COMMUNICATION: How To Flirt, Start Conversations And Keep Them Going? In Depth Guide to Approaching, Flirting and Dating | Page 49
ingredients of successful flirting. So, assuming your target finds you attractive,
an eyebrow-flash with appropriate follow-up could leapfrog you into instant
intimacy.
Two warnings are necessary here:
1) If your target does not find you attractive, the eyebrow-flash strategy may
backfire, as the confusion over whether or not you already know each other will
be experienced as unpleasant and annoying, rather than amusing.
2) Do not use the eyebrow-flash in Japan, where it has definite sexual
connotations and is therefore never used as a greeting signal.
If your target is attracted to you, this may be more evident in facial expressions
than in words. Studies have found that women are generally better than men at
reading these expressions, but that both sexes have equal difficulty in seeing
through people's expressions when they are controlling their faces to hide their
real feelings.
The problem is that although faces do express genuine feelings, any facial expression that occurs naturally can also be
produced artificially for a social purpose. Smiles and
frowns, to take the most obvious examples, can be
spontaneous expressions of happiness or anger, but
they can also be manufactured as deliberate signals,
such as frowning to indicate doubt or displeasure,
smiling to signal approval or agreement, etc. Feelings
can also be hidden under a 'social' smile, a 'stiff upper
lip' or a blank, 'inscrutable' expression.
Despite this potential for 'deceit', we rely more on
facial expressions than on any other aspect of body
language. In conversation, we watch our companions'
faces rather than their hands or feet, and rely on their
facial signals to tell us what effect we are having, and
how to interpret what they say. Although people are
better at controlling their facial expressions than other aspects of body language, there is still some 'leakage', and the
following clues will help you to detect insincerity.
Let's say your target smiles at you. How do you know
whether this smile is spontaneous or manufactured? There
are four ways of telling the difference.
First, spontaneous smiles produce characteristic wrinkles around
the eyes, which will not appear if your target is 'forcing' a smile out
of politeness.
Second, 'forced' or 'social' smiles tend to be asymmetrical (stronger
on the left side of the face in right-handed people and on the right
side of the face in left-handed people).
The third clue to insincerity is in the timing of the smile:
unspontaneous smiles tend to occur at socially inappropriate
moments in the conversation (e.g. a few seconds after you have
made a funny remark, rather than immediately).
Finally, there is a clue in the duration of the smile, as a
manufactured smile tends to be held for longer (what is often called
a 'fixed' smile) and then to fade in an irregular way.
When observing your target's facial expressions, it is important to