As folks transition out of winter and have re-set their clocks forward, it is critical to better understand how single people can approach consensual flirting this spring fever season. Given the turnover from what singles describe as cuffing season to horny season, appreciating the nuanced shades of what exactly do these terms—flirting, wanted vs. unwanted attention, and signaling—actually mean? Defining and disentangling misinformed beliefs about giving and receiving attention is essential to understanding flirty and/or mating cues whether on date #1 or any subsequent date and/or sexual encounter.
A 2015 study of 52 opposite-sex pairs of college students found that only 36 percent of men and 18 percent of women accurately identified when the opposite gender was actually flirting (Hall et al., 2015). This study suggests that males “over-estimate female interest so as not to miss an opportunity to mate, thereby rendering their judgment more accurate when females are actually flirting, but impairing judgment when they are not flirting.” This study then found that third-party observers of these interactions did not predict flirting any better. The third-party observers detected flirting when it happened only 38 percent of the time. Given the coupled context of flirting, which typically requires that one individual be more active while the other partner takes on a more following or receiving role (e.g., Hall et al., 2010), the predominance of gender role beliefs in predicting behaviors may reflect the perception that a certain role must be taken on for the flirtation dance to move ahead.
Since many dating clients report that they have trouble picking up on flirting cues, how can we help clients differentiate between unwanted advances and actual flirting? Even more so, how can a person agree to flirting without agreeing to anything when people can not even identify when or if they are flirting? A 2023 study examined gender differences in the aftermath of unwanted advances (Moran & Burch, 2023). They found that 71 percent of women in the study reported experiencing unwanted advances earlier in life compared to men, and additionally have more negative experiences and worries about rejecting unwanted advances. Given this, how do women’s flirtation cues get misinterpreted by men?
A 2024 study by Landwehr et al. on how men perceive women’s sexual interest found that when women’s global cues (i.e., clothing or appearance) and specific cues (i.e., facial expression) were conflicting (not aligned with one another) about sexual interest toward men, men often misinterpreted the women’s intentions to mean she was interested. Furthermore, according to this study, researchers found that if a man was sexually aroused or if he usually looked upon women as sexual objects, he would be more likely to misinterpret a woman's cues thinking she was interested when she wasn’t.
When single therapy clients discuss their anxiety around getting back to dating apps after taking a pause or starting to date after a breakup or divorce, they are feeling unsure of how to show interest so that they can go at their own pace. Many of them find their date is more sexually assertive and at times aggressive when they’re not ready for that level. They ask for help through coaching on how to set their date’s expectations nonverbally and/or verbally. At other times, dating clients express frustration in session when they believe they are explicitly expressing themselves in a flirty manner on a date and interpret their date’s responsiveness as mutual interest only to find that they have been ghosted a few days later.
A 2021 study exploring what influenced nonverbal flirting, which included heterosexual, bisexual, lesbian, and gay participants from a college community in western Canada found gender, rather than sexual orientation, to be the primary predictor of flirting techniques (Clark et al., 2021). What researchers found was that “men who globally identify as masculine will be particularly likely to select masculine-typed flirting behaviors that fulfill this traditional role. Gender-role beliefs, however, which have to do with relations between men and women do not predict flirting behaviors. Thus, for men, the individual's identification with the traditional norms of their gender, rather than their beliefs about gendered relations, are more important to flirting behavior.”
Interestingly, “for participants who identified as women, sexual orientation did not emerge as a predictor of flirting behaviors.” Their results support the findings of previous research of Rose and Zand (2002), in that they indicated "no difference in flirting styles between heterosexual and sexual minority women.” However, what researchers found in this study is that what did impact women more critically in flirting behavior were their beliefs about men's and women's roles rather than their self-concepts of femininity or the adherence to a traditional feminine identity.
However, it is also important to note that the sample of people who identified as nonbinary participants was minimal. Therefore the analysis of flirting in individuals who identify as nonbinary is limited. Similarly, the measures used to determine flirting were also based on studies and measures designed for heterosexual samples, and, thus, it is hard to truly say whether these scales accurately portray flirting patterns of gender-expansive and queer populations. As gender becomes more fluid, it is hard to say how applicable any of these measuring scales truly are as ideas around gender expand. Nonetheless, these results do shine a light on the presence of traditional gender role behavior when it comes to flirting.
It is important to note that most of the other studies were also done with entirely, or mostly, cis-gender white heterosexual participants, which may make the results less generalizable to queer-identifying, gender-expansive, and people of color. However, these results call for more clear communication skills and boundary-setting techniques in dating and new relationships.
It is essential to note that if you're sending signals that aren't being mirrored back or reciprocated, that should be taken as a sign that the flirtation is not mutual and to back off. If you interpret that someone is mirroring back your flirtation, check in on your interpretation by asking them if they’d like a hug. You can tell them you're really attracted to them and wait to see if they respond in kind. If you think they are leaning in and sharing personal space with you and smiling and connecting with your eyes a lot, and you’re into them, ask them if you can kiss them. It's a first step that many people skip over but is essential to beginning consensual communication early on in a romantic or sexual relationship.
You can also flirt by telling a date you are thinking about what it would be like to kiss them and see if the person responds that they too are curious about what your lips would feel like. Talking about doing a sensual or sexual thing can be a sexy type of flirtation and is a way of feeling out verbally whether your interpretation of nonverbal signals is accurate. The second partner might not want to kiss at that very moment, so an option they have is to say in a flirty inviting way: I'm not ready at this time but definitely ask me next time we're out, or at the end of the night. It can be fun and light, and yet express the notion that sexual interest might not be mutual at one point but could be revisited at a later point. This is a more nuanced way of keeping an erotic seduction vibe while maintaining consensual language embedded in the dating experience.
References
Clark, J., Oswald, F., & Pedersen, C. (2021). Flirting with Gender: The Complexity of Gender in Flirting Behavior. Sexuality & Culture, 25. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-021-09843-8
Hall, J. A., Xing, C., & Brooks, S. (2015). Accurately Detecting Flirting: Error Management Theory, the Traditional Sexual Script, and Flirting Base Rate. Communication Research, 42(7), 939–958. https://doi.org/10.1177/0093650214534972
Landwehr, I., Mundloch, K., & Schmidt, A. F. (2024). A Dress Is Not a Yes: Towards an Indirect Mouse-Tracking Measure of Men’s Overreliance on Global Cues in the Context of Sexual Flirting. Archives of Sexual Behavior. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-023-02798-x
Moran, J., & Burch, R. (2023). Repercussions of Rejecting Unwanted Advances: Gender Differences in Experience and Concern. International Journal of Sexual Health, 35(1), 123–129. https://doi.org/10.1080/19317611.2023.2175098
Whealin JM. Women's report of unwanted sexual attention during childhood. J Child Sex Abus. 2002;11(1):75-93. doi: 10.1300/J070v11n01_04. PMID: 16221634.
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