Coyness Abounds At Conventions For Flirts

A touch of the hand, a tilt of the head, a sweet seductive smile.

It’s happening again. With the raise of an eyebrow or a soft, lingering look, someone has attracted your attention. And maybe - just maybe - your heart beats a little faster because of it.

Flirting.

It still works - wink, wink. Nudge, nudge. Say no more.

But today there is more to say about flirting, the playful art of acting amorously without serious intent. In the ‘90s, in the age of AIDS and serial stalkers, sexual harassment and taboos about dating in the workplace, we don’t do it as well as we used to.

And that’s a shame.

Or so says Rich Gosse, the former California parochial schoolteacher and self-proclaimed “Johnny Appleseed of flirtation” who is staging flirting conventions across the country.

A flirting convention? Where hundreds of smiling, winking, glancing, laughing, head-tilting, hair-tossing, eyebrow-raising, shoulder-dipping, eyelid-batting, softly cooing flirts will not only brush up on their best moves but also compete for the title of Mr. or Mrs. Flirt? What’s so important about flirting?

Nothing, Gosse said. Unless you want to get a date, have friends, get married, stay married, have relationships or avoid dying bitter, lonely and unloved.

“Everybody who is single is desperate to learn how to flirt,” said Gosse, a 46-year-old “professional single” who teaches flirting at 61 community colleges in California and Nevada and has written eight books on finding a romantic partner. “There’s this whole mystique around flirting - that you have to be a rocket scientist to be a good flirt, when the fact is flirting is something we do instinctively. Look at babies; they’re natural flirts. All they do is smile, and everybody loves babies.”

Gradually, through rejection or humiliation, many adults have misplaced their flirting skills.

“We develop this thick shell and say, ‘I’m not going to take chances anymore.’ Everyone becomes passive. Everyone’s afraid to take the first step.”

Gosse hopes to attract thousands to his conventions, where he teaches the techniques of successful flirting.

During 17 years of speaking to singles, Gosse has developed more than a few sound bites. To wit:

“Eye contact is just a euphemism. You have to stare at people.”

“Smiles are like the American Express card. Never leave home without one.”

“If you have a serious expression on your face, people are going to conclude that you are unhappy, unfriendly, too serious, no fun, and you’re probably a hatchet murderer.”

“I’m the Johnny Appleseed of flirting. I go all over the country and plant the seeds of flirting. I can only hope they water those seeds and get them to grow.”

So how about those trade secrets?

“Step one is eye contact,” he said. “You cannot be subtle.

“If you’re a woman at a party and you look at a guy for a second and then look away, he’s not sure you are interested in him. You have to be very clear. You have to stare at people for a minimum of two seconds.

“Now, if you stare at them much longer, though, they’re likely to call the cops. The secret is to stare at them for two seconds. That communicates a clear-cut message: I have the hots for you!”

And you women out there: You don’t always have to turn away when a man gives you the two-second once-over, he said.

“That’s like saying, ‘Don’t come over here and ask me to dance, bozo! I don’t dance with losers.’ Unfortunately women have been trained to be hard to get. But women who play hard to get often end up not getting gotten.”

According to a nationwide poll by the Roper organization in 1987, Gosse said, 46 percent of single women never date.

“I don’t mean that they don’t have a boyfriend right now. As a lifestyle, they don’t go out on dates.

“They may have dated when they were younger, but not now. Almost half. I come across women all the time who just don’t date. And the main reason is they’ve forgotten how to flirt.”

Rectifying that, provided you want to, can be as easy as remembering to smile, Gosse said.

“If you have a smile on your face … people are going to conclude that you’re a happy person and a friendly person and that you find them attractive.”

These time-tested flirting techniques will help you succeed with the opposite sex, he said. Gosse should know. He gets a ton of dates from these conventions himself.

“Hey, I don’t have anything against meeting women,” he said.

But if you’re looking for a husband, stop right there.

“I’m very up front with women,” he said. “I’m a wonderful guy but I’m not good marriage material.”

But can’t too much flirting be dangerous?

Sure. Just remember to use common sense. If you attract a man to ask you out, get his home telephone number and call it before you agree to a date. That will protect you from what Gosse calls the “hide the ring in the glove compartment” bunch.

But you have to get in the game.

“Sure, flirting is a risk,” he said. “But there’s also the risk that you will die of loneliness without having any fun. That, I would think, is the greater risk.”