It’d be great if dating and flirting were easy—things you could approach with excitement and nonchalance. Unfortunately, that’s not always the case. You want to make a good impression on your potential love-interest, yet the very act of pondering how the other person perceives you can make you less confident! Below are four tricks for making a great first impression whether you’re cruising the pick-up scene at a bar or on a first date.

Men are not the masters of the subtle. We’re the sex that laughs at farts and watches Jean-Claude Van Damme movies, and we wouldn’t know subtlety if it hit us over the head with a brick (which it probably wouldn’t do, since, you know, it’s subtlety and all).

As such, many of us have problems when it comes to dealing with women. Women communicate very subtly, and guys are looking for something more along the lines of a large neon sign declaring that you’re willing to sleep with us or that you’d like to see us thrown through a plate glass window.

The prices of neon and plate glass are through the roof though. So, until we learn to communicate better, here’s a look at a few of the more subtle signals a woman might send that a guy will completely miss.

I was in 8th grade when my first boyfriend, Jeremy, made me a mix tape featuring my favorite song, “Jeremy” by Pearl Jam. Coincidence? Not. I have been known to fall for a guy for the most ludicrous reasons, like, say, being the namesake of my favorite song, having an organized wallet, or rocking some snazzy sneakers. Sure, Jeremy had the right name to grab my interest, but he really sealed the deal with the mix tape and affixed love note—“My favorite songs and yours. Love, Jer.”

A lot has happened since then. My cassette tapes have all been donated to Goodwill (except Jer’s … I still have it) and my heart has grown more sophisticated (I think), but the fact remains the same. For me, falling for a guy is all in the details. I don’t care about how much hair you have, how swanky your apartment is, or how much money you’ve got in the bank. It’s the little things you do to show that you care that make me swoon like a lunatic.

Flirting is a body language movement that portrays many sensual words, without words.  I learned recently that men and women who look for partners on-line are well schooled in the art of flirting, dating and mating. Even in a relationship or marriage, a little bit of flirting goes a long way.  Here are seven tips to get him in the mood for loving.

1.  Leave a sexy note in his jacket, briefcase, or on his computer screen if he is working virtually from home. Continue reading...

Yesterday we reported on a survey that claims men spend 43 minutes a day, or almost a year of their lives over a lifetime, eying up the ladies. Great. Fascinating. Not that surprising. Then the study went on to say that us lady-folk stare down our male counterparts about 20 minutes each day, ogling around six different men. To that, I call that bull-s**t! See, what I’m now thinking, after digesting the facts a bit more, is that there’s no way in hell women only spend 20 minutes each day checking out men—it’s got to be at least on par, if not more, with what the men devote. We’ve all answered surveys and we’ve all been known to fib a little here and there (isn’t there a study out there that says women lie during these studies all the time or something!?), whether it was to make ourselves feel better, or to make women-kind look better. Am I right? I say it’s time to come clean on the man-ogling! Women may be more stealth about checking a guy out, and we may not hold our stares quite as long, but let’s be serious…20 minutes of each day? Come on. I’ve seen women on their lunch breaks spend their entire hour outside, pretending to eat their sandwiches or read their magazines while not-so-secretly eyeing every man that passed them by. Not in a I-want-to-jump-his-bones way (well maybe some of the time), but in a, huh-he’s-hot or ha-not-ever sort of way. So ladies, come on, spill it! [Daily Mail]

Here’s another example of the “quality journalism” that goes on over at Fox News. In a segment about finding jobs, anchor Ainsley Earhardt interviews Uri Man on advice for job seekers. Ainsley starts out on the right path, but is immediately sidetracked when Uri compliments her yellow ensemble. Uri returns to the topic, for a sec, creepily mentioning how he read about Ainsley and knows where she went to college. Then Ainsley comments on Uri’s pink shirt and flirts with him. Click above to watch the first date interview. We wonder if they did it after this segment? [Huffington Post] 

Today, Glamour‘s know-it-all guy-about-relationships, Jake, thinks us gals put on certain acts to attract men. Now, I’m willing to cop to having tried out a few flirting tactics here and there—but to me, morphing into a girl I’m not, just to snag a dude, was never in the cards. How freaking exhausting. It’s hard enough being me sometimes, why the hell would I try to be “outgoing-dancing-on-the-bar-because-I’m-sooooo-fun” me? Or “that-should-have-been-a-foul-go-Celtics” me? I just don’t think most of us out there are that contrived in our date-me ploys. And if you are pulling this BS, well, you ain’t fooling anyone, most of all the male species (or this Jake character and his bros). What do you think of these five ladies? My two cents are following his “sage” words…

Askmen.com recently published a cute, albeit, standard little ditty about hitting on chicks at your high school reunion. The writer thought celebrating the passing years since high school graduation was a perfect opportunity to play catch up and score with all the ladies you wanted to but (because you were a pimple-infested, dork-virgin) never did.

Fair enough, but this had us thinking: What places should you absolutely under no circumstances (well ... never say never ...) try to get laid?

Breaking news before the slow-poke networks, staying atop of Ashton Kutcher’s activities, bringing the pound sign back: Twitter gives us all of this. But what does Twitter do for love, we asked? The answer: the chance to write clever pick-up lines in 140 characters or less.

