Why We Flirt: The Science of Sex

It’s so na­t­u­ral, we bare­ly even no­tice we do it. Tilt­ing a head to ex­pose the neck, smil­ing or laugh­ing at some­thing that re­al­ly was­n’t fun­ny, mov­ing clos­er to the per­son mak­ing un­fun­ny jokes, mim­ick­ing their ac­tions. Our body lan­guage is per­haps the most sub­tle ex­pres­sion of what we’re re­al­ly think­ing and feel­ing, and is a cru­cial com­po­nent of the court­ing dance known as flirt­ing.

Though cheesy pick-up lines abound, a lot is con­veyed even be­fore words are ut­tered. A pro­longed gaze or arched eye­brow gives clues to the per­son across the bar that you’re in­ter­est­ed with­out hav­ing to ex­plic­it­ly ask about his/her sign. Though the statis­tics dif­fer, some at­tribute al­most 80 per­cent of our first im­pres­sions to our stance and swag­ger. And be­cause flirt­ing helps both an­i­mals and hu­mans find mates faster and easi­er, it is an evo­lu­tio­nary trait hard-wired in our brains. Mice twitch their nos­es at po­ten­tial mates, col­or­ful pea­cocks strut around for ad­mir­ing pea­hens, and pi­geons puff their ch­ests to look buff. As much as we have moved on from mice and feathers, we do much of the same, for the ex­act same rea­sons.

Ge­net­ic Pea­cock­ery
Be­cause flirt­ing is an easy way for us to dis­play our genes, mat­ing po­ten­tial, and in­ter­est, na­ture put a lot to­ward its suc­cess. This is one of the rea­sons why some males birds have ex­ot­ic plumes, why elk car­ry hef­ty antlers (a sign of a healthy im­mune sys­tem), and why male fid­dler crabs have such large claws. He waves his in the air, alert­ing fe­males to his where­abouts, and sig­nal­ing them to come clos­er for a bet­ter look at his bur­row, col­or­ful shell, and flashy claw.

Much in the same way, we’re phys­i­cal­ly pro­grammed to in­di­cate in­ter­est al­most be­fore we men­tal­ly have a say in it. Slight ac­tions re­veal a lot. Stance, eye move­ment, and ges­tures like lean­ing for­ward to talk to the per­son, or quick eye­brow rais­es are what sci­en­tists call con­tact en­gage­ment, sig­nal­ing to the other mam­mal that you’re pre­pared for things to po­ten­tial­ly get phys­i­cal. Per­haps most im­por­tant­ly, th­ese sig­nals show that you’re not in­tend­ing to dom­i­nate or flee. Or not just yet, any­how.



Moves Have Mes­sages
By study­ing hu­mans in their na­t­u­ral court­ing habi­tat (usu­al­ly bars), sci­en­tists have been able to doc­u­ment the move­ments we make when we’re in­ter­est­ed in some­one else. As it turns out, we’re all quite pre­dictable. A wo­m­an smiles, rais­es her eye­brows, opens her eyes wide, holds a gaze, fid­gets with her hair, low­ers and tilts her head, and laughs. A man might jut out his chin, try to make his ch­est ap­pear as large as pos­si­ble, un­con­s­cious­ly flex an arm, laugh aloud, and smile. But what do all th­ese ridicu­lous ges­tures mean?

By com­par­ing our ac­tions with those of an­i­mals, it be­comes clear that moves have mes­sages. A wo­m­an tilts her head and shows off her neck as a sign of vul­n­er­a­bil­i­ty and sub­mis­sion. I see my friend’s dog, a fe­male box­er named Mable Mae, do this all the time. When a male dog is ap­proach­ing, she turns her head and flat­tens her ears as if to say, “I’m a lover, not a fight­er. Don’t bite.” The male dog na­t­u­ral­ly as­sumes the taller, dom­i­nant stance. Mable al­so steals side­ways glances, just as we do when flirt­ing, to show she’s de­mure and hard to get, yet in­ter­est­ed.

Read My Lips
Like a li­o­ness pre­sent­ing her­self to a mate, wo­m­en will arch their backs and show off their hips to in­di­cate fer­til­i­ty. Though I hate the stereo­type of a gig­g­ly, doe-eyed blonde, wo­m­en laugh and open their eyes wide not be­cause they’re ditzy, but be­cause it con­veys an im­age of sur­ren­der and youth. (No won­der Dol­ly Par­ton was so jovial and pop­u­lar.) While both men and wo­m­en will make pro­longed eye con­tact with peo­ple they’re in­ter­est­ed in, a wo­m­an might al­so lick her lips, help­ing to bring vi­su­al at­ten­tion to the mouth. If some­one is star­ing at your lips he may be think­ing of how to kiss them.

Though a man might not pound his ch­est like Tarzan while in a crowd, it’s on­ly be­cause of so­cial con­s­traints. He’s still try­ing to put forth his strong jaw, an in­di­ca­tor of high tes­tos­terone lev­els, and spread his arms and ch­est to look mus­cu­lar and strong. Yet he does­n’t want to look too strong or threat­en­ing, so he laughs and smiles fre­quent­ly. Con­fi­dent and pow­er­ful enough to pro­tect his brood; nice enough not to harm the doe.




Mon­key See, Mon­key Do
To­gether, both sex­es take part in mir­ror­ing, tend­ing to sit or stand in sim­i­lar po­si­tions, or pick up a drink at the same time. When one per­son leans in, another will do the same if she likes what she’s see­ing. The the­o­ry be­hind this is that peo­ple are drawn to others who are like them. (Dat­ing note: if he picks his nose, put the mir­ror down.)

We al­so tend to point or ges­ture to­ward our ob­ject of de­sire. This means feet, hands, or the en­tire body will sub­con­s­cious­ly be point­ed to­ward him or her, open­ing up a line of phys­i­cal—and hope­ful­ly ver­bal—com­mu­ni­ca­tion.

Yet through all our co­quet­tish ges­tures, any­one who’s raised her eye­brows at a cop knows that flirt­ing is not al­ways in­tend­ed to seal the deal. Flirt­ing can be a de­fault mech­anism when we want to get some­thing for noth­ing (a bet­ter table at a res­tau­rant, another free cock­tail on the air­plane, a short­cut in line) or a com­fort­able and fun way to in­ter­act with new peo­ple. And it’s cer­tain­ly not re­served just for peo­ple we want to mate with; mar­ried peo­ple flirt with no adul­ter­ous in­ten­tions and pla­ton­ic flirt­ing hap­pens all the time. Flirt­ing opens win­dows of po­ten­tial and can peak cu­rios­i­ty about what might hap­pen, but it al­so leaves us with the abil­i­ty to walk away, no harm done.

Up­dat­ed Novem­ber 16, 2008
First pub­lished Fe­bruary 2008