She wore a miniskirt, a white ruffled shirt and a smile that a power company could tap into. She walked up to two men. She made eye contact and jolted them with that high-voltage smile.
Liz Jordan was at her flirtatious best. It would be a good night-for tips.
Jordan is a cocktail waitress, and for her and others in her line, flirting is all in a day`s work.
”It`s part of my job, actually,” said Jordan, who works at the Pacific Club in downtown Minneapolis. ”We call it a quick hit. We make eye contact, give them a big smile and ask them what they want to drink. The style I use is friendly, warm and cutesy. If I flirt with a guy, it can make all the difference. I can get a $5 tip on one drink.”
Cocktail waitresses, of course, haven`t cornered the market on flirting. Male and female, married and single-practically everybody does it, whether they realize it or not. A smile here. Eye contact there. You look at them. They look at you. At least one of you smiles. Bingo.
It happens almost anywhere-at work, in a bar, nightclub, health spa, on the street. You can check out somebody while standing in line to buy groceries. They even call it the checkout line, don`t they?
`A GREAT TWINKLE`
”I flirted with a Jain monk on a trip to India, and he had a great twinkle in his eye,” said Susan Jeffers. ”He was a wonderful flirt. He loved life and loved people. When you love life and love people, you can`t help but flirt. Just walking down the street, you want to say `Hello` to everybody.”
Jeffers is sort of an authority on the theory and practice of flirting, which holds enough interest for some people that they`re willing to pay to attend her workshops. The Los Angeles-based psychotherapist holds monthly workshops teaching ”Flirting from the Heart.”
Jeffers` workshops draw up to 60 people, most of them men. She offers them pre-flirt training. She tells them not to be fearful of rejection. Fear is a topic Jeffers can talk about with authority: It`s the subject of her new self-help book, ”Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway,” (Fawcett, $6.95).
”Flirting deals with fear,” Jeffers said. ”I believe the bottom line of all our fears is that we don`t have enough trust in ourselves.”
Sometimes it`s all an act, as with waitresses and others whose jobs require pleasing the public. But it`s not always insincere.
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”Eighty percent of it is an act. About 20 percent of the time I`m serious,” Jordan said. ”When I`m flirting with a guy I`m interested in, I make more intense eye contact. When it`s an act, I`m more giggly and cutesy.” DIVVYING THE CROWD
Pete Kelly, a bartender at the Pacific Club, said there`s an unspoken agreement between male and female bartenders. The male bartenders usually take drink orders from women, the female bartenders usually take drinks orders from men.
”We feel there`s a better chance for a gratuity,” Kelly said.
Kelly has noticed women follow him the length of the bar just to give him their order. ”They try to get eye contact, call me by my name, ask me what to drink,” he said. ”I can tell when someone`s flirting. I have a feeling inside. I don`t know if it`s hormones going, or what.”
Linda Hoffman, a waitress and manager at Chez Bananas in Minneapolis, once dated a customer who started flirting with her while she was taking his order. But the scene can turn unpleasant if the guy`s flirting with a waitress and his date doesn`t like it.
”I`ve gotten some real uncomfortable looks from women,” Hoffman said.
”I always want to say, `I don`t want him. You can have him.` ”
Flirting can be as harmless and as innocent as you want to make it. You can flirt for years with someone at the office. You can flirt for moments with someone seated at a nearby table.
A LOOK ACROSS A BAR
”I think flirting is silly, giggly and funny things. Little smiles. Goofy things,” said Corie Ahlstrame, an interior designer in the Twin Cities. ”It could just be a look across the bar.”
Ahlstrame happened to be sitting in a downtown Minneapolis bar at the time. Was she being flirtatious that particular night? Well, she seemed to be doing silly, giggly and funny things. Little smiles, too. And goofy things.
”I flirt with a guy I work with. We flirt constantly,” said Lily Eggers, an interior designer and a friend of Ahlstrame`s. ”It`s silly joking. He`s married. I`m not. It`s nothing to worry about. I think flirting is totally harmless. It`s not serious and it`s not to be taken seriously.”
That depends on your definition. ”A person who plays at love.” That`s one of the definitions you`ll find in Webster`s under ”flirt.”
”Flirting denotes innocence,” said Michael Marantic, who owns La Cage Aux Disques in Minneapolis and claims to have done his share of flirting.
”There`s no implication of any come-hither stuff.”
Jeffers offers a more broad-based definition.
”Flirting can be whatever you want it to be,” she said. ”If you`re interested in purely a sexual relationship, you can make it that. If you`re purely interested in getting to know a person better and becoming a friend, it can be that. We`re in control.
”I`m a flirt. I`ve always been a flirt and I`m very happily married. I have no intention of having an affair outside of my marriage. I think flirting is a way of making people feel good. I know when I show interest in another person it makes them feel good.”
NO AGE LIMITS
There`s no minimum age requirement for flirting. Jeffers said she has seen grade-school girls flirting. Usually it`s their first step toward relating with the opposite sex, and they begin by flirting with their fathers. And there`s no mandatory age of retirement for flirts.
”I know a 77-year-old woman who is extremely coy and adorable,” Jeffers said. ”When she learned I was teaching a course on flirting, she said, `Oh, my, I don`t know how to flirt.` I pointed out to her she was probably one of the best flirts I had ever met. She had a way of making men feel good, of being adorable. She had all the techniques.”
A solid sense of self-esteem also is important, Jeffers said.
”If you don`t feel good about yourself, all the techniques in the world won`t help,” she said. ”A positive person walks into a room and feels good about themself. If you`re positive, you will draw people into your life.”
Jeffers also believes people have to look at the positive side of being rejected. Positive side of being rejected? Really?
”We have to learn that even if someone rejects us, we have made them feel good,” Jeffers said. She contends that everybody enjoys attention, even if they reject the approach.
”I started to approach men when I was single,” Jeffers said. ”I think more women have to take steps to make the approach. I think it`s very unfair that men have to do all the approaches. Men say it`s painful and it hurts to be rejected.”
Based on surveys done in her workshops, Jeffers said the majority of men
”would love” to be approached by women. Women, however, worry that men will consider them to be too aggressive or too assertive, she said.
”If a man is turned off by that, maybe he`s not the man you want to be with because he would feel too threatened and not make for good relating, anyway,” Jeffers said.
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THE EYES HAVE IT
The essence of flirting is eye contact. ”I think eyes are the most important,” Jeffers said. ”If we can learn to look people in the eye-not to stare-and to combine it with a smile, it`s a way of saying, `I`m interested in getting to know you.` ”
Man or woman, Jeffers supports touching as part of the flirting process.
”I don`t mean a pat on the rear end,” she said. ”A gentle touch on the arm is very loving. Even just a touch on the elbow. It suggests a desire to bond in some way. A lot of men complain that women get upset with this. Again, I say, `Well, why would someone get upset with a gentle touch on the arm?`
Sounds to me like a bit of insecurity on the part of the woman.”
Quick reminders for flirting success: Make eye contact. Smile. Talk. Touch. Anything else?
”Be interested, not interesting,” Jeffers said. ”We don`t have to worry about impressing the other person. It`s very impressive when we ask about other people, when we`re interested in them. If you`re standing in front of someone worrying that you didn`t wear the right suit or the right dress, you`re not focusing on them.” –