HOW TECHNOLOGY RUINED THE ART OF SEDUCTION,

HOW TECHNOLOGY RUINED THE ART OF SEDUCTION SARAH SAHAGIAN,

Marie Browning falls into “Steve” Morgan’s lap. She plants a supple, yet surprising kiss on his mouth before pulling away. Morgan, equal parts confused and amused, asks “What did you do that for?” She answers, “Been wondering whether I’d like it.”

Browning, as portrayed by Lauren Bacall, makes the slowest exit from a scene in movie history, sashaying out of Morgan’s office with more turnarounds than a back and forth basketball game. Finally, she looks at Morgan, played by Humphrey Bogart, and purrs, “You know, you don’t have to act with me, Steve. You don’t have to say anything, and you don’t have to do anything. Not a thing. Oh, maybe just whistle. You know how to whistle, don’t you, Steve? You just put your lips together and … blow.”

“You just put your lips together and … blow.”

The scene is from 1944’s To Have and Have Not. Anyone with a pulse – then or now – would be aroused by it. It has become the most quintessential flirt ever recorded – on film or otherwise. And it’s evidence that flirting used to be sultry, skilled and seductive.

Unfortunately, in 2017, flirting has been reduced to “u up?” texts at 3 a.m.

Iam the world’s worst flirt. I lack finesse. I lack strategy. I lack followthrough. In the past, I’ve either gone too big – point blank telling someone I could see the two of us having a daughter named Adeline one day – or too small – after making eyes throughout the night, I go home without speaking a word.

For years, I avoided flirting by opting out. I turned to serial monogamy specifically so as to avoid having having to chat up potential paramours. Through university, I dated guys I met at keg parties. No one seems to mind a lack of game when four beers deep. But now, single at 30, the dating game isn’t so simple. In order to play, you first have to develop some.

Flirting may be a weakness for me, but my greatest strength is a tendency toward self-improvement. So I did what any self-respecting 21st century woman would do – I Googled flirting like it was my job.

The more research I put into flirting, the more I realized how common my befuddlement was. Flirting is hard to define; even harder to distill into a simple guide. What could be flirting to one person may not be flirting to another. And because of these moving parameters – totally dependent on the target of your flirt – it’s difficult to give templated advice on what to do; or more importantly in my case, what not to do.

I’ve always thought of flirting as fully dressed foreplay. It’s a way of testing the erotic waters of romance. I get the premise of flirtation, it’s just the practice that confounds me.

Flirting as a phenomenon is as old as humanity itself. According to a famous 1999 piece by Psychology Today, flirting evolved as a way for people to try before they buy – so to speak. Instinctively, early humans were keen to find strong, genetically complimentary mates. Going straight to sexual activity brought the risk of producing offspring with someone you weren’t certain about. Flirting, therefore, emerged as a pragmatic means of sussing out partners you liked without the risk of pregnancy.

As humanity evolved, so did flirting. In Ancient Rome, flirtation transformed into a highly ritualized endeavour, where writers like Ovid wrote poems to woo women. A millennium or so later in Renaissance Europe, the go-to move for ladies was to drop their hankies in front of hunky men.

Fast-forward to the 20th century, and flirting began to change at a much faster pace. As the risks of sex decreased with the rise of birth control, people began picking each other up at bars with lines like: “Are you a magician? Because when I see you, everyone else disappears.”

Birth control revolutionized dating, but 21st century dating has been reshaped in response to another new technology, the internet. Technological disruption has brought us a whole host of modern conveniences, from ride-sharing services like Uber to entertainment on demand streaming like Netflix and Spotify. If you need something, you don’t walk to the store, you pick up your smartphone. Convenient? Yes, of course. But as a consequence to comfort, we no longer have to deal with other living beings when we do our banking or book a trip. And as a result, we’ve become less adept at interacting with others in real life.

I am part of the first generation of people who came of age awkwardly flirting through the internet. Sure, our social media experiences were more rudimentary than Instagram, with all its filters. As adolescents in the late 1990s and early 2000s, we turned to the safety of instant messaging to contact our crushes. It felt lower risk than being rejected in person. Plus, you could do it from the comfort of your family desktop, without worrying about getting home in time for curfew.

When I was in middle school, someone liked you if they added you to an instant messaging service like ICQ. When you received a new message, the program made an “uh-oh” sound. To this day, that is the sound of love to me. Many of my millennial friends agree. At that time, teens weren’t making adorable mix tapes full of carefully curated songs to sum up their feelings. Instead, they were sending veiled seduction over instant messaging services.

By today’s standards, it was high romance.

It’s no surprise millennials grew up to popularize dating apps like Tinder. The basic concept is that you scroll through profiles of potential partners until someone attractive pops up on your screen. When you like someone, you swipe to the right. If they like you too, it’s a match, and you can start messaging. The success of Tinder has spawned countless other dating apps, from Bumble (where women make the first move on male users) to JSwipe, which caters primarily to a Jewish audience. In 2015, Tinder alone had an estimated 50 million users.

