Anthropology of flirting?

Posted by alguna_rubia at 6:04pm Aug 29 '09
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. . . but I'd like to note a phenomenon that I didn't really notice before this summer.

So, let's start with my story. I went to London and Paris with 3 of my girlfriends this summer, one week in each city. While I was there, I noticed a distinct difference between the way British men, Frenchmen and American men behave when they find a chick attractive. I'll list my observations:

The Brits:
The British style of checking out strangers seems to be to gaze in awe at a girl as if she's a goddess, and then if she "catches" him staring, to drop the gaze immediately and look embarrassed. I came up the stairs of my hostel once and got this reaction, and when they thought I was out of earshot, one of them said "What a girl. . ." in his cute accent. I personally found all this behavior totally adorable, but I was really unsure of what to do about it. My mother has since explained to me that the way to tell them it's okay that they were staring is to ask them a silly question, so that they understand that you want to talk to them.

The French:
Let me say that they might not be this bad outside Paris. The Parisian style is definitely a culture shock if you just came from London. My experience was that the men would look me up and down like a piece of meat; it was as if they were thinking, "How many drinks to get a night with this girl?" On top of that, if you met their eyes at all, they'd start talking. And then they'd try to tell me how beautiful my eyes were, as if I hadn't noticed that my eyes were hardly what they were looking at. I literally couldn't go 2 blocks in Paris without getting hit on. They really aren't subtle about their desire for your assets, that's for sure. Hell, I even got a SERIOUS sexy wink. What drove me crazy wasn't so much the over-the-top quality of their flirting, because I get that all the time in Oakland. It was the fact that they actually expected it to work.

The Americans:
Guys here look me up and down too, but if I meet their eyes and smile, they understand that that's an invitation to talk to me. If I meet their eyes and look dead serious, they'll generally stop looking, or at least they'll try to disguise the fact that they are looking. I have encountered over-the-top flirting like Parisians in the US, but the difference is that the Americans assume they have no chance whatsoever, they're just doing it for fun. They do NOT expect it to work.

Anyway, these are my observations, and I wondered if anyone else had observations or comments about flirting styles in different countries.
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