What's YOUR flirting style? Scientists reveal 6 key pulling tactics

"In our analysis we found that contestants make use of six vehicles to signal sexual and/or romantic interest. Their analysis uncovered half a dozen styles, ranging from 'humour' to 'self-praise'. If your style is the 'imagined future', you probably like making playful references to joint future endeavours. But if you prefer the 'sexual innuendo' style, you might find a way to turn a conversation about cleaning a dirty kitchen into a flirting opportunity."

"People who flirt using an 'imagined future' tactic will construct an imaginary joint future endeavour. With this style, people will tend to use the words 'we' and 'can' to create a joint hypothetical situation. Its main function is to create an 'excitement of possibility' rather than an actual plan, without any concrete arrangements being made."

"This style involves referencing flirting itself, or flirting-related terms. These instances, while explicitly rendering previous utterances as flirtatious, can furthermore be considered as being flirtatious in themselves, as they make the flirtatious intent, which was often only implicit before, explicit. For example, someone might say 'Look at us getting flirty' to make the underlying interest and tone of the conversation impossible to deny."

Researchers from the University of Augsburg analyzed 140,000 instances of flirting language from the TV show Love is Blind to categorize flirting techniques. Their study identified six key flirting styles that people use to signal romantic and sexual interest. The imagined future tactic involves creating hypothetical joint scenarios using words like 'we' and 'can' to generate excitement without concrete plans. Metalinguistic reference involves explicitly acknowledging flirtation itself, making implicit romantic intent explicit. Self-praise represents another flirting vehicle. Additional styles include humour and sexual innuendo, where people creatively turn ordinary conversations into flirting opportunities. These findings were published in the Journal of Pragmatics.

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