
SIRC Guide to Flirting - nostrademons
http://www.sirc.org/publik/flirt.html
======
pkaler
I'm not the greatest looking guy around, but I've dated some very hot women by
breaking most of these "rules".

When you can sit down at a table of 4 gorgeous women without being invited
you've hit gold. I'm ballsy, bordering on arrogant and women always know where
I stand. Women respect that.

If you see a woman and you want to ask her out, do what it takes to make that
happen. Women respect that.

You won't learn that in an 18 page PDF.

Guys focus way too much on the mechanics of flirting when they should really
be developing their inner confidence, self-worth, and certainty.

~~~
ilaksh
Your main points are worth emphasizing but they _were_ reflected in the
article and we should appreciate what a fascinatingly detailed study of human
behavior this is.

I would hazard a guess that in fact you have mastered the nuances of flirting
and just aren't conscious of the degree to which your successful behaviors are
reflected in the guide or when your rule breaking is not beneficial.

------
divia
I thought most of the article was pretty standard stuff, but I was interested
in this part:

 _Researchers have found that nodding can be used to 'regulate' conversations.
If you make single, brief nods while your partner is speaking, these act as
simple signs of attentiveness, which will maintain the flow of communication
from the speaker. Double nods will change the rate at which the other person
speaks, usually speeding up the flow, while triple nods or single, slow nods
often interrupt the flow altogether, confusing speakers so much that they stop
in their tracks. So, if you want to express interest and keep your partner
chatting with you, stick to brief single nods._

~~~
wallflower
One of the best ways to get out of a conversation involves breaking the other
person's momentum - as soon as you can, ask three close ended questions. For
example, if the person is talking about their favorite dog. Ask 'How old is
the dog?', 'Do they like cats?', 'Is it 730 already?' - then excuse yourself
politely. It's not the most tactful way to extricate oneself from a running-
over conversational hog but it works effectively.

------
biohacker42
You know how you tie your shoes every day, but then one day you stop to think
of how to tie your shoes and you find that you don't know how! And the only
way to tie your shoes is to stop thinking about it and let your muscle memory
take over.

That's how reading that article made me feel about social interaction.

~~~
andreyf
This is a terrible guide for analytical people who over-think things to begin
with.

 _When you first approach an attractive stranger, having established at least
an indication of mutual interest through eye contact, try to make eye contact
again at about 4ft away, before moving any closer. At 4 ft (about two small
steps away), you are on the borderline between what are known as the 'social
zone' (4 to 12 ft) and the 'personal zone' (18in to 4ft)._

If you're having problems socializing with people, drawing 'zones' around them
and following strict rules of interaction isn't going to help.

~~~
dkarl
People who over-think things are paralyzed by uncertainty when it comes to
social interaction because it seems so intellectually intractible. The rules
and guidelines aren't meant to encourage their compulsive ratiocination;
they're meant to serve as a security blanket, to give people enough courage to
actually start interacting. Simply by being short and comprehensible, they
provide authoritative reassurance that flirting doesn't require a highly
sophisticated understanding. Once a person is reassured enough to get started,
the rest will come with experience.

~~~
carterschonwald
Actually computing equilibria in even toy mathematical models of social
collaboration is horribly intractible even at a single time step. So what you
wind up being best off doing is randomly choose your initial location and just
follow the local gradient of fun, then iterating this a few times and choosing
the best one.

~~~
jey
Nobody is suggesting doing game-theoretic analyses before engaging in social
interaction. Obviously someone who thinks that they can completely derive
their actions from formal rules of behavior is doomed to fail, but it's not
like the only two possible choices are "behave completely randomly" and
"perform a game-theoretic analysis of the situation based on formal rules".
Guides like this provide a good set of heuristics and help the socially
unskilled people understand the general ideas and general concepts which
socially skilled people seem to just pick up from their environment. This is
important so you can pick a reasonable starting location before doing your
hill climbing algorithm -- if you just choose a completely random starting
point, everything is just extremely discouraging, there's no useful feedback
from the environment (other than "YOU FAIL"), and there's absolutely no fun
gradient to maximize. (Or at least, the fun gradient is so negative in all
directions that it's difficult to figure out which way is up.)

It always amazes me how socially skilled people apparently can't even
understand what it means to be socially unskilled. It would be as if everyone
who learned to ride a bicycle later completely forgot that they had to _learn_
this skill, then just went around telling everyone who didn't know how to ride
a bicycle, "you just get on and pedal, it's so easy, I don't see why you keep
falling, you must not be trying".

~~~
carterschonwald
regarding the first part, you're absolutely right, but understanding the worst
case computational complexity of a problem does lend a certain appreciation to
the average case complexity that happens when people implicitly approximately
solve those problems.

Admission: My current research project involves studying the computational
complexity of socially inspired optimization problems. Turns out that even the
simplest nontrivial ones are PPAD Hard or #P hard. (so special cases or
approximations become key very quickly)

This is why its useful to put social problems into at least semi-mathematical
language to make it easier to spell things out to the socially oblivious (but
still logically endowed, which sadly isn't always the case) or to make it
easier to discuss a complex social issue with a friend

~~~
dkarl
This reminds me of an article I read years ago about cognitive psychologists
trying to model how outfielders catch fly balls. Evidently, even given the
massively parallel nature of the brain, it was very hard to come up with a
model that was effective enough to explain the performance of real outfielders
(Little League to Major League) but was simple enough to be neurologically
plausible. Just like the social models you describe, none of the
mathematically straightforward ways of modeling the fly ball problem were
cognitively feasible. Yet, if you were teaching an engineering student to
catch a fly ball, they would probably be helpful, even though the final goal
would be to induce an entirely unrelated cognitive structure in the engineer's
mind.

