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Let me ask you something.

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Have you ever been in a situation

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where you've asked yourself
the following question:

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is this person, is this person
flirting with me?

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Picture the scene:
you're at a friend's party.

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You sashay into the kitchen

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because we all know
that's where the fun is.

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And you see an attractive stranger

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getting a drink refill from a box of wine.

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Your friend's a student.

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And so you get a drink refill,

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and you say something hilarious
to the attractive stranger.

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Attractive stranger laughs.

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Good for you.

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And then for the next few minutes

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there's some eye contact, more talking.

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But then after a few minutes

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you start thinking,
'Is this person flirting with me?'

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Sound familiar, anyone?

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See the person sitting next to you,
it's happened to them.

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The person in front of you,
it's happened to them.

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You see this is a universal conundrum.

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But no more!

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Because in the next ten minutes

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I'm going to tell you
the signs of flirting

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and never again will you wonder:
is this person flirting with me?

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I'm Jean Smith.

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I'm a social anthropologist
who studies flirting,

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a flirtologist, if you will.

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Now, as a flirtologist, I do research,
I write books, I give talks.

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And I work with clients
both private and corporate,

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all with the goal of helping people
to become better flirts.

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So I can see some of you
sitting there, you're thinking,

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'Really!? Is this necessary?
I mean teaching people how to flirt?'

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Yes.

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(Laughter)

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Yes, it is.

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I've been doing this for over a decade.

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And if the question -

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is this person flirting with me -
was popular then,

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it's now everyone-wants-
to-take-it-to-prom popular

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because over the last decade

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the way that we flirt
has changed dramatically.

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People are relying more and more
on digital ways of communicating.

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But let's face it,

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an emoji with its tongue sticking out,

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it's only going to get you so far.

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At some point, you're going
to have to meet in person.

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Unless of course, you're a Japanese male,

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and in that case, you could go on to marry
your video game girlfriend: Rinko.

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So as part of my quest
to help people become better flirts,

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I did research.

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I went to the cities of London,
New York, Paris and Stockholm,

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and I researched the flirting behaviour
of its inhabitants.

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And I found there were six things
that they all had in common.

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Six ways that they could signal
they were flirting

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and understood when someone
was flirting with them.

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And I teach this as

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H.O.T.-A.P.E.

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(Laughter)

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It's the six signs - it's an acronym
for the six signs of flirting.

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So what if I were to say to you:
'You must be a parking ticket

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because you've got "fine"
written all over you.'

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Would you laugh?

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Well, 'H' is for humour.

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Raise your hand
if you thought my joke was funny.

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Go ahead, don't be shy.

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OK, everyone with their hands up,

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I would totally date you.

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(Laughter)

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Well, if my husband
weren't such a control freak.

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But anyway, if you
didn't raise your hands,

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it's not a good match.

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It's just not going to work between us.

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But it's me, not you.

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But this is a good thing

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because HOTAPE-ing people -

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it takes time.

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Does anyone here
like reading a good novel,

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watching an interesting TED talk?

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Does anyone here like test cricket?

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These things also take time,
especially test cricket, five days?

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And this is where people
often get it wrong

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because they want to attract everybody.

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But no, you just want
to attract those people

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who match with you.

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And that's why humour,

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specifically a shared sense of humour,

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is really important
for helping you to differentiate

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between your potential HOT-APEs
and squirrel monkeys.

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I mean, yeah, they're cute.

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I'm sure they have a great personality.

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But at the end of the day
it's a squirrel monkey.

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It's no HOT-APE.

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So 'O' is for open body language.

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Three things to remember.

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Number one, don't do this.

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I know some of you are guilty of this.

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I've heard it all before,

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oh, but I'm cold, or, this is comfortable.

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OK, whiny voice aside, in which instance

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do you want to HOT-APE me more?

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Like this?

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Or like this, right?

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Not HOT-APE.

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HOT-APE.

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Number two: make sure your shoulders
are facing the person.

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So not HOT-APE,

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not HOT-APE, still not HOT-APE.

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HOT-APE.

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Not HOT-APE.

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HOT-APE.

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Now, the third,
this is the most important,

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and I'm only telling you guys.

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This is a really good one.

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To see if someone's interested,

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look at the direction
in which their feet are pointing.

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So if their feet
are pointing at you, a good sign.

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If they're kind of out to the side,

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it means they're planning
their escape route.

