Stuff You Should Know - How Flirting Works

Episode Date: December 23, 2008

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. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Flooring contractors agree. When looking for the best to care for hardwood floors, use Bona Hardwood Floor Cleaner, the residue-free, fast-drying solution especially designed for hardwood floors, delivering the safe and effective clean you trust. Bona Hardwood Floor Cleaner is available at most retailers where floor cleaning products are sold and on Amazon. Also available for your other hard surface floors like stone, tile, laminate, vinyl, and LVT. For cleaning tips and exclusive offers, visit Bona.com slash Bona Clean. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff, stuff that'll piss you off. The cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging?

They just have way better names for what they call, like what we would call a jackmove or being robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready, are you? Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hi, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh. I'm Chuck. Yeah, hey Chuck. Studio 1A. Yes. Deep within the bowels. HowStuffWorks corporate headquarters.

That's where we are. Chuck, I have a question for you. Shoot. Is that a bottle of Windex in your pants? It is not. Oh, that's funny because I can see myself in them. 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 probably completely 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 actually blushing as a result of flirting. We'll get into that later. And I've got some very startling facts about blushing and other things like that. This is going to be a good one. So we're talking about flirting today, Chuck. Right. From what I understand, flirting is technically considered a language, especially by evolutionary psychologists, behavioral psychologists, anthropologists, basically

anybody with an ist at the end, just especially, considers it's a type of language, its body language, but its language nonetheless. Exactly, it is. And it's been pretty important to our survival as a species. Basically, what flirting is, whether it's me giving you a bad pickup line or rubbing your knee as I am right now. 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? It felt nice. Okay, so whether it's rubbing your knee or trying to pick you up with a bad line, 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. Right. In a sense. And the reason it's so important for the evolution of the human race and actually just about every other animal race out there, our species out there, is we can figure out whether or not the reproduction will 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 six trillion people on the planet which would wobble sickeningly under the weight. Pretty much. Wow. Yeah. So we would have died out or there'd just be too many of us. In either 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. Right. Well, thank God for that. Agreed. Agreed. Flirting is kind of fun, isn't it? Sure. I'm a world-class flirt. Are you really? Yeah. Sure. Oh, you always rain it in when I'm around. Well, you know. You never let that light shine on the Josh. On the Josh. I like that. You want to talk a little bit about some of the flirting signs, like some of the physical cues? I think you should.

Okay. Using your name a lot in a conversation, which I didn't realize that. That's how I do. Really? Yeah. And it's actually kind of off-putting if it's not done very deftly. I could see that. Yeah. In 1980, cocaine was captivating and corrupting Miami. Miami had become the murder capital of the United States. They were making millions of dollars. I would categorize it as the Wild Wild West. Unleashing a wave of violence.

My God, talk about walking into the devil's den. The car kills. They just killed everybody that was home. They start pulling out pictures of Clay Williams' body taken out in the Everglades. A world orbiting around a mysterious man with a controversial claim. This drug pilot by the name of Lamar Chester. He never ran anything but grass until I turned over that load of coke to him on the island. Chester would claim he did it all for this CIA. Pulling many into a sprawling federal investigation.

So, Clay wasn't the only person who was murdered? Oh, no. Not by a long shot. I'm Lauren Bright Pacheco. Join me for murder in Miami. Listen to Murder in Miami on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The war on drugs impacts everyone. Whether or not you take drugs. America's public enemy number one is drug abuse.

This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs. They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute 2200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah, and they can do that without any drugs on the table. Without any drugs, of course, yes, they can do that. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss y'all. The property is guilty. Exactly.

And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. Cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call, like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. That you call civil answer for. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart Radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Complimenting the other person. That obvious one. Asking about interest, touching 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 she like grabs your arm or shoulder or something, that is a sign of all signs.

Yeah, 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 your. She's open to checking you out basically, yeah. And got any, we're idiots, men are idiots. So we need the females to tell us these things along the way. Otherwise I'd just think, why does that girl keep touching me on the arm? Well, we'll get to this again in a second too.

It's not entirely our fault. We'll talk about protean behavior. All right, well, we need to get to that quick then because that's interesting. Another one though is leaning in close to someone, obviously physical proximity and smiling. The old classic smile. Which can be taken one way or another. Sure.

Okay, so let me talk about that protean behavior. Right, basically what that is, 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 advances are rejected or she 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 confusing. Is it more a protective thing?

