‘I am to flirt my last,” wrote a 20-year-old Jane Austen to her sister in 1796. The subject of her melodramatic affections was the handsome Irish lawyer Tom Lefroy, thought by some to be the inspiration for Mr Darcy. He was not the first or last person Austen batted her eyelashes at. Contrary to popular belief, the bookish author was a social butterfly who once admitted, “I never married because I never met anyone worth giving up flirting for.”
Who doesn’t love to lock eyes across a crowded room and kindle a mutual spark of attraction into a raging inferno? A lot of us, it turns out. In fact, we’ve sleepwalked into a world where many of us are terrible at flirting. According to the dating app Hinge, 56 per cent of Gen Z daters say they are too scared of rejection to pursue romance. This has disastrous consequences for our love lives: a new study has found that those who are “low in flirting capacity” (boffin-speak for “bad at making eyes”) are more likely to be involuntarily single and experience longer spells of singlehood to boot.
That’s not to say that seduction is dead. The internet is awash with techniques to signal interest, from sprinkling likes across someone’s profile to loyally responding to every Instagram story with heart emojis (big red ones, so they know you’re serious). The problem is that these stratagems are best for those who would ordinarily struggle to make eye contact with a barista. They’re low risk, low reward. Want to get off the apps and up your dating game? It’s time to put the phone down and learn to connect with people IRL — and that means learning to flirt.
First off: if you want a masterclass, look up Leo Woodall’s appearance as the cheeky Essex lad Jack in White Lotus and witness how quickly the standoffish assistant Portia crumbles in the face of his charm offensive. And yes, while the roguish Jack is a fictional character who ends up shagging his murderous uncle, I am also blessed to have several incredible flirts in my social circle. They waft through parties leaving a trail of slightly stunned admirers in their wake, and they are my role models. In the words of one male friend, “I flirt all the time to get things from service people — just ask my husband.” He says he once got a free meal for three by flirting with a waiter, and had his dad upgraded to first class by a besotted train-ticket booker.
The best flirts have mastered the art of human connection. They listen. They ask questions. They smile at all the right times. They leave people feeling inexplicably good about themselves yet strangely intrigued and flattered by this new arrival in their life. They are experts at maintaining eye contact that feels warm, inviting and non-threatening. They may lightly rib you, but always take pains to poke fun at themselves more. (Note to any adherents to The Game, Neil Strauss’s — awful — 2005 pick-up bible: this is different to “negging”, which essentially involves all but insulting someone to their face.)
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All well and good, I hear you whine, but what if you’re at a loud, crowded gathering where exchanging words is nigh-on impossible? Let me introduce you to a technique my friends and I call the Three Gazes. Start by catching the eye of your beloved, before looking away as if pondering their unbelievable hotness to yourself. Then you lock eyes again and sharply break off as if absolutely mortified to be caught in the act of looking upon such sacred beauty. Finally, in the words of my flirtatious pal, “you inexorably pull your gaze round to meet theirs as if you can’t help it — and smile”.
She describes it as “100 per cent effective” for enticing people of any gender over — and I’ve seen it in action. But please note this is different to simply staring googly-eyed at someone as if you’re a slowly asphyxiating fish. If you find that your target is avoiding your gaze, move on. Because being good at flirting is also about knowing when your presence isn’t welcome.
Most crucial of all? It’s knowing when and where to flirt. Bars, clubs, pubs, house parties, weddings: fill your boots, unless you’re the one getting married. Funerals, boardrooms, work meetings and sexual health clinics? Maybe reconsider your life choices. Put it another way: if your direct supervisor has to intervene in your love life, you’re probably doing it wrong.
Pick-up artists or manosphere influencers may espouse the importance of earning a six-figure salary or an Olympian-level bod, but anybody who has ever been relentlessly charmed into over-tipping a waiter knows this isn’t necessary. In fact, I’d argue that the extremely good-looking don’t actually need to cultivate the art of witty conversation — they simply blunder into social situations and wait for someone to bump into their abs. For the rest of us — and Austen — there’s flirting.
