Let me ask you something.
Have you ever been in a situation
where you've asked yourself the following question:
is this person, is this person flirting with me?
Picture the scene: you're at a friend's party.
You sashay into the kitchen
because we all know that's where the fun is.
And you see an attractive stranger
getting a drink refill from a box of wine.
Your friend's a student.
And so you get a drink refill,
and you say something hilarious to the attractive stranger.
Attractive stranger laughs.
Good for you.
And then for the next few minutes
there's some eye contact, more talking.
But then after a few minutes
you start thinking, 'Is this person flirting with me?'
Sound familiar, anyone?
See the person sitting next to you, it's happened to them.
The person in front of you, it's happened to them.
You see this is a universal conundrum.
But no more!
Because in the next ten minutes
I'm going to tell you the signs of flirting
and never again will you wonder: is this person flirting with me?
I'm Jean Smith.
I'm a social anthropologist who studies flirting,
a flirtologist, if you will.
Now, as a flirtologist, I do research, I write books, I give talks.
And I work with clients both private and corporate,
all with the goal of helping people to become better flirts.
So I can see some of you sitting there, you're thinking,
'Really!? Is this necessary? I mean teaching people how to flirt?'
Yes.
(Laughter)
Yes, it is.
I've been doing this for over a decade.
And if the question -
is this person flirting with me - was popular then,
it's now everyone-wants- to-take-it-to-prom popular
because over the last decade
the way that we flirt has changed dramatically.
People are relying more and more on digital ways of communicating.
But let's face it,
an emoji with its tongue sticking out,
it's only going to get you so far.
At some point, you're going to have to meet in person.
Unless of course, you're a Japanese male,
and in that case, you could go on to marry your video game girlfriend: Rinko.
So as part of my quest to help people become better flirts,
I did research.
I went to the cities of London, New York, Paris and Stockholm,
and I researched the flirting behaviour of its inhabitants.
And I found there were six things that they all had in common.
Six ways that they could signal they were flirting
and understood when someone was flirting with them.
And I teach this as
H.O.T.-A.P.E.
(Laughter)
It's the six signs - it's an acronym for the six signs of flirting.
So what if I were to say to you: 'You must be a parking ticket
because you've got "fine" written all over you.'
Would you laugh?
Well, 'H' is for humour.
Raise your hand if you thought my joke was funny.
Go ahead, don't be shy.
OK, everyone with their hands up,
I would totally date you.
(Laughter)
Well, if my husband weren't such a control freak.
But anyway, if you didn't raise your hands,
it's not a good match.
It's just not going to work between us.
But it's me, not you.
But this is a good thing
because HOTAPE-ing people -
it takes time.
Does anyone here like reading a good novel,
watching an interesting TED talk?
Does anyone here like test cricket?
These things also take time, especially test cricket, five days?
And this is where people often get it wrong
because they want to attract everybody.
But no, you just want to attract those people
who match with you.
And that's why humour,
specifically a shared sense of humour,
is really important for helping you to differentiate
between your potential HOT-APEs and squirrel monkeys.
I mean, yeah, they're cute.
I'm sure they have a great personality.
But at the end of the day it's a squirrel monkey.
It's no HOT-APE.
So 'O' is for open body language.
Three things to remember.
Number one, don't do this.
I know some of you are guilty of this.
I've heard it all before,
oh, but I'm cold, or, this is comfortable.
OK, whiny voice aside, in which instance
do you want to HOT-APE me more?
Like this?
Or like this, right?
Not HOT-APE.
HOT-APE.
Number two: make sure your shoulders are facing the person.
So not HOT-APE,
not HOT-APE, still not HOT-APE.
HOT-APE.
Not HOT-APE.
HOT-APE.
Now, the third, this is the most important,
and I'm only telling you guys.
This is a really good one.
To see if someone's interested,
look at the direction in which their feet are pointing.
So if their feet are pointing at you, a good sign.
If they're kind of out to the side,
it means they're planning their escape route.
