As we enter a new year, Laura Reynolds looks at how the dating game differs from previous generations.
Laura Reynolds looks at the freedoms of festive singledom
Join Jason Rose for a peek behind today's door.
Lauren Tabbron writes about the difficulties of spending Christmas away from a loved one.
All-knowing women’s magazines continually dictate the sure fire rules of attracting men – acting a bit shy, catching their eye and then looking away and back again, twirling your hair etc etc, but having tried and tested all of these in the past with little to no success, I felt the need to find a new ‘lure’.
Challenging a man to a drinking contest and then passing out spectacularly about an hour later is not one of the common ‘rules’ of flirting, but hey it worked for me! My point being that half of the male population (probably more than that to be honest) won’t recognise you’re trying to flirt with them if you try the ‘softly softly’ approach.
You are honestly more likely to succeed if you take a deep breath, walk up to them and introduce yourself. I don’t know any man that would think less of a girl for going up to them and saying hi.
There are however levels of unsubtlety – I wouldn’t advise marching up to a man and declaring that either you really want to sleep with him right here right now, or that you really think he could be ‘the one’. The second is just likely to have them turning and running and the first will probably get you what you want but nothing more, so if the man you’ve got your eye on is someone you think you could have a relationship with, you might not want to go down that route.
Subtly might have some success with strangers; if you catch someone’s eye enough (and it could take about 100 goes before your target realises you aren’t just looking around) and they aren’t extremely shy, chances are they will come over and say hi, however if its someone you know, subtle advances may well pass under the radar.
Most girls are quite comfortable to lie all over their guy friends, so if you want him to notice you don’t actually just want a platonic relationship you’ll probably have to be incredibly unsubtle – take to stroking his hair when he lies on you, move in quite close when he’s talking to you, touch his arm/hip/leg/chest etc etc – and if none of these work, be brave and just tell him how you feel – if that’s what you want then take the risk and put yourself out there!
Whatsmore if all this doesn’t work I know more than one girl who ended up with her current boyfriend after throwing up on them- you’ve just got to find what works for you! (The Yorker does not endorse vomiting on prospective lovers)
