How Flirting Works

Flirting is an ancient -- and, at times, unconscious -- form of communication used to indicate interest in and receptivity to another person. Learn about the science of flirting and find out how to flirt in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know
from house Stuffworks dot Com. Hi, I'm welcome to the podcast.
I'm Josh, I'm Chuck. Yeah. Hey, Chuck, Studio one, Ay,
deep within the bowels corporate quarters, That's where we are, Chuck,

(00:26):
I have a question for you, shooting. Is that a
bottle of Windex in your pants? It is not. It's
funny because I can see myself in him. Really, I
have no idea where this is going. Actually, I just
wanted to demonstrate an example of flirting. That's flirting. It
is a really overt, crude, crass, and and probably completely

(00:50):
counterproductive form of flirting. But yes, that was flirting. I
don't know if that counts. Actually, that was just a
come online. I don't know if that counts as flirting.
To be honest, Well, I could have just as easily said, Chuck,
have you seen the latest issue of National Geographic. Believe
it or not, there's a leopard on the cover. That
is not flirting at all. I chose to direct a
sentence to try to get you into bed, just now, expressly, expressly,

(01:14):
actually blushing as a result of flirting. Right, We'll get
into that later. And I've got some very startling facts
about blushing and other things like that. It's gonna be
so we're talking about flirting today, chuck. Um. From what
I understand, flirting is technically considered a language, especially by

(01:35):
evolutionary psychologists, UM, behavioral psychologists, anthropologists. Basically anybody with an
ist end, just especially UM, considers it. It's a type
of language. It's body language, but it's language nonetheless, and uh,
it's it's been pretty important to our survival as a species. Basically,

(01:58):
what flirting is other you know, it's it's me giving
you a bad pickup line or rubbing your knee as
I am right now, Um, it's it's yeah. Okay, did
you think it was Jerry, our producer? No, I thought
we had a troll under the table here. That was me?
What did you think I felt? Nice? Okay? So, Um,

(02:19):
whether it's rubbing your knee or trying to pick you
up with with a bad line, Um, basically, what I'm
doing is I'm sizing you up and letting you size
me up to figure out how well we could reproduce
in a sense, and the reason it's so important for
you know, the evolution of the human race and actually

(02:40):
just about every other animal race out there or species
out there is um it. We can figure out whether
or not the reproduction a work before actually having sex.
So essentially, without flirting, either nothing would happen ever, right,
or everything would happen all the time, and there'd be

(03:02):
six trillion people on the planet which would wobble sickening,
lee under the weight pretty much. Yeah, so we would
have died out or there'll just be too many of us.
Any other way we'd be screwed. So flirting is a
way of kind of leading up to the sex part
and keeping us from jumping in bed with every single
person to see if it works. Well, thank god for that, agreed. Agreed,

(03:23):
flirting is kind of fun, isn't it. It's world class flirt,
are you really? Yeah? Sure, you always rein it in
when I'm around. Well, you know, you never let that
light shine on the josh on the Josh. I like that. Uh,
you want to talk a little bit about some of
the flirting signs, like some some of the physical kids. Uh,
using your name a lot in a conversation, which I

(03:45):
didn't realize that that's how I did really. Yeah, and
it's actually kind of off putting if it's not done
very deftly. I can see that. Yeah. Uh, complimenting the
the other person, that obvious one asking about interest. Um
to ching an arm or knee, that's a big one.
That's huge. Someone told me early on a female friend
of mine that when a girl's talking to you and

(04:06):
she like grabbed your arm or shoulder or something, that
is a sign of all signs. Yeah. My my sister
when I was younger, told me that if a girl
ever looks at you more than once and you're not
dressed like a total freak, she's interested, right, Like, if
you don't have she's she's open to checking you out. Yeah, uh,
and got any We're idiots. Men are idiots, so we

(04:27):
we need the females to tell us these things along
the way. Otherwise I just think, why does that girl
keep touching me on the arm. Well, and we'll get
to this again in a second. To um, it's not
entirely our fault. Well, we'll talk about protean um proteum behavior,
all right, Well, we need to get that quick then,
because that's interesting. Um. Another one, though, is leaning in
close to someone obviously physical proximity. Uh, and smiling the

(04:50):
old classic smile, which which you know can be taken
one way or another. Okay, so um, let me talk
about that proteum behavior, right. Uh. Basically, what that is
is it's a it's a form of flirting that most
women do where it's just on the threshold between normal
behavior and flirting, right, and it gives a woman plausible
deniability in case her her advances are rejected or she

(05:15):
doesn't get the response she wants, right, or in case
the guy turns out to be a big dope kind
of Yeah, but it's it's confused protective thing, um, like
to protect themselves. I took it actually like yeah, they're
they're protecting themselves, like if they're rejected, right, if the
guy doesn't go, hey, put yourself exactly, she can you know,
easily rein it back in and you know, but if

