Target, focus, divert

I just had to comment on this story, seeing as how I'm as clueless as writer Martha Beck purports to be in this story on CNN.com (but originating on Oprah.com).

It's about flirting! Something I have never mastered.

I have a friend who lives across the street She tosses her hair, she gazes into men's eyes as if they are not only the most important man in the room, but in the whole Universe; she touches them occasionally on their forearm.

She gets a lot of notice. It goes something akin to what Beck writes:

We'd been waiting 30 minutes for someone to take our order in a busy Mexican restaurant when my friend Cathy decided to take extreme measures.

"Watch this," she whispered. Then she tugged the clip from her hair, opened a collar button, and tossed her head like a frolicking foal. Almost magically, she went from being simply beautiful to what is referred to in the vernacular as "like, totally hot."

Three waiters rushed our table like linebackers. Cathy fluttered her lashes at one, cooing, "Hon, could we order now?" It was a virtuoso performance of attraction in action.

It helps if the hair on the head is long and blonde.

Over to the opposite side of the spectrum, also from Beck:

As "Psychology Today's" contributor Joann Ellison Rodgers described the flirtation ritual: "Women smiled, gazed, swayed, giggled, licked their lips and aided and abetted by the wearing of high heels; they swayed their backs, forcing their buttocks to tilt out and up and their chests to thrust forward."

In researching this article, I recently tried enacting these behaviors in a local Starbucks. Sure enough, I attracted immediate male attention: An elderly gentleman asked me if I needed medical help. The answer was yes. I think I ruptured something.

Now this I can relate to! I do, and always have, hunched over slightly to distract attention away from my ... er ... huge tracts of land (big tits). I don't even realize I'm doing it - until my shoulders start aching and I have to go get a massage - a fine tool for stopping.

I have not stopped since I developed big tits (about fifth grade); why change now?

OK, well Beck gives three steps to attracting attention from whoever it is you want attention.

If you use the three steps above in quick succession, you'll become an attention magnet. It's like a trick move in martial arts: Target your person of interest, focus entirely on them, then abruptly divert your attention. Pow, pow, pow!