Drawing on research to teach art of flirting

Experts will help men and women harness their animal magnestism, drawing on research into different flirting techniques worldwide, under an initiative of London's Natural History Museum.

The experts rely on lessons from the animal kingdom to show how to impress potential mates with the right kind of signals.

Many people find the subtle cues and unwritten rules of flirting difficult to follow, even though it is a basic human instinct, the Telegraph reports.

Natural History Museum bosses have decided to use the wealth of knowledge accumulated by social anthropologists and zoologists to teach people to flirt effectively.

Tate Greenhaigh, curator at the Natural History Museum, said: "Animals can trump anything that humans do; their courtship behaviour is hugely varied and, in some cases, quite extreme."

"These performances are necessary because the female's eggs are a precious and finite resource. The males need to prove they are worthy of fertilising them. So, humans can learn a lot from animals."

Social anthropologist Jean Smith will be lecturing at the museum on how humans can learn to flirt better by studying other cultures.

She said: "I don't believe attraction is about symmetry of the face or body shape, but more about how open someone is, how caring they are, how witty they are and their personality."

"Eye contact is the number one way people show interest and understand interest, but depending on the culture, they do it differently," she noted.

"In New York, they believe you have to be obvious, while Parisian women are thought of as being easy if they look at a man they like, so they show interest by averting their eyes. In Stockholm, it is more like they are blinking than making eye contact."

"In London, women give a few glances, but the men want more obvious signs because they are afraid of overstepping a mark," concluded Smith.