(05:38):
if you aren't picking up on this quite right, if
you're not aware of these protean gestures um, which is
actually it's name for um Proteus, the Greek mythological figure
who could shape shift very appropriately makes sense. Um, it's
very confusing, and I concern myself fairly smooth dude. But
I'm confused by this and uh, actually, after I figured

(05:58):
out that there is such things protein gestures, it, um,
it supported my general theory that women suck. Wow, it
was a it was a big eye opening experience. Well,
I know, men's flirtations are much more aggressive and over
over exactly women do things like flip their hair or

(06:20):
it says actually in the article, bat their eyelashes. It
seems slightly dated to me, to be honest, but coquettish. Yeah,
I guess they still do that, though, do they? I
haven't seen it in years, so I have no idea
to keep an eye out for it. But yeah, men
men intense eye contact and aggressive gesturing. They're a little
more intense with their flirting. Yes, that is true, not
to protein. Now, what's what's interesting about flirting is that

(06:44):
it's such an animalistic behavior. Number one. Um, it's it's
emotional behavior. It's not rational, right, we don't walk up
to one another and say I'd like to have sex
with you. Shall we have sex? It's it's all very
it's it's it's it's very again smooth, uh if done right?
If not, it's painfully clumsy either way. It's it's it's

(07:06):
driven by desire, which is an emotion. And guess who
guess who makes an appearance Our old friend Darwin. No,
I mean he's always in the back drop somewhere. No,
not cosh Kari, the fight or flight response, the sympathetic
nervous system everything. Um. So basically, this very primeval part

(07:28):
of the brain takes over when you see a woman
or a man that you would like to have sex
with the limbic system yes, yes, yeah, which controls the
sympathetic nervous system. Um. So you see somebody you're turned on,
and you you engage in this flirtatious behavior, but you're
you're not thinking I'm going to um, you know, puff

(07:50):
my chest out, but you do anyway. Or women don't,
you know, kind of swivel their hips a little bit
to to let the guy see you know that they're
they're of a proper race show too from waste a hip. Yeah,
let's talk about that. Just pretty pretty interesting, isn't it. Yeah.
It's apparently women will draw attention to their pelvis because
it um indicates whether or not they can carry a child.

(08:13):
And additionally, UM, men are attracted to women with that
ratio the hip to ract hip to waste ratio, the
waste must be no more than sixty of the hip circumference. Yeah,
you want to know what's what's uncanny. What they've done
studies on women with those kind of ratios, and they
found that the women who fall into that that actually

(08:37):
seventy the ones who fall right in the middle are
the most fertile. Really. Yeah, so there's actually a basis
in it. So when when you see like a curvaceous woman,
you're turned on by her, you're basically responding to you know,
eons of collective memory of experience of you know, that's
on the cellular level. It's an evolution. Baby, it is baby,

(08:58):
and it's real straw. You're absolutely right, pretty cool. So
we know all this because people actually study it, and
there's a guy. All of this studying started, um in
the seventies. I think real serious study of flirting started
in the seventies. There was a guy and um, as
per usual, I'm going to butcher this person's name, Ranius

(09:21):
ebel Ibs felt it sounds good to me, thank you,
um and Raneus. It was a I don't actually know.
I imagine maybe some sort of psychologists as sociologist possibly.
He came up with his own little camera that took
a picture in a different direction. He was pointing it
so he could get candid photos of people. And he

(09:42):
trained this uh super cool uh camera on couples around
the world who were engaged in in flirting without pointing
the camera and then right, okay, so they didn't think
they were being photographed, and they were. They weren't paying
any attention to him. Um. And he started comparing these
photos and he found a pattern. Actually um and women

(10:03):
generally tend to extend their necks, which is actually very
comparable to um female wolves in the wild that will
turn over and submit to men. It's a it's a
it's an active submission. UM. Men tend to puff out
their chests and all of this together, it's very animalistic
and it's stomach in the Actually, if you think about it,

(10:25):
sucking in your stomachs and you you want to puff
out your chest, do you want your your your your
chin to go up and appear broader. One of the
things you're showing a woman as a man is that
you are well number one, your virile and actually bilateral symmetry,
your face being even on both sides is a real

(10:45):
sign of developmental health. So good genes right there. That
one's very interesting, Yeah, it is. It's it's kind of
off putting. A symmetry is a little off putting if
you really think about it. Um, And so you've got that,
you've got symmetry. UM, so that's actual reproductive health. You have, um,
like a prominent jaw that's developed by testosterone, so you

(11:08):
have reproductive ability. And then if you're a big guy,
wide shoulders, you know, big chest, you can puff out.
You're showing that you can actually protect the young that
you're about to um create with this this woman you're
gonna get it on with, which Yeah, so that was
the original study. This guy found that, um, that this
is universal, right, and then it started to really kind

(11:31):
of take off. And actually most of the actual studies
of um flirting and and flirtations behavior have been conducted
in like lounges. Like one landmark study was conducted in
the in the bar of a Hyatt hotel. And after
you know, after studying I don't know, probably for several
days not weeks, um, the researchers got so good at

