Meet, mate or meat

He stepped gingerly into the room and spied her preening herself. She glanced up at him and held his gaze ever so fleetingly. Then, tossing her hair back, she looked down while licking her lips. He smiled to himself, puffed up his chest and swaggered towards her. She looked up at him again and, in one swift motion, promptly devoured him.

But hey, flirting can be fun, too. Except if you are a male wolf spider.

Unfortunately, the screw-up of our overly eager arachnid was that, similar to soon-to-be court-martialed coup generals, he simply misread the flirting "signals" she was sending out to him. So he ended up as meat instead of mate. Fortunately, human females are more forgiving. If you misinterpret their body language as an invitation to approach them, they will only eat away at your extremities but leave your vital organs intact.

Contrary to what you might think, flirting with women is not rocket science. God forbid, it is much more difficult than that. If it were that easy, then MIT scientists would have ended up making pakyaw with all the supermodels. So these scientists, who have only ever dated inflatable dolls and anesthetized lab animals, did what they knew best: got themselves piss stinking drunk while doing field research in a singles bar.

While they chugged away at their beers, lamenting how the gerbil test subject 11-562-A didn’t excite them as much as it used to, the scientists observed how many non-doctorate-degree-holding men were successfully flirting with non-anesthetized members of the opposite sex. "Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle!" they thought. "If men with half our IQs but with testicles the size of mature coconuts can flirt with women, then so can we."

And these scientists were right. About the monkey.

Much like storm signals, there are progressive stages of flirting which are surprisingly the same across much of the primate world. So, fret not if you are terrified by the idea of flirting with a member of the opposite sex who walks upright; you can always flirt with one who walks on all fours. If you don’t mind picking lice.

Flirting is a complex system of body language signals that was intentionally designed to torture men. According to the article Female Body Language for Flirting, Dating, Romance and Love, when women encounter men whom they find more attractive than a monkey’s uncle, they bombard these men with subtle, but often deceptive, courting signals within the first few minutes of their encounter. Men, being the evolutionary laggards that we are, often get confused with all these signals. We are often unsure if she is saying, "Here I am. I am healthy and available. Come approach me and buy me a drink, you clueless ape." Or: "Come closer, I feel like having some spleen tonight." So instead of approaching the woman, the bamboozled male will simply go home and read a men’s magazine because nothing is ambiguous there. Especially the silicone.

Sigh. It’s almost like both sexes are playing the flirting game at different levels: women are playing Trivial Pursuit while men are playing bato-bato pick. I don’t know about you, my fellow illiterates, but I refuse to have any more of my limbs chomped off by ambiguous females. So allow me to share with you what those gerbil-loving scientists shared with me: an empirically proven, non-refundable, five-step process to flirting that will help you better understand the rules that women play in the flirting game so that they can no longer use and abuse you like a source of protein. (To my three female readers, please stop reading beyond this point.)

Stage 1: The Attention-Getting Stage (a.k.a. the K.S.P. stage).

Unlike the astronomical phenomenon that is Keanna Reeves, whose artificial satellites have the ability to attract small moons, women cannot instantly attract the attention of men when they enter a room. And unlike an ‘80s Pinoy movie, women cannot enter a room and spontaneously break out into a song-and-production number hoping that the man she finds attractive will join her in singing the refrain. Women prefer to use subtlety in letting men know that they are more interesting than their toenail clippings. And women are at their most subtle when they are being kulang sa pansin (K.S.P.).

K.S.P., Step 1: Through a scanner darkly.

According to Flirting 101, a woman on the lookout for a potential mate will scan the room for about five to 10 seconds. During the scan, she will avoid making googly eyes with anybody, but she will use her peripheral vision to spot if there is anybody in the room whom she can share genetic material with. And although she may have seen you from the corner of her eye, it does not mean that you can already approach her unless you want her to snack on your fingers.

K.S.P, Step 2: Jiggle it just a little bit.

After surveying the room, the woman will establish her territory – like a seat in the bar, a wall to lean on, or a place in line to the banyo. Once she is settled, she will bring attention to herself by repeatedly exaggerating her movements. For example, the way she flails her arms while applying lipstick will look like she is putting it on all over her face. She will also pretend that it requires a couple of hours to organize the compact mirror, wallet, cell phone and can of pepper spray in her handbag. Or she will keep straightening out her clothes as though a gerbil had started tunneling through her underwear. All these moves are calculated to let the men know that she is ready to accept their résumés.

K.S.P., Step 3: Hello, is it me you’re looking for?

Once the woman has selected her unwitting co-conspirator in population growth, she will give him "the fixed gaze." This gaze is about as fixed as our electricity prices and it lasts for about five seconds after which time she will turn away quickly. However, since the average male has the emotional intelligence of fungi, he is often unaware that he was the recipient of the "gaze." Thus, the woman has to repeat the gaze about three more times until the man finally notices that she is paying attention to him. However, if her chosen specimen still fails to look at her, she is authorized to take her clog heels and club him repeatedly over the head until he knows it is safe to approach her.

I realize that, for most men, prolonged eye contact with strange women can be both an exciting and involuntary bladder-releasing feeling. But you must get used to the feeling of soggy underpants if you plan to flirt with women. Here’s a tip: Aside from stocking up on adult diapers, try building up your ability to stare into the eyes of a woman whom you are most comfortable with for more than three seconds without looking away. I have been practicing this gaze with my yaya. And it has worked. Much to her benefit. But you can practice with her, too, if you want.

K.S.P., Step 4: A smile gets in your eyes.

After the woman has caught the attention of her handpicked fungus, she will look directly into his eyes and break into a quick, coy smile. She will then drop her gaze down to her lap and look up again three seconds later. If the fungus is still showing interest, she will widen her smile again and drop her gaze down again. In the event that the man has large enough coconuts, he will carefully make his way towards her. While the man approaches her, she will pretend to fumble with her handbag or check her nails to see if her nails are sharp enough to slash his jugular if she still wants to back out of the flirting process.

You see, when a woman breaks eye contact with a smile and looks down at her lap, this is an ancient female submission signal that tells the old limbic part of the male brain that "You can approach me and I will not throw a drink at your face and humiliate you in front of all your barkada so you run away crying and asking yourself, ‘Why did I ever practice staring at my yaya?’"

But remember, you are applying these K.S.P. steps in the Philippines. So I feel it is my duty to warn you: It is perfectly fine to maintain eye contact with a female for five seconds or less. But if she looks at you any longer than that, you must immediately look away or else she will beat you up worse than Pacman.

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For Max Soliven, who set the standard in kilometric column writing. Philippine journalism will be less voluminous without you. Thanks for paving the way, bosing.

Next week: Gino Padilla’s favorite stage in flirting: "The closer I get to touching you." For comments, suggestions or you want to stare with my yaya, please e-mail ledesma.rj@gmail.com or visit www.rjledesma.com.