Does it really happen?

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People here (and various books) talk about the things women and men do when they fancy someone (hair toss, thumbs in belts, et cetera) but has anyone here seen it actually happen in practice? I certainly haven't, even amongst people who are obviously flirting.

Yes it does happen. I was watching a friend of mine talk to a man yesterday. She didn't know anyone was watching them. Her body language, laughter, hair flicking, was all stereotypically flirtatious, and it was obvious to me she found the man attractive.

I asked her about it afterwards, and she admitted she was flirting with him, after a lot of embarrassed giggling...

i have never seen this in action.
i also lately watched one of my (female) housemates at a social gathering, talking to a guy.
in my eyes, she was obviously bored and trying to find an excuse to get away from him, but the next morning i found the two of them together at breakfast...

and yes, i was watching them knowing of these 'obvious' signals and trying to detect them, so there i got my failure i guess...

i have seen it, but curiously it is mostly in a different context than what we refer to in popular culture.

what i've noticed is that... you observe a woman with a man she fanciesnd a hotter woman walks by/enters the conversation/comes on t.v.. then all of a sudden the first woman does all kinds of preening and flirting and giggling to make sure his attention is on her. it is much less noticeable without "competition" around. if a woman does not find a man attractive in any way she is less likely to act like that. watch it on the bus or mall sometime - it's very interesting.

so if you are looking to see if a woman does those behaviours, pay attention when there are other women around. of course, as soon as women are aware of this, they stop doing it! for myself, as soon as i recognised it, i turned the behviour off as it is frankly absurd.

i blogged about this phenomenon

http://hyperlexian.blogspot.com/2010/04 ... tened.html:

As an exercise, you should visit a club a few times. Happens there rather often.

Never to me, but once there was this one girl that made it bloody obvious that she liked me by dancing so close to me with her butt that she almost gave me a lap dance. A friend of mine got some giggles out of it.

The only time I ever toss my hair is to get it out of my way when it's in my way. I used to stand with my thumbs in my pocket quite frequently as it was a convenient place to put them.

I can confirm, from a recent experience, that certain women who really like you will make up lame excuses to touch you. Though I'd imagine that only certain kinds of women would do this.

I did this recently (wrote about it in a post), and you're right, it is pretty lame. I'd say this falls under the category of "hitting on" rather than flirting, though. At the very least, it's flirtation-of-last-resort. It didn't work.
So you noticed, though! Either my guy didn't notice, or I smell like boiled cabbage, or... *sigh*. I just don't know.
What did you do?

Bear in mind a knee touch or an arm touch is considered acceptably friendly in most English-speaking countries.

As for stuff seen in real life. Knee touch is a biggie if you're sitting. Seen it multiple times. The arm touch is common, although you have to be careful that it is just overly jovial behavior ("oh, you're killing me!").

The old school horny hair pull is probably the best indicator. It appears early. It's never non-sexual. It arises from an instinct to quickly groom before making yourself available to someone. Downside? Not all women do it.

The quick smile + quick eye contact that then breaks off is a good indicator. It's a combo move, since the girl wants to be noticed but doesn't want to stare you down.

Simple proximity is under-rated as a signal. However, proximity, as flirtation, is very cultural. Also, the timing of your response to proximity is regulated by culture. In the US, a girl interested in you will spend a significant time in close proximity. I found in central and eastern Europe that a girl would close in quickly, but if I didn't make a move in or show some interest she'd also pull away no later than a minute. Having traveled some, all I can say is I feel very sorry for male aspies in those parts of the world, because the rules of flirtation require you have some serious balls.

But, if you can figure out the rules for your culture, proximity is an excellent indicator.

as i wrote just under that statement; i did do that; still didn't see anything that i'd consider flirtatious though

Sticking your thumbs in your belt is a male's flirt, not a female's flirt, and I agree, I've only ever seen a woman toss their hair because it is in the way.