I’ll also add, that in the modern world it’s difficult to realize what you need to do to be attractive since social mores aren’t so rigid anymore and thus most people develop their own ideas about how to signal interest and disinterest.
> you must remember that you are the heir to a long lineage of sexual success stories stretching back to the dawn of time.
Sexual encounters need not be evenly distributed among attractiveness levels for a species to succeed. One mating pair can, fairly easily, replace in excess of 6-8 non-breeding individuals. More, if you switch from monogamy to polyamory.
In a way, evolution relies upon evenly distributed mating not happening.
>Flirting is the skill of determining if someone is attracted to you, then indicating your attraction to them and communicating that back and forth in a playful manner.
You faultily assume mutual interest. One could have perfect emotional intelligence and still end up "incel" if he does not surpass the choosiness "threshold".
>However, that doesn't mean that you must be handsome. There's a lot more to attractiveness than just appearance.
What's the ratio though? 80% conventional physical attractiveness, 20% situational?
I don't faultily assume mutual interest. Mutual interest is required for successful flirting. Part of learning how to flirt is learning how to detect that modicum of interest from another person, or at least picking up on social cues when an attempted flirt gets rejected. To persist with trying to flirt when there's no positive feedback is what drives uncomfortable, "creepy" interactions.
> What's the ratio though?
It depends on the woman. Some people care a lot about looks, others don't. Just like men.
It's really not as important as all that. Average will do you just fine. Really.
Just take a good picture. Something that conveys a sense of personality. Smile. Be doing something interesting.
And then have something interesting to say. In particular, stop talking about women as though they're not going to have you because you're not in the top 1% of attractiveness or income.
Not knowing how is secondary to not knowing that you're being flirted with. I've been berated by women years later for not reacting to advances that I was completely oblivious to. And was utterly disbelieved. I wonder if it's like color blindness or tone deafness.
There is a male/female difference here. (and this is for the single people).
Males, are generally clueless clods, when it comes to picking up subtle feminine flirting. So more than likely they aren't rejecting it, they are simply oblivious.
Females, OTOH, think they have a flashing sign over their head, when it reality they are so subtle no one notices. So a suggestion for women, is be more straightforward. Plus, for most women there is about 0 risk of being more overt and escalating outside of the guy overtly rejecting them. Men have to worry about coming on too strong, or again failing to notice subtle signals of disinterest.
It's why I like online dating. The women there have declared, "I am interested in finding somebody." It's not like making a pass at your coworker, fellow club member, or random person on the street.
Men are still pretty cloddy, and there's a lot more to learn. But in general it's a lot safer to go online than to try to discern whether you're misreading "signals". "Being on Tinder" is about the clearest signal you can get.
Now just don't mess it up. Hoo, boy, do the men mess it up. I swear I've given serious consideration to opening a consultancy in helping men talk to women online. Not that the women are universally all that great, either, but I cannot tell you how many men I've watched talk themselves out of getting laid.
Ironically, persistently trying to communicate in a way that the other party doesn't understand is exactly the kind of counterproductive behavior that this article talks about.
The headline is misleading as it suggests causation rather than correlation. The article actually states this:
>>""reverse causation” might also play a role here. A longer time being single, for example, may lead to worsening flirting skills. It might also cause people to conclude that they have poor flirting skills, which can lead to hopelessness, which in turn can lead to putting in less effort to find a partner. "
Can’t read the study because paywall but is there anything about factors/questions beyond not knowing how to flirt and being choosy? I get that people who are single might feel like they can’t flirt but that doesn’t mean people in relationships are actually any better (or better enough for it to be the “main reason”). It could be people in relationships overestimate their skills in comparison to single people. I feel like this headline is bullshit. Main reason for single people is they can’t flirt - idk if I believe it. There are way too many factors with modern dating for me to really believe it. Instead, this reads like - “of the very limited set of questions we asked, flirting was the reason” but that’s not the headline.
* self-reported, if I understand correctly. And if I do, it sounds like a post-hoc explanation.
"Flirting skills" seems like a superficial skill without real value, the lack of which might condemn you to be single but in no way diminishes your self-perceived value proposition. It's like saying "I surely could, if I only knew that easy trick".
With all the angst in the West, concerning this, a lot of the Eastern traditions of arranged marriages seem interesting. Sure they can be abused, but the skills to attract a partner in single hood are different from the skills to build a happy marriage.
I think arranged marriages has some advantages in that it removes the ambiguity. You don’t have to guess if someone is interested in romance or just a friendship. You know from the outset, you are pursuing marriage. In addition, the things that are attractive in that system, such as good habits, stable job, etc are likely more conducive to successful marriage over ability to flirt.
I have heard that comedy is surprisingly systematic and trainable, i.e. comedians spend large amounts of time honing material before presenting it. They are not instantly or naturally funny, it takes work. As someone who is terminally unfunny and asocial I did always wonder if there was a parallel to social situations. Can one train themselves to be charismatic and flirty? (And no, "just be yourself" or "learn to like people" doesn't count.)