Men’s Health has another insightful article for its readers, this time on the 20 things a woman notices about a guy. Included are a few no-brainers like shoulder muscles (13), intelligence (14), and attire (16), but most of the list contains head-scratchers like “Your resemblance to a rock” (3), “Your lungs” (4), “Your resemblance to Spider Man” (8), and “Your belly button.” What? Because most women I know aren’t sizing up a guy’s navel or his lungs — or his web-building abilities, for that matter — here’s a list of 15 things a woman really notices about a guy.

Before getting your moral molars all impacted, we’d like to make clear that we’re not endorsing having an affair or ruining a perfectly good marriage (or an imperfect one, for that matter).

Whether single or taken, flirting is fun. Getting hitched helps out in the tax and health care departments, but married social life can start to feel like a blur of “dinner at the Newman’s” and “girls’ nights out.” We already know that flirting at the office helps business and is good for substance-free spirit-lifting. Unlike flirting with single blokes, hair flips and deep conversations with married guys aren’t automatic green lights for making a move. Here are ten other reasons to flirt with a man in a (wedding) band.

Sure, the Web has made many aspects of our lives easier, but it’s also complicated a few things—specifically, how we date, flirt and meet potential love interests. And while the date movie du jour, “He’s Just Not That Into You,” may seem a few years behind, we’ve pulled together a helpful up-to-date guide to Flirting 2.0.

A university in Germany is going out of its way to help its IT students get laid. Potsdam University south of Berlin is offering IT engineering students a new “flirting course,” which is meant to prepare students “with the social skills needed to succeed both in their private life and their work life,” according to a spokesman of the university. The course, which is part of a master’s degree program, will teach the 440 enrolled students body language, public-speaking, stress management and presentation skills, as well as how to write flirtatious text messages and emails, navigate a party with finesse and cope with rejection. Philip von Senftleben, the teacher of the course, said his job will be to teach his students how to “get someone else’s heart beating fast while yours stays calm.” Something tells me some of the IT geeks are gonna need more than a course on flirty texting to get someone else’s heart beating fast. [Yahoo News]

I’ve been single so long, I was starting to think I’m do everything wrong…that is until I watched this totally ‘80s dating video, “Going On A Manhunt,” brought to us by the studs of VHS at Everything Is Terrible. Sheesh, the “experts” in this vid managed to come up with so many ideas even more overwrought than their permed hair—like using a small stuffed animal to get a man’s attention.  Seriously, what happened to a good old-fashioned low-cut dress?! If pathetically pretending to love a fake pet is what you need to find true love—i.e. a guy wearing an infomercial-style sweater—I’m going to resign myself to real cats and happily be a spinster for life!

My friend Gloria flirts with everyone—even her cat. Seriously. Almost every time I see her she’s cozying up to someone new, even though she isn’t a perpetual dater and doesn’t sleep around. At my birthday dinner a few weeks ago, she asked my friend Sira if he wanted to lick some buttercream frosting off her chest. He busted out his cell phone and said, “Have you seen my boyfriend?” But it didn’t matter to her that he’s gay; she was flirting for the sake of flirting.

I don’t put much stock in that whole men-being-hard-wired-to-want-to-spread-their- seed thing, because I don’t want to believe it. I hate thinking that guys are made to be with more than one person, because I don’t want the person I’m with to want to be with anyone else. But I think I better suck it up, because a study was published published in the July issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology about people in relationships and flirting.

The study says that when a girl who’s in a relationship meets a hot, single guy, she’s more likely to work to try to strengthen her current relationship. But if a guy who has a girlfriend has a flirtation with an available women, he’s more likely to look at his girlfriend in a more negative light, like being pissed at her if she canceled a date or told friends an embarrassing story about him. This makes me feel sad inside, but according to the lead author, men can learn to resist the temptation when trained to think flirting with an attractive woman could destroy their relationship. Women don’t even need to be be trained to respect and work on their relationships, because, as the study’s author said, we’ve been “socialized to be wary of the advances of attractive men.” [Medical News Today]

There comes a time (hopefully many) in every woman’s life when you’re finally one-on-one with a guy you’re hot for and are ready for him to resuscitate your love life with some serious mouth-to-mouth.  But how do you let him know you want him, you want him so bad, it’s driving you mad?  While some morons, er, dating gurus think smiling, touching his arm, leaning in etcetera, will help send him signals, that type of flirting went out with corsets and bustles. This is the 21st Century and even love has more buttons to push and you can push ‘em all! Don’t confuse him with clues when you can give him something he can feel.  So forget subtlety, here’s how to really get what you want, after the jump…

Out-of-towners visiting Austria for the Euro 2008 soccer competition will receive a free guide, which includes a few essential phrases (i.e., Do you have a sliced sugared pancake with plum compote?). I guess flirting with locals was deemed essential, because the books a phrase for picking up members of the opposite sex: “Servas, fesche Katz.” It translates literally as “Greetings, hot kitten.” I’m so adding that to my repertoire of pickup lines. [Reuters]