COMMUNICATION: How To Flirt, Start Conversations And Keep Them Going? In Depth Guide to Approaching, Flirting and Dating | Page 45

Finally, remember that different people have different reactions to distance. If your target is from a Mediterranean or
Latin American country (known as the 'contact cultures'), he or she may be comfortable with closer distances than a
British or Northern European person. North Americans fall somewhere between these two extremes. Different
personality-types may also react differently to your approach: extroverts and those who generally feel at ease in
company will be comfortable with closer distances than introverts and shy or nervous types. Even the same person
may vary in tolerance from day to day, according to mood: when we are feeling depressed or irritable, we find close
distances more uncomfortable.

Posture
Most of us are quite good at controlling our faces – maintaining an
expression of polite interest, for example, when we are really bored
to tears, or even nodding when we really disagree! But we tend to be
less conscious of what the rest of our body is doing. We may be
smiling and nodding, but unconsciously revealing our disagreement
by a tense posture with tightly folded arms. This is known as 'nonverbal leakage': while we're busy controlling our words and faces,
our real feelings 'leak out' in our posture.
When flirting, you should therefore watch out for signs of this 'nonverbal leakage' in your partner's posture – and try to send the right
signals with your own posture.
Your partner's 'non-verbal leakage' can give you advance warning
that your chat-up isn't working. If only his/her head is turned
towards you, with the rest of the body oriented in another direction,
this is a sign that you do not have your partner's full attention. Even
just the feet starting to turn and 'point' away from you can be a sign
that his/her attention is directed elsewhere, or that he/she is thinking
about moving away. Leaning backwards and supporting the head on
one hand are signs of boredom. 'Closed' postures with arms folded
and legs tightly crossed indicate disagreement or dislike.
More positive signs to watch out for would be a partner's body
oriented towards you, particularly if he/she is also leaning forward,
and an 'open' posture. These are signs of attentiveness and interest or liking. Experiments have also shown that
females are more likely to tilt their heads to one side when they are interested in the person they are talking to. Men
should beware, however, of automatically assuming that these signs indicate sexual interest. Women should be aware
of men's tendency to make such assumptions, and avoid signalling interest too obviously.