Absolutely. I was painfully awkward as an adolescent, but forced myself to be friends with cute girls and hang out with them. That got me used to interacting and joking with women, making flirting much easier.
My advice is to force yourself to do that which is limiting you. Exposure therapy makes future exposure easier as long as you aren't adjusting maladaptively with ruminative anxiety or panic attacks.
Check out the book "The Charisma Myth" by Olivia Fox Cabane. The premise of the book is Charisma is just another skill - something that can be learned and practiced, and is something the author coaches to C-level execs with a history of success.
Ahahah. I find this an absolutely oversimplified and laughable pop factoid.
Flirting can and should be duplicitous, for boosting the mood of others and potentially showing interest. But too many people these days take flirting and humor the wrong way or as a paranoid concern that it represents too much interest, so it's best to gauge the coolness and resilience of the other first. Most (but not all) people under 30 are offended by everything, including flirting, which is why Seinfeld and many other comics have avoided colleges for decades.
"Involuntary singlehood" is multifaceted including not making an effort to socialize, waiting for others to do it for them, distractions, life stresses, catastrophising unlikely concerns, low self-esteem, low confidence, depression, lack of wit, humorlessness, failure to grasp sarcasm, lack of perspective taking, lack of trust, lack of nuanced thinking, lack of manners/etiquette, psychological immodesty, unoriginality, lack of creativity, unreasonableness, inexperience, or unpleasant attitude.
67 comments
[ 3.9 ms ] story [ 133 ms ] threadThis is of course a generalization, and details matter, but if we're going to err on one side or the other, erring on the side of the person being involuntarily affected vs. the person taking voluntary action is probably the better call, at least until all the details emerge.
And yes, pitchforks tend to come out long before all the details emerge, but that's a bigger problem (that we do need to solve)..
Just like anything else, get out and try, and keep track of what works and what doesn't.
(Disclaimer, I have no idea.)
Although like anything else in life, "be nice, be respectful" are some pretty good rules to overlay on whatever approach you take.
Bonus advice. Ask about their mother.
Which tends to just be another way to restate that happy outgoing/extroverts are going to find it easier, because they are unintentionally sending signals.
Are going to find it easier because they are more attractive (or, attractive to more people).
And so ends civility in 50% of your social interactions.
Call yourself lucky then. It's of course anecdotal but I have seen both extreme ends of the spectrum.
Two, both physically very attractive, friends having ass-grabbing competitions at the club and both taking very attractive women home.
On the other hand a shy guy who was pulling all his confidence together and chatting up a girl at the bar, got shot down big time and from then on had the reputation of being a "creeper".
If you ask women, they will usually tell they want to be approached neither on the street nor the store, nor library nor public transport. They reinforce that idea by by wearing earphones, only staring at their phones, evading eye-contact.
So that leaves bar and clubs, you think? Well. they also do not like to be approached these places because they went to the club/bar for dancing/drinking with their friends.
I think this is an extraordinary case and it's not likely you'll be "cancelled" for flirting. But when anyone in the world can publicly slander you, it's your word against theirs, and the only thing you can really do is report their tweets...
It seems like part of flirting is being able to figure out the other person's response and either stopping the flirting or know that they're enjoying it and keep flirting.
(I'm saying all this like I'm an expert or something but yeah, I could use a 'Flirting For Dummies' book myself :) )
Avoid doing it at work.
ETA: dare to go inside a place you can mobile order from.
You can flirt at other times but you need other people to be clearly interested in that behavior (I mean, that’s true at all times but let’s be real about context). For most people commenting here on HN, I don’t think they know when that time is or maybe the nuances of flirting that are safe.
If you bump into someone at the hotel bar later, that's probably fine. Take "no" for an answer, don't be grabby, etc. all still apply.
And, like all activities, you learn the nuances and signals by trying, and failing.
Except, failing can have disastrous consequences in this age that does not forget (Google, Facebook, et.al.), and does not forgive (zero tolerance policies, harsh CoC penalties, etc).
Avoid flirting places where there's a zero tolerance policy or CoC that forbids it, then. Avoid hitting on people at work (yours, theirs, ours; the cashier at the grocery store almost certainly doesn't want to be propositioned in a customer service context) and conferences.
Bars don't have these. If you flirt and get turned down, it's not going on your permanent record unless you refuse to take "no" for an answer or you're assaulting/harassing.
People can and do take pictures of the 'offenders' at bars, gyms, even at the park, and post about how creepy they were on social media. Even if they aren't flirting, but just look silly or menacing or ugly or whatever.
This might not be a legal permanent record, but it will be there for discovery permanently. Social Media's propensity to do facial recognition on posted pictures will only help with this 'discoverability' of undesirables.