(11:54):
it that they could predict just on body language alone,
who is going to go upstairs to while Yeah, yeah,
they we've got flirting down pat. Unfortunately, you know, most
of us don't have flirting down pat like researchers may
understand it, but it's still just kind of this vague, um,
often uneasy kind of thing. Right, there's no formula, No,

(12:17):
there definitely isn't. It would probably be kind of depressing
if there was a formula. And obviously there is a
universal physical gestures, but apparently we have, um different cultures
have layered on their own interpretations of these gestures. Right,
that makes sense. Did you read that Germans and Americans
famously tend to get their wires crossed when flirting? Really? Yeah,

(12:40):
what does that mean? German women find American men too
forward when they flirt, and apparently German men, uh just
get all sorts of confused when American women are just
talking to them, they assume they're they're being flirted with. Yeah,
I can see that, probably because of the same reason
American women are, I think, are a little more forward
than German women. Right, So I've got another study if

(13:04):
we if we have time. This was not in a bar. Uh,
this was a few years ago at Tulane University, and
they uh researched a little bit about how flirting affected
women in the workplace and their careers. And it was
a small sample, only a hundred sixty four women, but
fairly valid um of these women said they used various

(13:25):
forms of flirting as a tool to get ahead at work.
And fort said they have never flirted for such purposes.
And the women interested, what do you think, I haven't
even told you this. What's what's the call flirting gets
you ahead? Or now I would see you? Nope. Really,
what they found was that the women who did not

(13:46):
flirt earned seventy five two hundred thousand dollars per year,
while women who did flirt average fifty thousand and seventy
five thousand. And if you did not flirt, you also
were promoted three times as many times. And basically they're
they're takeaway was that sexuality is a short term power source.
It does it kind of cheapen You're cheapen the value

(14:07):
of your personality to the That's what I could assume
that maybe a man would not take a woman as
seriously if he realized that she was flirting to try
and get ahead. I know I wouldn't. Yeah, no, that
makes sense. Yeah, it's nice one, Chuck. Thank you, way
to pull that one up for the bowels of tulane. Yeah,
so well that's flirting. Hopefully it helps a little bit

(14:28):
here there for all of you awkward, single, gangly young
men out there who have trouble getting dates. Just um,
make him laugh. Yeah, that's really Ultimately, you know, throw
symmetry out the window. If you're not very virile whatever,
there's pills out there and in both Chucks. In my opinion,
it comes down to if you can make a woman laugh,
she'll be yours forever. If you're not funny, then we

(14:51):
have no advice for you whatsoever. You better be handsome. Yeah,
that's all I gotta say. I guess you know, Chuck,
it's probably time for their advice for us, right, which
would be listener mail. Okay, Josh, This listener mail isn't
so much advice, but it's some fan mail from yeah,

(15:12):
from someone named cos uh and I'm gonna butcher this name.
K A S. Cause bochtll b A c h t
A L from Ashland, Wisconsin. Nice Wisconsin person. Uh, so, Hi,
I've been listening to your podcasts and join them greatly.
Always a good way to get your thing right on
the air, by the way, starting off that way. And

(15:32):
this is on the podcast we did on guerrilla gardening,
which is when people take over public spaces and plant
flowers and things. And at one point in the podcast
we talked about how we can't imagine that someone would
not want anyone to do this. Yeah, let's play look club. Yeah,
you know, I'd like to pick someone's brain who's really
against this? Yeah. I want to meet the person who

(15:54):
sees what's going on and goes home and it's just, yeah,
dare they plant those flowers right there? I'm just I'm curious,
what's what's happening there? Yeah? And I don't think I
could explain it. But I know for a fact I've
met people like that before. It's always a little unsettling. Uh.
So this person writes in and says, I can think
of one possible situation where a perfectly sensible property owner

(16:15):
might object to groule of gardening. Uh. In some areas
of person can lose some rights pertaining to their own
land if someone else can show a pattern of long
term benefit from trespassing. So uh, they're thinking of people
parking or walking on other folks land for twenty years.
Then the owner comes and they're unable to get rid
of these people without any legal recourse. So the only

(16:36):
way to have to prevent this in some cases is
to keep people from establishing that long term usage benefit
in the first place, i e. Planning flowers and making it,
you know, a more attractive place to hang out. That
is an excellent, excellent point. I hadn't thought of. Um,
that's squatting essentially, And uh, that's that's a great point.
As a matter of fact. For that great point, don't

(16:58):
you think God should get a T shirt? Uh? If
if we can get costs of T shirt, I think
we should. We'll see we can do costs if you
want to send us your your address and we will
see if we can get a how stuff Works t
V T shirt out and shirt size? Yeah, shirt size?
Good one't chuck? All right? Cool? Well, thanks for listening.
Anybody else who has any comments, any mail, any anything,

(17:18):
you want to drop us a line. Send it to
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