A lesson from the School of Romance: How To Flirt
This past week I was invited to a School of Romance workshop, hosted by international love coach and psycho-sexual therapist Cate MacKenzie, on ‘How To Flirt’. It was a fun and interesting evening, and was brought to us by Notonthehightstreet.com . I must say, it was also very well catered for (how could we say no to free drinks, canapes, mini burgers and mini fish & chips??)
Cate is actually quite eccentric – and I mean that in the nicest possible way! At the start of the workshop, we were made to listen to and do dance moves to ‘I Love You Baby’ (I’m not sure whose version we heard, but it’s an old school song that you’ve definitely heard) to loosen us up and get us in the mood to talk about the initial stages of finding lurve.
Seeing as this is the week leading up to what I like to call “the Christmas Day of Love” – Valentine’s Day – and seeing how it falls on a Saturday this year, it’s only right that I share some of what we learned at the workshop. No doubt some of you singletons will be out somewhere, hoping to find that last-minute Valentine.
– Flirting is very simply: Looking, smiling, saying “Hi”. That’s it. Before you leave your home for a night out, look in the mirror and connect with your inner system of feeling “hot.” When you can see that you look hot and you feel hot, you will exude “hot” when you’re out.
– The 3 principles of dating are: Fun, Release and Commitment.
Fun – An exercise you should do is to write down all the things you’ve ever wanted to do, and make time to do them. When you do fun things and are genuinely having fun, you become less self-conscious, and the best thing is, the people you want to meet are most likely busy doing those fun things you want to do, so that’s one thing you’ll have in common to break the ice already! So if you’ve been eager to go mountain-climbing, take a martial-arts class, a dance class, or just chill in a park feeding ducks – do it.
Release – Write a list of all the people who have broken your heart or let you down, whether in your love life or otherwise. Then thank them. Take tips from their behaviour to remind you of what it is you are not looking for in your life.
Commitment – Make a commitment to yourself to be open to meeting someone new, and possibly finding the love you are searching for. Being open is the only way to truly allow THAT person to enter your life.
As part of the workshop, we each had to partner up and practice looking into each other’s eyes for four seconds at a time, then report on how it made us feel, both as the looker and the “lookee”. Being looked at for longer than a second sometimes makes me feel a little shy, because I can think things along the lines of “Uh-oh – my makeup doesn’t look right,” or “Uh-oh am I supposed to recognise this person?” It will take some more practice to be at ease with it. The workshop then turned into am impromptu debate session on about striking up conversations with strangers and how self-conscious it made people feel or not feel.
It was a nice evening. And FYI – flirting is not just for singletons! Those of you who are coupled up should also remember to flirt with each other, it doesn’t have to stop because you’ve reached the relationship stage. So tomorrow, send a random flirty text message to your other half, during your work day. You never know what might be waiting for you when you get home…