Haven't been on online dating in a while, but a 20% response rate seems astronomical compared to what most guys get.
Even when I did get a response, I was stood up more often than not. Online dating is a meatgrinder for men. If you're not tall and white it's really not worth having an account at all due to the toll it takes on your mental health.
Rule 1: be attractive.
Be handsome
Be attractive
Don't be unattractive
However, that doesn't mean that you must be handsome. There's a lot more to attractiveness than just appearance.
It’s also legitimately dangerous to flirt at work - a place where we might spend enough time with a woman to get past appearances and into personalities - because a single misunderstanding due to poor flirting skills can lose you your job.
Obligatory disclaimer that I’m not trying to downplay how much women can be harassed at work, on the street, in the bar, on messaging apps, etc.
Most people can be attractive to someone somewhere with a mild amount of effort, it’s just that they don’t put in that effort.
I’ll also add, that in the modern world it’s difficult to realize what you need to do to be attractive since social mores aren’t so rigid anymore and thus most people develop their own ideas about how to signal interest and disinterest.
Sexual encounters need not be evenly distributed among attractiveness levels for a species to succeed. One mating pair can, fairly easily, replace in excess of 6-8 non-breeding individuals. More, if you switch from monogamy to polyamory.
In a way, evolution relies upon evenly distributed mating not happening.
You faultily assume mutual interest. One could have perfect emotional intelligence and still end up "incel" if he does not surpass the choosiness "threshold".
>However, that doesn't mean that you must be handsome. There's a lot more to attractiveness than just appearance.
What's the ratio though? 80% conventional physical attractiveness, 20% situational?
> What's the ratio though?
It depends on the woman. Some people care a lot about looks, others don't. Just like men.
Just take a good picture. Something that conveys a sense of personality. Smile. Be doing something interesting.
And then have something interesting to say. In particular, stop talking about women as though they're not going to have you because you're not in the top 1% of attractiveness or income.
Males, are generally clueless clods, when it comes to picking up subtle feminine flirting. So more than likely they aren't rejecting it, they are simply oblivious.
Females, OTOH, think they have a flashing sign over their head, when it reality they are so subtle no one notices. So a suggestion for women, is be more straightforward. Plus, for most women there is about 0 risk of being more overt and escalating outside of the guy overtly rejecting them. Men have to worry about coming on too strong, or again failing to notice subtle signals of disinterest.
Men are still pretty cloddy, and there's a lot more to learn. But in general it's a lot safer to go online than to try to discern whether you're misreading "signals". "Being on Tinder" is about the clearest signal you can get.
Now just don't mess it up. Hoo, boy, do the men mess it up. I swear I've given serious consideration to opening a consultancy in helping men talk to women online. Not that the women are universally all that great, either, but I cannot tell you how many men I've watched talk themselves out of getting laid.
Her: I had a huge crush on you in high school/college and dropped hints all the time.
Me: But you told me you had a boyfriend/were a lesbian/hated my guts.
Reading the room, flirting, are all part of it.
First move is to recognize the problem
>>""reverse causation” might also play a role here. A longer time being single, for example, may lead to worsening flirting skills. It might also cause people to conclude that they have poor flirting skills, which can lead to hopelessness, which in turn can lead to putting in less effort to find a partner. "
* Among 1228 people in Greece.
"Flirting skills" seems like a superficial skill without real value, the lack of which might condemn you to be single but in no way diminishes your self-perceived value proposition. It's like saying "I surely could, if I only knew that easy trick".
I think arranged marriages has some advantages in that it removes the ambiguity. You don’t have to guess if someone is interested in romance or just a friendship. You know from the outset, you are pursuing marriage. In addition, the things that are attractive in that system, such as good habits, stable job, etc are likely more conducive to successful marriage over ability to flirt.
> but the skills to attract a partner in single hood are different from the skills to build a happy marriage.
Does it count when any of the parties are legally/socially stuck in a relationship without recourse?
My advice is to force yourself to do that which is limiting you. Exposure therapy makes future exposure easier as long as you aren't adjusting maladaptively with ruminative anxiety or panic attacks.
Flirting can and should be duplicitous, for boosting the mood of others and potentially showing interest. But too many people these days take flirting and humor the wrong way or as a paranoid concern that it represents too much interest, so it's best to gauge the coolness and resilience of the other first. Most (but not all) people under 30 are offended by everything, including flirting, which is why Seinfeld and many other comics have avoided colleges for decades.
"Involuntary singlehood" is multifaceted including not making an effort to socialize, waiting for others to do it for them, distractions, life stresses, catastrophising unlikely concerns, low self-esteem, low confidence, depression, lack of wit, humorlessness, failure to grasp sarcasm, lack of perspective taking, lack of trust, lack of nuanced thinking, lack of manners/etiquette, psychological immodesty, unoriginality, lack of creativity, unreasonableness, inexperience, or unpleasant attitude.