Like to protect themselves. No, I took it actually like, yeah, they're protecting themselves like if they're rejected. Right. If the guy doesn't go, hey, put yourself out there. Exactly, she can easily reign it back in. Okay. And, you know, but if you aren't picking up on this quite right,

if you're not aware of these protean gestures, which is actually its name for Proteus, the Greek mythological figure who could shape shift. Right. Very appropriately. Makes sense. It's very confusing. And I can serve myself fairly smooth dude, but I'm confused by this. And actually after I figured out that there is such thing as protean gestures,

it, it supported my general theory that women suck. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, it was a, it was a big eye-opening experience. Well, I know men's flirtations are much more aggressive and overt. Overt, exactly. Women do things like flip their hair or it says actually in the article, bat their eyelashes, it seems slightly dated to me to be honest.

Very coquettish. Yeah. I guess they still do that though. Yeah. Do they? Oh, I haven't seen it in years. So I have no idea. I'd like 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 it's such an animalistic behavior. Number one, 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? Right. It's, it's all very, it's, it's, it's, it's very, again, smooth. Uh-huh. If done right. If not, it's painfully clumsy. Right. Either way, it's, it's, it's driven by desire, which is an emotion.

Mm-hmm. And guess who, guess who makes an appearance? Our old friend. Darwin? No. Oh. I mean, he's always in the backdrop somewhere. He's got his fingers.

Kashkari? No, not Kashkari. Oh, I'm, I give it. The, the fight or flight response, the sympathetic nervous system. Exactly. Your favorite thing. Yeah. So basically this very primeval part 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. Yep. 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 my chest out. But you do anyway. Right. 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 a proper ratio to, from waist to hip. Yeah. Let's talk about that just briefly. That's 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. Yeah. And, uh, additionally, um, men are attracted to women with that ratio, the hip to, hip to waist ratio, uh, the waist must be no more than 60 to 80% of the hip circumference. Yeah. You want to know what's, what's uncanny?

What? They've done studies on women with those kinds of ratios and they found that, um, the women who fall into that, that 60 to 80%, actually 70, 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 turned on by her, you're basically, uh, responding to, you know, eons of collective memory of experience of, you know, that's on

this cellular level. Right. That's evolution, baby. It is baby. And it's real strong. You're absolutely right. Pretty cool. So we know all this because people actually study it and there is a guy, all of the studying started, um, in the 70s, I think. Right.

Real serious study of flirting started in the 70s. There is a guy and, um, as per usual, I'm going to butcher this person's name. Let's hear it. Arrhenius Eibel Eibesfeld. That sounds good to me. Thank you. Um, and Arrhenius, it was a, I don't actually know. I imagine maybe some sort of psychologist, a sociologist possibly.

A gist. 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. Oh, cool. And he trained this, uh, super cool, uh, camera on couples around the world who were engaged in, in flirting. Without pointing the camera then. Right.

Okay. So they, 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 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.

Right. And all of this together, it's very animalistic and it's universal. How about sucking their stomachs? Is that in there? Actually, if you think about it, sucking in your stomach puffs out your chest. That's a good point. And you, you want to puff out your chest. You want your, um, 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 viral. Right. And actually bilateral symmetry, your face being even on both sides is a real sign of developmental health. So good genes right there. I saw a special on that one. It's very interesting symmetry.

Yeah. Yeah. It is. It's, it's kind of off-putting, uh, ACE, asymmetry is a little off-putting, if you really think about it. Um, and so you've got the, you've got symmetry, right? Um, so that's actual reproductive health. You have, um, like a prominent jaw.

Right. That's developed by testosterone. So you 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, right? You're about to, um, create with this, this woman you're going to get it on with. Right. Which is showing you her neck.

Yeah. Uh-huh. So that was the original study. This guy found that, um, that this is universal, right? Mm-hmm. And then it started to really kind of take off and actually most of the actual studies of, um, flirting and flirtatious behavior have been conducted in like lounges, like one landmark study was conducted in the, in the bar of a Hyatt Hotel.

Nice. And after, you know, after studying, I don't know, probably for several days, if not weeks, the researchers got so good at it that they could predict just on body language alone, who is going to go upstairs together. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So that we've got flirting down pat. Uh-huh. Unfortunately, you know, most of us don't have flirting down pat. Like researchers may understand it, uh-huh. But it's still just kind of this vague, um, often uneasy kind of thing. Right. There's no formula. No, there definitely isn't.

It'd probably be kind of depressing if there was a formula. Yeah. 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, um, Germans and Americans famously tend to get their wires crossed when flirting?

