Post by Josh on Aug 4, 2004 12:40:39 GMT -5
[glow=red,2,300]The Signals of Flirting[/glow]
By Peta Heskell
We all know what a v-sign means -- or do we? Depending on which way the hand is facing you will either interpret it as a sign of victory or a very rude gesture! If you come from the jungles of Peru it might mean absolutely nothing to you at all!
Flirting signs:
Language, be it communicated by the mouth or by the body, is a very complex business indeed. In times gone by women used a complex signalling system involving fans and eyes to flirt. Gay men have a great system of sexual signalling that involves keys, pockets and handkerchiefs! Unfortunately no similar system, sexual or otherwise really exists in the heterosexual world. In the absence of an overt dictionary of signals it’s easy to either get it wrong or miss the signals altogether because our signalling system is mainly unconscious.
We do it all the time. What we need is to polish up our ability to notice and then interpret the signals. When you develop this skill the world becomes a richer place. Opportunities that were previously unnoticed seem to leap out at you from all directions. .
Richard Bandler, the founder of NLP, told me that when he ran a flirting class one of the biggest challenges was getting the participants to notice the signals from the opposite sex. He lined up the men and the women, told the women to signal and 97 out of 100 men failed to notice the signals! That's why we will be practising this stuff in the flirting workshops. We need to understand what effect our signals have on others so that we can modify our transmissions to be clearer and more effective. As my friend Jonathan Altfeld says "we have to teach them to become super bio-feedback machines for each other".
[glow=blue,2,300]Blind Date - a treasure trove[/glow]
I watch Blind Date every week because it's full of superb examples of signal 'botching'. The couple I watched recently were being filmed on the plane. She was looking at him with the flirtiest eyes I've seen for ages. Her smile, her body movements all said 'I am interested'. Later when they were interviewed she said 'He didn't seem interested'. He said 'she didn't give me any signs'.
What transpired was that because he was a 'touchy-feely' person [his own words] a touch expressed interest for him. He didn't notice her eyes. What would have happened if he had been more aware of the variety of signals that women give out and what would have happened if she had tried using a different sensory system to transmit her signals? I don't know but it's something to think about.
Touch, sight and sound
We communicate via our five senses. Most of us do not utilise our senses equally all the time. When expressing and perceiving data, we often use one system more heavily than another. For example, some of us use 'visual words' like 'a light at the end of the tunnel' as opposed to 'kinaesthetic' words like 'it was a weight off my mind'. The guy on Blind Date described himself as a 'touchy feely' person. People who operate out of the 'feeling' sense look for 'feeling' signals. The girl on the other hand kept saying " I looked at you all the time". She expected him to pick up on her very visual signals.. This was clearly a case, not of mixed, but of missed signals!
Part II Below
By Peta Heskell
We all know what a v-sign means -- or do we? Depending on which way the hand is facing you will either interpret it as a sign of victory or a very rude gesture! If you come from the jungles of Peru it might mean absolutely nothing to you at all!
Flirting signs:
Language, be it communicated by the mouth or by the body, is a very complex business indeed. In times gone by women used a complex signalling system involving fans and eyes to flirt. Gay men have a great system of sexual signalling that involves keys, pockets and handkerchiefs! Unfortunately no similar system, sexual or otherwise really exists in the heterosexual world. In the absence of an overt dictionary of signals it’s easy to either get it wrong or miss the signals altogether because our signalling system is mainly unconscious.
We do it all the time. What we need is to polish up our ability to notice and then interpret the signals. When you develop this skill the world becomes a richer place. Opportunities that were previously unnoticed seem to leap out at you from all directions. .
Richard Bandler, the founder of NLP, told me that when he ran a flirting class one of the biggest challenges was getting the participants to notice the signals from the opposite sex. He lined up the men and the women, told the women to signal and 97 out of 100 men failed to notice the signals! That's why we will be practising this stuff in the flirting workshops. We need to understand what effect our signals have on others so that we can modify our transmissions to be clearer and more effective. As my friend Jonathan Altfeld says "we have to teach them to become super bio-feedback machines for each other".
[glow=blue,2,300]Blind Date - a treasure trove[/glow]
I watch Blind Date every week because it's full of superb examples of signal 'botching'. The couple I watched recently were being filmed on the plane. She was looking at him with the flirtiest eyes I've seen for ages. Her smile, her body movements all said 'I am interested'. Later when they were interviewed she said 'He didn't seem interested'. He said 'she didn't give me any signs'.
What transpired was that because he was a 'touchy-feely' person [his own words] a touch expressed interest for him. He didn't notice her eyes. What would have happened if he had been more aware of the variety of signals that women give out and what would have happened if she had tried using a different sensory system to transmit her signals? I don't know but it's something to think about.
Touch, sight and sound
We communicate via our five senses. Most of us do not utilise our senses equally all the time. When expressing and perceiving data, we often use one system more heavily than another. For example, some of us use 'visual words' like 'a light at the end of the tunnel' as opposed to 'kinaesthetic' words like 'it was a weight off my mind'. The guy on Blind Date described himself as a 'touchy feely' person. People who operate out of the 'feeling' sense look for 'feeling' signals. The girl on the other hand kept saying " I looked at you all the time". She expected him to pick up on her very visual signals.. This was clearly a case, not of mixed, but of missed signals!
Part II Below
