Jeffrey Hall has heard every pick-up line in the book–and not because everybody wants to take him home. No, it’s just his day job. Because if you want to know how to win friends and influence people in the 21st century, you’ll need to know how to flirt. (Got that Dale Carnegie? There’s a new sheriff in town.) And as Dr. Hall–he’s assistant professor of communication studies at the University of Kansas–will be the first one to tell you: flirting isn’t just batted lashes. Hall brings the science to what was once pure art form. After years of research and articles published in magazines like Glamour and Cosmopolitan, Dr. Hall has written his first book, The Five Flirting Styles: Use the Science of Flirting to Attract the Love You Really Want. The social science-cum-dating manual is published by the female-friendly, assembly-line-productive Harlequin Books. Harlequin publishes more than 110 titles a month in 34 languages (!), but this is the one you want, don’t you, doll? This book sees that there’s something special about you.
Readers of “The Five Flirting Styles” are encouraged to figure out which style suits them best: physical, polite, playful, sincere, or traditional. (Spoiler: the most popular model is the sincere flirt–the one who keeps asking deep and meaningful questions until you reveal too much.) But flirting isn’t all about romance. Research from the University of California at Berkeley and the London School of Economics reveals that “flirting can knock about 20% off the price of a car.” And it could be more, who knows? The 20% discount might have been sought using merely the “polite” style.
