Learning Fine Art of Drop-the-Hanky Panky : Flirting Isn’t Just an Opening Gambit or an Eyelash Flutter; It’s All About Self-Esteem

How long has man been flirting? How far back do you want to go? Have you ever taken a good look at the monkeys? --Paul Bohannon, USC professor of anthropology

What’s a nice crowd like that doing in a place like this?

Good-looking crowd, too. Bright, well-spoken, nicely dressed. Don’t we know you from somewhere?

There are about 30 of them, in their 20s, 30s, early 40s. A few more males than females, in the best tradition.

Do they come here often?

One assumes that they don’t, that they don’t have to, that it is all a lark. Here is this course on “How to Flirt,” and on the surface, there isn’t a cotton-mouthed, knock-kneed loser among them. Seventy-five percent of them could get by on looks alone, one thinks, and the rest on personality. Some on both.

Yet here they are in a Learning Network classroom on Sunset Boulevard, studying up on the fine art of drop-the-hanky panky. It doesn’t track.

Artfully Commanding

In the end, it doesn’t have to track. The course, it turns out, is not really about flirting. More about self-esteem. Which is probably a good thing to have when the lady on the next bar stool is telling you to get lost, creep.

Susan Jeffers, who has a doctorate in psychology from Columbia University, is teaching the course. Jeffers is attractive, articulate, artfully commanding; author of the forthcoming “Feel the Fear . . . And Do It Anyway.” She is upbeat, Panglossian. She is as soothing as Vicks Vap-o-Rub.

Don’t push it, Jeffers is saying. Feel good about yourself and the rest will take care of itself. She may even be right.

This, however, does not seem to be what the class has come to hear. What they want to know, in the main, is how do you get rid of that wad of lint that insinuates itself between tongue and lip instants before an opening gambit to a perfect stranger? Beyond that, what they want is a good line, one that works. A shibboleth. An open sesame.

It’s tough going out there these days. Especially for women, with their higher expectations. But for women and men, it’s not a line of snappy patter that’s going to make people fall at your feet. --Marilyn Hamel, author of “SexEtiquette”

By way of breaking the ice, Jeffers asks the class precisely why they are here.

Lana: “I see people I’m attracted to and really don’t know how to approach them.”

Chuck: “I think the rules may have changed.”

Linda: “My husband suggested it. If anything happened to him, he wanted me to get a flying start with the next guy.”

Steve: “I don’t flirt well, and I don’t even know if someone’s flirting back. I say, ‘Who, me ?’ ”

Virginia: “We women in the workplace may have forgotten some of the feminine things. . . .”

Jim: “I’m here because if something happens to Linda’s husband, I want to be ready.” A man who needs no introductions.

Margie: “Hey, I’m here to find out what’s going down.”

Bryan: “Let’s face it: I’m shy.”

To flirt well, you need charisma. You need to be playful, a risk-taker. Michael Aharoni, psychologist

“The lower your self-esteem, the harder it is to flirt,” Jeffers says. “I’ll show you how to build yourself up so you won’t worry about being rejected. Without self-esteem, one becomes self-focused. You’re not looking at the other person, you’re looking at you .

“Turn it around. Flirting is a wonderful way to make someone feel good. Everyone likes to be flirted with. Those women who go ‘ugh’ when construction workers whistle are being phony. They love every minute of it.” Someone in the back row whistles. Three women turn. The rest smile. Advantage, Jeffers.

“I’m going to show you a way to build yourself up, so you won’t worry about being rejected,” Jeffers says. She douses the lights, puts on a hypnotic tape, all flutes and birds and harps.

“Close your eyes. Visualize yourself as a powerful, loving, affirmative person. . . . You are magnificent, giving, creative. . . .”

Lights up. “I felt very loved, very powerful,” says one woman.

“I was visualizing myself on the mound at Dodger Stadium,” says a young man. “I was pitching a no-hitter. Story of my life.”

Looks or dress have very little to do with it. You’re not going to flirt well if you’re too fearful of drawing attention to yourself, if you tend to look away. --J Bartell, psychological consultant

“Eye contact,” continues Jeffers, “is most important.” Also most unnerving.

The class is paired off, each couple told to look each other in the eye, conveying genuine interest, without speaking, without smiling . . . an admonition honored in the breach.

A giggle from the direction of two odd-men-out, paired at random. “Sorry,” says Jim. “I’m staring at Bryan here, doing the best I can, and he whispers, ‘Not on the first date.’ ”

Bryan notwithstanding, the exercise seems to work. With each new eye contact, apprehension gives way to self-consciousness, then a measure of composure. Finally, in many cases, there appears to be what Jeffers had sought: genuine interest in the other person. By the fifth exchange, the class comfort level has risen perceptibly.

“Whoo, that’s potent,” says one man. “I fell in love 2 1/2 times.”

“The more I sensed they were shy,” says a woman, “the less shy I became.”