The further away our limbs are from our brain,
the harder it is for us to control them.
So, Shakira, I know you say: the hips don't lie,
but the flirtologist is here to say the feet don't lie.
'T' is for touch.
Like humour, touch also has a positive physiological response on our body.
Now as a general rule, shoulder - it's a safe place to touch.
But as you go down the arm towards the hands,
the touch gets more intimate.
That's why I recommend everyone should kind of tap the hand
and say something like:
'Oh, you're so funny',
people seem to love that stuff.
Oh, another place that would be nice to touch
would be just here
at the top of the back between the shoulder blades,
perhaps if you're passing by, you can give a light touch.
Now, of all of the flirting signs,
people seem to be wariest about using touch.
As one of my clients said,
'Well, the other signs you can get away with.
But when it comes to touch, you're culpable.'
But touch can get you out of the friend zone,
and it can also show someone that you're interested.
And as long as you remember,
I like test cricket,
it lasts five days,
I don't have time to HOT-APE with everyone,
then if the person doesn't respond positively,
you can try someone else.
'A' is for attention.
This one might seem obvious.
The more attention someone is paying you, the more they like you.
But the problem is once you are in the interaction,
it's really hard to be objective.
Which is why in anthropology, we have a methodology,
it's called participant observation.
And I think this could be a really useful tool for you to use in flirting.
It means that you're participating, you're in the interaction,
but you're not so in it that you can't observe.
So if you were to, for example,
touch and say something and see the other person blushed,
it means that you're not so self-conscious
that you can't observe the effect that you're having on the other person.
And that my friends is when the flirting gets really fun.
'P' is for proximity.
Now proximity was used in two ways.
The first, if you see someone across the room
and then all of a sudden they're next to your side,
this is not a coincidence.
It means they like what they see and they must explore further.
The other way proximity was used
is when you're actually in the interaction,
they're standing closer than usual.
So if you're attracted, great.
If you're not, they're in your space.
So the last of the flirting signs is the most important.
Can anyone guess what it is?
Thank you.
It's eye contact.
This was the number one way
that people could understand someone who's flirting with them
and the difference between friendly and flirting.
So in flirting eye-contact the gaze happened more often.
It was held for a longer amount of time,
and it was more intense.
So using these signs:
humour, open body language, touch, attention, proximity, eye contact,
you can recognize when someone is flirting with you.
And as a general rule, the more signs the better.
Now my favourite story of HOT-APE being used in the field
was relayed to me by one of my clients.
She had shared HOT-APE with all of her friends.
And one night, they went out HOTAPE-ing guys.
One of her friends was making eye contact with a guy at the bar,
and she went over and spoke with him.
She came back a few minutes later,
bit dejected, my client said,
'What happened? What happened?' And she's like, 'Oh nothing.'
'Well, did you HOT-APE him?' She's like, 'Yeah, yeah.'
And then they started going through the sides:
'Did you use humour?' She's like 'Yeah, yeah.'
'What about open body language? You didn't do this like you usually do?'
'No, no.'
'What about touch? Did you touch him? Back, hand.'
'Uh, God, I didn't use touch.'
And then they started laughing, like, 'Well, no wonder.'
And what normally could have been a situation of dejection
or, you know, feeling bad,
it just turned into a fun game.
And this is the power of HOTAPE
because it turns flirting into what it should be.
It's something fun, easy, it's not a big deal.
And when we think about flirting like this,
it totally changes our paradigm of rejection.
And in situations where we're often feeling self-conscious or a bit nervous,
we have scientific tools to help us remember what to do.
And finally,
it makes it's not about us,
it's a checklist; it's a task.
It's things to do rather than how we often see flirting
which is a stranger's evaluation of our worth.
So now you know the signs of flirting,
and I encourage you to not just recognize but be proactive,
because these signs also use for you to express interest.
And this is my challenge to you:
forget about the game, forget about the rules,
be genuine.
Take action and go HOTAPE someone.
Thank you.
(Applause)
Thank you.