I have a 13 year old daughter who is [unconsciously?] learning these skills by trying them on me. At the moment she isn’t very good at it. I assume she will figure it out by trial and error how to get what she wants. I dread the day she learns what works.

As a parent I try to encourage certain types of manipulative behaviour, such as focusing your attention on every word of the person speaking to you (aka flirting) and discourage others (like crying).

(S. and I discovered a few years ago that we were second cousins, and have enjoyed claiming the relationship ever since. At least *I* have, and I think he does, too.)

A trim reckoning! Handle a few divorces and you may begin to feel like human nature has a certain quality of birth defect, at least on a cynical day. One reflects that we are asked to come into “the depths of humility.” Nothing else answers. Maybe none of us have anything to be proud about ourselves. Gentility comes after humility. On occasion, one meets people who give that impression.

Are you sure the women know? I think most of us spend a good deal of time unaware. I’ve heard mothers say that a child will play by himself until the mother gets on the telephone or does something else which makes the child feel that the mother might not be immediately available to him, and then he will cling, cry, etc. I wonder if the adult behavior you describe is a little like that on the woman’s part. But a little more savage, but with a sweet smile.

There is that competitive side residing in the “lizard brain” – the limbic system. That seems to me to drive a good deal if not most of what ordinarily goes on with people – with the intellect along for the ride and to rationalize if necessary.

The natural man does not easily cede the driver’s seat and does not need too much conscious thought to operate. But it is an able sophist when the need arises.

Which may be fine if you’re looking for an exception to the hearsay rule, but not in this forum.

Are you guys conscious of women using their “subtle techniques” on you?

Are you conscious of women who don’t use them? Do you think such a woman is just not flirting *for the moment*, or that she *never* flirts?

I’ve become aware in the last three or four years of another such “subtle technique”: I can be having lunch or walking across campus with a colleague, and another woman who knows the man will interrupt us, totally ignore me, and so thoroughly monopolize the man’s attention despite any attempt from me to participate, that sometimes I’ve deliberately dropped gradually behind until I walked away completely, and I’m sure that the man isn’t even aware that I’m no longer there. There doesn’t have to be the slightest hint of romance for this to happen — women who are old enough to be our mother do it, too. It’s an odd feeling being invisible, especially for someone as tall and, um, stout as I am, who isn’t afraid to speak up, as you can probably judge from my blogging. In a variation, a woman I once roomed with at a conference wouldn’t dare initiate a conversation with a man, yet whenever I would — every time! — no matter whether it was social or a business prospect I was trying to develop, she would step up, interrupt, and within seconds I would be invisible again, as the man devoted his full attention to her.

I’m sure the women know exactly what they’re doing — do the men?

Eve, I’ve never had the slightest idea how to flirt or pout or otherwise manipulate in these ways, although to my great embarrassment I too often can’t control unwelcome tears.

Yeah, me too, on both counts.

What fascinates me about the way he describes this is that he simply alludes to “subtle techniques” and “devices” that most women know (clearly I missed that memo!) for getting one’s way and asserting oneself that may be used, but shouldn’t be abused. The way he lays it out crying, coquetry, flirtatious dress, etc., are abuses, so I’m scratching my head trying to figure out what the acceptable devices are, exactly.

I often feel, reading things like this, as if there is something fundamental being alluded to that I am just not getting. I don’t know if my befuddlement is a result of my living in a different era in which these sorts of things have fallen by the wayside, or if these sorts of things are going on all around me and I’m just too thick to recognize them.

I guess in another era I would have been sent to charm school to attempt to master some of these skills. But I don’t know if it can be taught. (And I’ve known a few flirts in my time, but I’ve never observed one as skilled as your missionary companion up close. Must have been quite interesting!)