The Science of Flirting
Welcome to a new column here at the Accolade—a column designed to help you choose your own adventure in life, based on the science behind love, life, and work. To kick off the column, and National Flirt Week, we present you with...
The Science of Flirting.
What Exactly is Flirting?
Flirting is a way “in which both males and females experiment with relationship potential.”(1)
Flirting occurs most in a new acquaintanceship, with someone you’ve said “hi” to at school or work, but little else.
While flirting can continue throughout a romantic relationship, it is crucial to the transition from “some guy (or girl) I work with” to “my date.” Either gender can ask their special one out on a date to speed this process along, but for flirting to work as the foundation for a successful relationship it has to be recognized as flirting by your latest “one and only.”
How Guys Think Girls Flirt
What counts as flirting during this experimental stage of your relationship is a matter of gender and location. Verbally, ANYTIME a female starts a conversation with a male, most people think she’s flirting.(2 ) That means, even something as simple as “Do you know what time it is?” said outside a
Professor’s office, counts as verbal flirting if you are a girl. While some of you girls might be tempted to stop talking to people altogether, this news is actually good—it means people already think you do it anyway, and it is a matter of learning how to be better at it, not how to do it.
Without saying a word, you can also be flirtatious. Again, as a female, when you make physical contact, of ANY KIND, you are flirting.(3) This includes eye contact, hugs, touching his arm, bumping into him with your shoulder, etc. If you start a conversation and/or make physical contact during a
conversation with a boy, be further aware that he is even more likely to think you are flirting if you do it at a party, a house, or a public place than if you do it in a waiting room, a professor’s office, or at work.
Basically, if you give a guy time of day, you make his day.
How Girls Think Guys Flirt
Since a girl can’t start a conversation without flirting, a guy has to or no one would ever talk.
Because of this, when a guy starts a conversation, he is NOT flirting; he is just doing his “job.” If he shows interest in a girl’s personal life, “What classes are you taking? Where are you from? How many kids are in your family?” and gives a female a handshake or makes eye contact then he is still NOT flirting, just “friendly.”(4) He must go beyond friendly if he is to let a girl know he has some interest in maybe going on a date with her. Treading that line between friendly and straight up asking a girl out is when a guy flirts.
A guy can flirt when he shows personal interest and physical touch beyond “friendly,” such as giving a compliment after touching her shoulder to say hi, or sitting closer than normal during class and making a joke just to her. Basically, unless you make her feel special, she thinks you’re just a friend.
Now What?
Now you know why flirting is so often misunderstood—a guy who tries to flirt like a girl by just saying “hi” is unlikely to get his point across and instead feel rejected unnecessarily, and a girl may feel she is just “being friendly” the way a guy would when in fact he thinks she is flirting with him. Knowing that flirting is gendered means, as a guy you don’t need to feel rejected or unliked when you make the effort to talk to a girl without her falling all over you. The temptation you may now have to wait for a girl to talk to you may provide temporary empowerment, but she’s unlikely to continue if you don’t capitalize on her flirting by flirting back (i.e. making her feel special). As a girl, this means your attempts to analyze every word he says, while fun, is unnecessary—if he is flirting he will be obvious about it, and if he isn’t flirting, maybe it’s because you aren’t (by initiating contact, conversation, etc.).
As a final note, remember, flirting is fun, and it does not have to lead to dating—flirting can and should be enjoyed as a way to experiment with your friendships and learn to enjoy one another in new ways, whether or not those new experiences lead to serious romances.
-LaReina Hingson
Even with multiple degrees from BYU and Purdue, LaReina's real expertise and knowledge comes from her natural sassy/romantic nature and her closet addiction to Sci-Fi.
1 Sarah Trenholm, Arthur Jensen. (2014). Interpersonal Communication, 7th Ed. P.271.
2 Lian Koeppel, et al. (1993). “Friendly? Flirting? Wrong?” in Interpersonal Communication: Evolving Interpersonal
Relationships. pp.13-32.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid.