Whether they identify as queer or straight, whether they are looking for a life partner or a casual hookup, most of my friends turn to the internet. They are introduced to prospective dates through profiles where users show images of their pets, list “The Six Things I Could Never Do Without” and have an odd affinity for sharing their height. If you’re lucky, they also provide a handful of (possibly up to date) pictures in which they, themselves, are identifiable.

When you like someone online, there’s little finesse. Unlike decades previous, when singles on the prowl chatted each other up at bars and parties, there are no clever pickup lines in cyberspace. Instead of witty repartee, you just type “hey,” send that phallic looking eggplant emoji or ask about the other person’s day.

After a few perfunctory texts about what you’re watching on Netflix or your favourite podcasts, you and your match might meet. At such time, you’ll both discover what the other lied about in their profile. On the internet, people can take several hours to craft a witty response to your last message. But in person, that’s not an option. The guy you thought was so funny when you met on Bumble was probably Googling one-liners from famous comedians, then cutting and pasting those jokes into his replies.

This is why online dating is not for everyone. While most of my friends have tried it; most of my friends have also tired of it. For me, I think I have watched one too many episodes of MTV’s Catfish and was suitably scared the people I’d meet would be serial killers.

So, what’s a bad flirt with a fear of internet dating to do? Given the current dating climate, the proliferation of “dating coaches” – who provide everything from YouTube tutorials to overpriced books, and even weekend-long seminars – is really no surprise. Some, like Rori Raye, encourage straight women to lean into their “feminine energy” and let men take control. While famed love guru (and handsome man) Matthew Hussey gives women detailed instructions about how they can approach people at bars. Such advice has earned Hussey well over a million followers on Facebook.

After consulting YouTube videos (most of which contradicted one another), I only felt more confused. So, I decided to seek guidance from one of the most confident flirts I know. Olivia Grace is a Toronto-based seduction expert. Olivia tells me that flirting “is all about making someone feel special.”

Conceptually, I don’t disagree that making someone feel special seems like a good strategy. But how do you do that subtly? Olivia suggests lots of smiling, open body language and “touching them on the forearm.” Unfortunately, when I tried the forearm trick, I patted the guy I was chatting with a little too hard. He may have thought I was slapping him. Needless to say, it didn’t go well.

Next, I consulted a therapist, whom we’ll call Hyacinth. When I first walked into her airy downtown office, I had visions of leaving a reborn, flirtatious phoenix, rising from the ashes of failed romantic encounters. However, my “session” mostly consisted of Hyacinth regaling me with the story of how she met her second husband at a Scrabble tournament.

After I explained my Scrabble skills were lacking, Hyacinth made me roleplay laughing at a date’s jokes. She found that my laugh skews too friendly and isn’t at all sexy. Ultimately, I paid a licensed therapist $130 an hour to tell me to speak in a higher tone of voice when I’m interested in someone. Surprisingly, sounding like a little girl did not get me propositioned.

Flirting is supposed to be about playfulness. It’s supposed to be about having fun and discovering whether you have a connection with someone. It’s supposed to be natural. The fact that many folks are now turning to professionals to teach us how to talk to one another is troubling, yes; but simultaneously hopeful.

This cottage industry of dating coaches suggests the way things are – where flirting has been reduced to emojis sent between screens – is not how we would like them to be. It suggests all the social media we partake in cannot substitute for face-to-face interaction. It suggests that we want real life relationships, we just don’t know how to get them.

Unfortunately, this situation has given rise to some of our more deplorable instincts. For example, countless men have been taken in by guides like Neil Strauss’s 2005 book The Game, which became a bestseller and spawned a global movement of so-called pickup artists. Among other things, Strauss’s guide teaches frustrated heterosexual men how to “neg” – subtly insult unsuspecting women until they feel desperate for approval.

There’s a strange irony to all of this. Online interactions contribute to social isolation, which in turn, spawns a form of emotional abuse repackaged as a viable dating strategy.

Yet, the downfall of this so-called game has largely been through online interactions, with women shaming men attempting such despicable strategies by sharing on social media, and in turn, raising awareness of it to other would-be victims.

In this sense, technology brings us closer together after driving us apart. And it’s not just through the reprehensible stuff either. Seemingly, the moment anybody says something smooth, it begins trending on Twitter. Remember “Netflix and chill?” That went from a sexy proposition to a tired line in a matter of days. There is nothing to be said that will win over a heart and mind.

In an era where flirting is all but dead, and yet our desires remain constant, what’s a single person to do? Here’s what I learned from my awkward, failed attempts at flirtation and becoming a better flirt: I can only be me.

Yes, the cheesy moral of the story for every romantic comedy is true. I’m a girl who doesn’t know the right thing to say; a girl who accidentally slaps men she’s trying to beguile; a girl whose own therapist calls her laugh unsexy. And I just have to come to grips with the fact that it’s exactly that kind of weirdo that the one for me is after.

To that person – I hope – a fumbling flirtation will be just as seductive as Lauren Bacall saying, “You just put your lips together and … blow.”