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The further away our limbs
are from our brain,

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the harder it is for us to control them.

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So, Shakira, I know you say:
the hips don't lie,

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but the flirtologist is here
to say the feet don't lie.

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'T' is for touch.

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Like humour, touch also has a positive
physiological response on our body.

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Now as a general rule, shoulder -
it's a safe place to touch.

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But as you go down the arm
towards the hands,

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the touch gets more intimate.

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That's why I recommend everyone
should kind of tap the hand

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and say something like:

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'Oh, you're so funny',

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people seem to love that stuff.

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Oh, another place
that would be nice to touch

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would be just here

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at the top of the back
between the shoulder blades,

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perhaps if you're passing by,
you can give a light touch.

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Now, of all of the flirting signs,

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people seem to be wariest
about using touch.

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As one of my clients said,

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'Well, the other signs
you can get away with.

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But when it comes to touch,
you're culpable.'

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But touch can get you
out of the friend zone,

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and it can also show someone
that you're interested.

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And as long as you remember,

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I like test cricket,

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it lasts five days,

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I don't have time
to HOT-APE with everyone,

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then if the person
doesn't respond positively,

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you can try someone else.

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'A' is for attention.

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This one might seem obvious.

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The more attention someone is paying you,
the more they like you.

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But the problem is
once you are in the interaction,

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it's really hard to be objective.

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Which is why in anthropology,
we have a methodology,

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it's called participant observation.

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And I think this could be a really
useful tool for you to use in flirting.

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It means that you're participating,
you're in the interaction,

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but you're not so in it
that you can't observe.

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So if you were to, for example,

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touch and say something
and see the other person blushed,

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it means that you're not so self-conscious

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that you can't observe the effect
that you're having on the other person.

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And that my friends
is when the flirting gets really fun.

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'P' is for proximity.

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Now proximity was used in two ways.

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The first, if you see someone
across the room

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and then all of a sudden
they're next to your side,

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this is not a coincidence.

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It means they like what they see
and they must explore further.

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The other way proximity was used

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is when you're actually
in the interaction,

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they're standing closer than usual.

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So if you're attracted, great.

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If you're not, they're in your space.

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So the last of the flirting signs
is the most important.

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Can anyone guess what it is?

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Thank you.

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It's eye contact.

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This was the number one way

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that people could understand someone
who's flirting with them

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and the difference
between friendly and flirting.

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So in flirting eye-contact
the gaze happened more often.

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It was held for a longer amount of time,

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and it was more intense.

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So using these signs:

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humour, open body language, touch,
attention, proximity, eye contact,

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you can recognize
when someone is flirting with you.

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And as a general rule,
the more signs the better.

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Now my favourite story of HOT-APE
being used in the field

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was relayed to me by one of my clients.

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She had shared HOT-APE
with all of her friends.

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And one night, they went out
HOTAPE-ing guys.

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One of her friends was making
eye contact with a guy at the bar,

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and she went over and spoke with him.

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She came back a few minutes later,

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bit dejected, my client said,

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'What happened? What happened?'
And she's like, 'Oh nothing.'

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'Well, did you HOT-APE him?'
She's like, 'Yeah, yeah.'

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And then they started
going through the sides:

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'Did you use humour?'
She's like 'Yeah, yeah.'

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'What about open body language?
You didn't do this like you usually do?'

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'No, no.'

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'What about touch?
Did you touch him? Back, hand.'

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'Uh, God, I didn't use touch.'

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And then they started laughing,
like, 'Well, no wonder.'

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And what normally could have been
a situation of dejection

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or, you know, feeling bad,

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it just turned into a fun game.

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And this is the power of HOTAPE

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because it turns flirting
into what it should be.

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It's something fun, easy,
it's not a big deal.

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And when we think
about flirting like this,

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it totally changes
our paradigm of rejection.

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And in situations where we're often
feeling self-conscious or a bit nervous,

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we have scientific tools
to help us remember what to do.

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And finally,

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it makes it's not about us,

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it's a checklist; it's a task.

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It's things to do rather than
how we often see flirting

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which is a stranger's
evaluation of our worth.

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So now you know the signs of flirting,

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and I encourage you to not just
recognize but be proactive,

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because these signs also use
for you to express interest.

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And this is my challenge to you:

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forget about the game,
forget about the rules,

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be genuine.

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Take action and go HOTAPE someone.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)

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Thank you.