“First I took off my glasses,” says a man. “Then I couldn’t see the girl, so I put ‘em back on. Then they steamed up. . . .”

“At first,” says a third man, “all I could think of was how I looked. This little pimple I have. Then I really started to concentrate on the other person. It was a lot more comfortable. I learned something.”

“Sure,” says yet another man. “In principle it works. But what if you’re staring at someone and they say, ‘Knock it off, willya? I can’t stand your face.’ What’s my move then ?”

One of the biggest sorrows in America is that people want to retaliate. . . . There is no excuse for rudeness. Period. Ever. --Judith (Miss Manners) Martin

“If a person treats you badly, why would you want to know them anyway?” asks Jeffers.

“Besides,” volunteers a man, “it might be that deep-down they’re self-conscious. Or they’re having a bad day. Their dog could have died, or their cousin was cut in half by a chain saw.”

“Personally,” says Virginia, a rare beauty, “I find it easy to flirt with ugly people. The uglier they are, the easier it is.”

“Look at it this way,” says Jeffers, ever upbeat: “You may not think this is an attractive person, but beneath the garbage, you’ll love them.”

It is beginning to dawn on the class that the course is less a dispensary of fool-proof zingers than a booster shot of Norman Vincent Appeal.

Jeffers plunges ahead. Change your image, she suggests. Deck yourself out in your favorite colors. Is there a TV star you admire? Imitate his or her dress. . . .

Rumblings from the right.

“Remember Thoreau,” says Jim: “ ‘Beware of any enterprise involving a change of clothes.’ ”

“Hey, Dad,” says a man 15 years Jim’s junior, “Thoreau is dead.”

“Give compliments,” says Jeffers, quickly heading off an incipient clash of generations. “Try giving 10 compliments a day. Give hugs. There’s a hug theory, you know: ‘Four a day for survival; eight for maintenance; 12 for growth.’ ”

Back to the basics. Self-esteem is stressed again, then the second Cardinal Rule of Flirting: “Be interest ed , not interest ing .” (“If you’re sitting there saying to yourself, ‘Everybody’s dressed up and here I am in jeans,’ and at the same time you’re looking at somebody, trying to make talk, well, you’re just not going to connect.”)

The class is split up again, this time along the classic lines of male and female, the better to plumb the psyches of the opposite sex.

“What I want to know,” asks a man named Matt, “is how come we have to do all the work?”

“How many of you men,” a woman skeptic counters, “would be pleased if we women asked you for your telephone numbers?”

There is a unanimous-but-one show of hands. The one? “I like the power.”

Question (female): “How does a woman let you know she’s interested without being considered a slut? Like, how can we chase and still be chaste?”

Answer (male): “Don’t play hard to get; we want to know. Be open. Don’t do games. But try to preserve the illusion that we’re the conquerors. You’re a smart sex. You can do it.”

Question (male): “You ask why we’re afraid to make a commitment. Tell me, why are you always looking for one?”

Answers (female): “It’s not exactly a man’s world out there, but it sure is a couples’ world. People ask single men to parties, but rarely single women.”

“It’s the biological imperative. Time is running out when you hit your 30s. . . .”

Question (male): “We’re all begging the question. Let’s get down to it. What is a good line, something you’ll respond to from a stranger?”

Answers (all sexes): “Something flattering; something, maybe, about our intelligence.” (“Sure, but how would we know from across the room? You might be a cretin.”)

“I like something off-the-wall; something like ‘Are you as flamboyant as your earring?’ ”

“How about, ‘I love your twinkle; you look just like Burt Reynolds’?” (“Great. I’m going right out and try it on this chick I know. . . .” )

“ ‘Do you still have your appendix?’ ”

“I don’t know why somebody can’t just come out and say: ‘I’ve been admiring you and I’m very nervous and don’t know what to say.’ It’d work for me.”

In Africa, if a man sees an attractive woman in the marketplace, he’ll ask her, ‘Are you anybody’s woman?’ If the answer is yes, the conversation will continue but in a more serious vein. But if the answer is no, he’s still on shifting sand: The word for ‘woman’ is also the word for ‘wife.’ No matter where you are, flirting is a tricky business! --Anthropologist Bohannon

Back in the marketplace, the flirting class gathers up notebooks and telephone numbers and prepares to beard the real world. Classmates share last-minute secrets, among them the best places in Los Angeles to practice their new techniques:

“The Bodhi Tree bookstore on Melrose. It’s a gold mine!”

“The Sierra Club; everyone there already has something in common.”

“Long, long elevator trips in the new high rises. It’s a captive audience.”

“Boys Market in Brentwood.”

“Those organized hikes through Griffith Park.”

One man seems already to have the solution. Holding the door for a stunning brunette--a stranger three hours ago--he tosses a last line over his shoulder: “Best place to flirt? How about a class in ‘How to Flirt’?”