European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - December 20, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse                                A glance a smile so sexy and so scientific by Geraldine Baum los Angeles times of probably should t know about Monica Moore s  you think you want to know but really you Don t. If you did you d be too self conscious to do what comes naturally. For while the rest of us Fumble through life clutching our hearts and throats this woman observes us and simply knows. For almost 20 years Moore an experimental psychologist has been studying flirting. In fact she has spent a career turning an immensely Subtle Art into science which is a Little like reducing Mona Lisa s smile into a neurological tic. Moore a professor at St. Louis Webster University and her teams of graduate students spent hundreds of hours in bars and student centers covertly watching women and men court and painstakingly recording every smile and laugh  feeding All the data into a computer Moore came up with a Catalon of 52 gestures women use to signal their interest in men. Think of it As . Bean s love collection. Moore the Jane Goodall of human courtship is quite serious about her work. " people see flirting As so frivolous she says. But i d argue that to know about All this is very important because it helps explain human  like Charles Darwin Moore began with the premise that women make the initial Choice of a mate. And from there the courtship process begins. Western cultures wrongly assume men control the process she says because they focus on the far More obvious second stage of courtship the approach. But Moore contends it All begins when girl eyes boy and smiles or smoother her skirt or licks her lips. And study after study showed that How attractive a woman is is less important than her flirting skills. So she gets the first turn then he gets a turn. Each time one signals the other they Are re affirming their Choice. Either one can opt out at any time along the  in fact Moore s studies decode the obvious. The Only Surprise is that such excruciatingly erotic behaviour can sound so Boring. Listen to her description of neck presentation the woman tilted her head sideways to an Angle of approximately 45 degrees. This resulted in the ear almost touching the in bilateral shoulder thereby exposing the opposite Side of the neck occasionally the woman stroked the exposed neck area with her fingers. But Moore in t writing for True Romance. Rather she publishes in such scintillating academic journals As semiotics and ethology and sociobiology. The Best part of her study on gestures observing 200 women Over two years is the list. To attract a Man women most often smile glance primp laugh Giggle toss their Heads flip their hair and whisper. Sometimes they hike their skirts Pat a buttock hug request a dance touch a knee and Caress. Moore s description of one of the most frequent signals solitary dancing would make anyone who has Ever been in a singles bar squirm. While seated or standing the woman moved her body in time to the music. A typical male response was to request a  in fact there is something risky about Moore s work and she knows it. And so after one of her students came Back from Spring break boasting that it took 12 minutes of signalling to get a Man to her Side at an Airport bar and then she ignored him Moore instituted an ethics policy for her graduate students. I did t want them to misuse their knowledge Moore says. Moore began her research in flirting in the late 1970s when she was a graduate student in search of a dissertation topic. Her adviser suggested she pick something fun and All she could think was food sex food sex food  later Moore heard an anthropologist lecture about biological theories of human female Choice which started Moore wondering How women made decisions about who they choose. Moore interviewed 100 women asking what it was about the men they were seeing that made them sexy. But interviewing techniques presented too Many problems so she decided she had to make objective observations of women making choices. In other words she was t As interested in when Harry met Sally As what Sally was doing with her hands at the time. I had to make a list she says. Moore does t have a similar list of men s gestures. All she knows is that men Send out undirected signals of Power and attractiveness by puffing up their chests or checking their watch or smoothing their ties. But they Don t do what women do she says. Once a woman looks around the room she settles on one or two men and starts sending out the  it s amazing How intricate her research is. Once in a bar her teams of graduate students always one Man and one woman because couples Are rarely noticed when there Are singles around would randomly select a female subject. Then one member of the team would talk into a Small tape recorder and keep track of her every movement. The other member of the team would keep track of All the responses made by men. In the next few years Moore Hopes to use her Catalon to find out More about women s choices and she wants to explore whether flirting drops off after