------
delano
"Guides" on social behavior are by definition an awkward mix of over-
generalized observations and overly-specific deductions. This one is no
exception:

 _In pubs, for example, the area around the bar counter is universally
understood to be the 'public zone', where initiating conversation with a
stranger is acceptable, whereas sitting at a table usually indicates a greater
desire for privacy. Tables furthest from the bar counter are the most
'private' zones._

 _When you first meet new people, their initial impression of you will be
based 55% on your appearance and body-language, 38% on your style of speaking
and only 7% on what you actually say._

That isn't to say they have no value. It's helpful to be aware of the various
aspects of social interaction, like how eye contact and the distance you keep
affects a conversation. The danger is that the ideas are presented as
definitive facts, as though all you need to do is follow their prescription to
success:

 _When you first approach an attractive stranger, having established at least
an indication of mutual interest through eye contact, try to make eye contact
again at about 4ft away, before moving any closer. At 4 ft (about two small
steps away), you are on the borderline between what are known as the 'social
zone' (4 to 12 ft) and the 'personal zone' (18in to 4ft)._

The truth is, there is no prescription. At least, not a universal one. If you
need a place to start, try simply to enjoy yourself when you're out. Being
social comes more naturally when you're having a good time.

~~~
dkarl
Pop culture is the best and only guide we have. Dave Hickey said the cultures
that write love songs are the ones that don't have rigid scripts for love and
courtship. We listen to love songs because we accept few limitations and
instead use a shared collection of stories to orient ourselves in the vast
space of possibilities.

So, what part of pop culture tells us how to flirt? (If you say reality
television, I will climb out of your monitor and stab you in the face.)

~~~
delano
Our own experiences are the best guide we have.

Although I can't say I didn't learn anything from Fifth Wheel.

------
nostrademons
May be off-topic, but I found it very interesting and not at all obvious. The
stereotype of a hacker tends to be very socially oblivious, so this is perhaps
relevant. Read before you kill.

~~~
cake
This article is what I love about HN, geeky yet giving you an informative
approach about certain aspects of life.

I guess that it's the whole point of the "hacker" thinking, having the
knowledge of what's happening behind the scenes.

------
kqr2
Link to pdfs:

<http://www.sirc.org/publik/flirt.pdf>

Also, their _advanced_ guide to flirting:

<http://www.sirc.org/publik/flirt2.pdf>

~~~
divia
From the advanced guide:

 _27 percent of those in social class AB found this unacceptable, increasing
to 35 percent of the C2s and Ds, and 45 percent of those in social class E._

I'm sure whoever wrote this was just trying to refer to the different groups
in a succinct way, but to me this classification system is amusingly
reminiscent of a Brave New World's.

~~~
andyking
These are pretty standard demographic classifications in Britain, used in
marketing and such-like:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NRS_social_grade>

In, for example, the media you'll quite regularly come across such things as
"Over 50% of our audience are ABC1s".

------
hrabago
While some may find this guide a bit obvious, I find it an interesting read,
and somewhat fitting here in HN. I say this because when I think "hacker", I
think of someone who knows more than just the correct API call to make, but
the reason why. Well, this guide goes beyond stating what or how, but goes
into why as well, in a way that reminds me of technical articles written for
those who are past "Hello World".

------
dkarl
"Almost any participant sport or hobby can involve flirting. The level of
flirtatious behaviour, however, often tends to be inversely related to the
standards achieved by participants and their enthusiasm for the activity."

Damn, so much for meeting someone while doing something I actually _like_. The
good news is I've always wanted to join a book club but never have because I
don't like the books they read. I didn't realize my distaste for chick lit
would actually work to my advantage.

------
sown
I stopped trying when I realized I needed a guide like this.

~~~
dkarl
Don't stop trying. Remember the world is full of girls who are a bit more
awkward than their peers, not to mention girls who had socially awkward
fathers. As long as you're making a sincere effort to interact pleasantly with
people, without pretending that you don't have a problem, you will find girls
who are willing to overlook your awkwardness. It's just another unattractive
characteristic that some people mind and other people don't, like being
chubby, short, boring, badly dressed, poor, always late, glib, irresponsible,
whatever. People can even find it endearing.

Good intentions + sincere effort + honesty about who you are = nothing to be
ashamed of.

~~~
sharkbrainguy

      chubby, short, boring, badly dressed, poor, always late, glib, irresponsible
    

Please... just stop describing me

~~~
kirubakaran
Ah, so you are the chubby, short, boring, badly dressed, poor, always late,
glib, irresponsible guy who gets all the women with his sense of humor!

------
sanj
I never thought that HN would be a place to discuss my Grand Unified Theory of
Flirting!

It is based in negotiation theory, which always struck me as a good starting
point.

~~~
Raphael
It would be awesome to finally reconcile Quantum Love-chanics and Feynman's
Theory of Flirtativity.

~~~
eru
Feynman was definitely an expert on this.

[Insert xkcd-comic link here.]

------
c00p3r
After you're finished that cosmo-style psyhology text, take a look at our
favion.ico. =)

