The Ultimate Flirting Tool

A wink saved my life once. Well, my self esteem anyway. It was the first time I’d returned to London after my parents emigrated to Australia and a friend of mine had put me in touch with a friend of his, who’d generously offered to let me stay.

Christopher lived in Wimbledon and turned out to be incredibly posh. He was also funny, sexy, generous, and all round fanciable. Which somehow even made it worse when he insisted on me joining him at a never ending whirl of social functions. A 21 year old student, my suitcase wasn’t exactly bursting with Versace originals, so I was forced to turn up dressed in bizarrely inappropriate things. I remembered standing awkwardly in a group at the Ascot races, convinced I was committing all sort of social sins (and I was apparently), feeling gauche, unsophisticated, shy, and painfully out of place. You try wearing Doc Martens and a mini skirt surrounded by a sea of designer dresses. The only time I looked up was to steal a quick glance at Christopher, to see if he was as embarrassed at me being there as I felt. 

Rather than being humiliated, he gave a sexy little smile and a big reassuring wink. In the blink of an eye, he’d say, ‘I know how you feel but you're doing fine. I'm here with you, relax.’ That wink was devastating. It made me feel accepted, sexy, admired, reassured, and downright bloody fantastic. It made me lift my head up, square my shoulders, meet the eyes of the person standing next to me and strike up conversation. In that moment, I went from having the worst time of my life to having the best time.

In a tense situation that one small movement of the eye had a dramatic effect, and when you consider 80 per cent of our information about the outside world comes through our eyes, it's hardly surprising almost all dating experts rate eye contact as the ultimate flirting tool. The real reason why superstars wear sunglasses at night isn't to look cool, it's to hide their emotions.

Eighteen times more sensitive than our ears, our eyes are capable of responding to one and a half million simultaneous messages. So finely tuned, they'll subconsciously spot when someone starts looking at us and start taking mental notes. If that person is checking everyone out, they'll stop registering the information; if it's just us they're interested in, they'll signal the brain to give us a nudge that someone's watching. (Forget the earth mother image. Mother Nature is a complete and utter sexpot.)

Focus attention: Draw attention to your eyes by using something to point to them. Our eyes automatically follow movement, so by pushing your hair away from your eyes or by tapping near them with a pen, you'll force anyone talking to you to look up and into your face. Another quick trick is to put your thumb underneath the side of your chin and rest your first and index fingers on the side of your face pointing towards your eyes. (An added bonus: not only will it draw attention to your eyes, it subliminally makes people think you're intelligent because you're pointing to your brain as well.)

The four-and-a-half second scan: A normal face scan lasts three seconds, scan for four and a half and it's clear they've ‘caught your eye’. Eye contact of more than ten seconds between two people means one of two things: you're about to (or at least want to) fight or have sex.
 
Prolonged eye contact produces intense emotional reactions regardless of whether it's a fist or a pair of lips heading your way. It activates the nervous system, raises our heart rate and blood flow, and stimulates the production of certain hormones. Just about everyone knows being watched is a sign that someone's interested, so the four-and-a-half second scan is a great way to subtly make your intentions known.

The slide and settle: Let your eyes settle on someone so they're aware you've noticed them, then as they're still watching you, slide your eyes around the room before settling back on them again. This effectively says, ‘You instantly attracted me and you're still the pick of the room even after I've checked out the competition.’ One other point while we're on the topic of eye slides - if you're interested, it's best to break the very first eye contact made by dropping your eyes straight down, then directly up again to lock eyes after a few seconds. If someone's eyes instead slide away from yours to the side or upwards and don't return after a minute or two, they're almost definitely not interested. The slide and settle is a quick movement - the whole thing's over in 10-15 seconds - but it's impressively accurate.

The flirting triangle: Eye movement studies show we look at different parts of other people's faces depending on the situation and level of attractiveness. When looking at strangers or in business situations, we make a small triangle by moving our eyes from eye to eye, dipping them as we move across the bridge of the nose. With friends or in more friendly social situations, the triangle widens as our eyes drop below eye level to include the nose and the mouth. With lovers and people we fancy, the triangle broadens even further, dropping below the mouth to include the breasts: and other good bits like the genitals. The more intense the flirting, the more concentrated the eye contact becomes at certain parts of the triangle. When we're in a full flirting mode, eye to eye contact becomes fast, furious and constant, seconded by long periods spent staring at the mouth. Our eyes spend the rest of the time making little side journeys to the bits at the bottom of the triangle.

Blink if you fancy them:  It's easy to see where the term ‘batting your eyelashes’ originated from: if someone looks at us and likes what they see, they tend to blink more. Because the brain associates rapid blinking with finding someone sexually attractive, the more you blink at someone, the more attracted you feel to them. This, of course, can be manipulated for your benefit. You can increase the blink rate of the person you're talking to, by simply blinking more yourself. If the person likes you, they'll unconsciously try to match their blink rate to keep in sync with you, which in turn, makes you both feel more attracted to each other. Don't assume slow blinking means disinterest however. If we're completely absorbed in a task or addictively entertained, we blink very little. Confused? Don't be. Common sense and other body language signals will tell you which interpretation applies to your situation.

...and wink if you want more: As evidenced by my little story, a quiet wink matched with a sexy smile can be incredibly bonding simply because it's secret and implies the two of you are closer than others present.