marriage. I Don t think so but it will be fascinating to find out ays Moore who is 41 and married with a child. By Joanne Wintraub the Milwaukee journal we m hat s All this about no More flirting by a you know. You be heard it a Fla probably growled in utter disgust by 1 somebody at work 1 Well i guess i can t joke around by with anybody anymore or even Tell a them they look Nice. I would t want to be accused of Here the growl shifts into High sarcasm sexual harassment now would i of no of of not me of please get a grip. Flirting is not harassment and harassment in t flirting. Anyone who can t Tell the difference probably can t Tell a party invitation from a hostile takeover attempt either. Harassment is As obnoxious As a Mosquito buzzing and buzzing and buzzing until you wish someone would bring Back Dot. Flirtation is As captivating As a Butterfly. The Best flirts Are equal Opportunity charmers. I once had to interview a Bunch of touring Beach volleyball pros a Gaggle of blindingly Tan males who were also As we used to say in Junior High cute and they know it figuring that these Prince Lings would display open contempt for any woman less babe a Riffice than Heather Locklear i was t looking Forward to the encounter. To my Surprise however each volleyball Guy was nicer than the one before applying just the slightest squeeze As we Shook hands gazing into my eyes when we talked As if i were saying something fascinating and not merely v could you spell your last name please if you wanted to be cynical you could say that these California dudes were so vain that spelling their own names did fascinate them but that s not the Point. The Point is that a natural flirt will flirt with anyone any time just because it s fun. Not Long ago i had lunch with my Friend Maria her Mother and a new acquaintance of theirs Jeffrey. I could t help admiring the Way Jeffrey a gifted practitioner of the flirting arts turned his High beams on All three of us never mind that Maria s Mother was old enough to be Jeffrey s Mother. Even More tellingly when a Man at the next table asked if he could borrow our Mustard Jeffrey said Well of course and smiled and dimpled at the stranger too. Passing the Mustard Jeffrey All but flirted with the Jar. Similarly those women who simper All Over men but Don t have much use for other women were there Ever As Many of these in real life As in old movies Aren t world class flirts. The female co worker who s so Good at touching a Man lightly on the Arm As they speak is also the one who la Pluck gracefully at another woman s new Scarf and say ooh Nicea athe Arm touch the Little compliment the big smile in t there anything new in the flirting Catalon nope this in t particle physics. The traditional equipment still works perfectly. ,./,. / -.  \ gazing with helpless absorption into somebody s eyes works Best of All. Perhaps this is terminally Mush headed but find that the Eye thing works Best on me when the Gazer also rests his Chin on his fist. Needless to say this is a Good move Only when you re sitting Down the Reamy gaze seems to be reach Peak effectiveness with Blu eyes though As a Brown eyed girl it gives me no pleasure to admit it. Then again if say Dehazel Washington were looking into my eyes with his Brown ones right this minute i Don t think i d look away. He would t even have to put his Chin on his fist. -.-,i.  -. People often say you can learn to flirt by watching babies do it. Here Are two More species of flirts to watch Gay men and southerners what is it about some Gay Guys anyway their voices drops to a soft intimate murmur As if you were the Only person in the room Worth talking to. Lovely technique. It s the opposite of those people who talk Over you around you and through you As if you weren t in the room at All. I find southerners equally hard to resist and even harder to explain i. Was once acquainted with somebody from Georgia who was to put it mildly a pain in the neck but also a flirt of the highest order. I knew several other women who d fallen under the spell of Tom s languorous drawl and attentive ways like me against their better judgment and we All used to remind each other of what a manipulative Friend and an untrustworthy co worker he was. We agreed we d really have to Tell him off someday. Soon. The next time he acted like a Jerk. Definitely. Of you re having lunch with him next tuesday yeah me too thursday. More briefly but memorably my Friend Pamela found herself on the receiving end of a Southern boy s attentions. She met him Only once Over a year ago but she still remembers his Charm. I was wearing my favorite pin she told me and he came right up to me and said very sincerely that is such a Nice pin and he really looked at that pin. I mean in a Nice Way " the whole thing would t have worked Pam Points out it the pin had t been As Nice As it was. Then she would have suspected that the Man was t admiring her pin but what the pin was pinned onto. As i said Pam still remembers this southerner. She even voted for him for president. He won. Distributed by Scripps Howard news service 20 the stars and stripes tuesday december 20, 1994 the stars and stripes 21