Really? Yeah. What does that mean? German women find, uh, American men too forward when they flirt. And apparently German men, uh, just get all sorts of confused when, uh, American women are just talking to them they assume they're being flirted with. Yeah, I could see that. Probably because of the same reason American women I think are a little more forward than

German women. Right. So, yeah. In 1980, cocaine was captivating and corrupting Miami. Miami had become the murder capital of the United States. They were making millions of dollars. I would categorize it as the Wild Wild West. Unleashing a wave of violence.

My God, talking about walking into the devil's den, the car sales, they just killed everybody that was home. And they start pulling out pictures of Clay Williams' body taken out in the Everglades. A world orbiting around a mysterious man with a controversial claim. This drug pilot by the name of Lamar Chester. He never ran anything but grass until I turned over that load of coke to him on the island. Chester would claim he did it all for the CIA. Pulling many into a sprawling federal investigation.

So, Clay wasn't the only person who was murdered? Oh, no, not by a long shot. I'm Lauren Bright-Pacheco. Join me for Murder in Miami. Listen to Murder in Miami on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The war on drugs impacts everyone, whether or not you take drugs. America's public enemy number one is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs.

They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute 2,200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah, and they can do that without any drugs on the table. Without any drugs? Of course, yes, they can do that. And I'm the prime example of that. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The property is guilty, exactly.

And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. Cops, are they just, like, looting? Are they just, like, pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call, like what we would call a jackmove, or being robbed. They call civil answer for it. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the I Heart Radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I've got another study if we have time. I'd love it, yeah. This was not in a bar. This was a few years ago at Tulane University. And they researched a little bit about how flirting affected women in the workplace and their careers. And it was a small sample, only 164 women, but fairly valid.

50% of these women said they used various forms of flirting as a tool to get ahead at work. And 49% 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 the call? Flirting gets you ahead or no? I would tell you. No.

Really? What they found was that the women who did not flirt earned $75,000 to $100,000 per year while women who did flirt averaged $50,000 to $75,000. Wow. And if you did not flirt, you also were promoted three times as many times. And basically their takeaway was that sexuality is a short-term power source. Does it kind of cheapen the value of your personality to the eyes of other people? They didn't say, but 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. Nice one, Chuck. Thank you. Way to pull that one up for the bowels of Tulane. Right.

Yeah. So, well, that's flirting. Hopefully it helps a little bit here or there for all of you awkward, single, gangly, young man out there. Who have trouble getting dates, just make them laugh. Yeah, really, ultimately, you know, throw symmetry out the window. Yeah. If you're not very virile, whatever, there's pills out there. Sure.

And both Chuck's, in my opinion, it comes down to if you can make a woman laugh, she'll be yours forever. Right. If you're not funny, then we have no advice for you whatsoever. You better be handsome. Yeah. That's all I got to say. I guess, you know, Chuck, it's probably time for their advice for us, which would be listener mail.

Exactly. Okay, Josh, this listener mail isn't so much advice, but it's some fan mail from someone. That's a terrible segue. Yeah. Okay. From someone named Koss, and I'm going to butcher this name. K-A-A-S, Koss Botchtal, B-A-C-H-T-A-L, from Ashland, Wisconsin. Okay.

Nice Wisconsin person. Yeah. So, hi, I've been listening to your podcast and joining them greatly. Always a good way to get your thing right on the air, by the way, starting off that way. And this is on the podcast we did on Gorilla 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.

Yes, did we play that? Yeah, let's play a little clip. Yeah, you know, I'd like to pick someone's brain who's really against this. Yeah, I want to meet the person who sees what's going on and goes home and is just fuming. Yeah. Oh, there they plant those flowers right there. Yeah, I'm curious 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. Yeah. It's always a little unsettling. So, this person writes in and says, I can think of one possible situation where a perfectly sensible property owner might object to Gorilla Gardening. In some areas, a person can lose some rights pertaining to their own land if someone else can show a pattern of long-term benefit from trespassing. So, they're thinking of people parking or walking on other folks' land for 20 years,

then the owner comes and they're unable to get rid of these people without any legal recourse. So, the only 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., planting flowers and making it, you know, a more attractive place to hang out. That is an excellent, excellent point that I hadn't thought of. That's squatting, essentially. Right. And that's a great point.

As a matter of fact, for that great point, don't you think cost should get a t-shirt? If we can get cost a t-shirt, I think we should. Let's see, we can do cost. If you want to, send us your address and we will see if we can get a HowStuffWorksTV t-shirt out. And shirt size. Yeah, shirt size. Good one, Chuck. Yeah.

Cool. Well, thanks for listening. Anybody else who has any comments, any mail, any anything, you want to drop us a line, send it to StuffPodcast at HowStuffWorks.com. Way better names for what they call, like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new I Heart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands

give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help and a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen. So we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts.