Licking your lips, playing with your hair and crossing your legs are all suggestive forms of flirtation but what exactly do they mean and how can you do them seductively, without looking like an underdeveloped-hormone-raging-teenager? With Valentine's Day fast approaching now is the time to perfect your moves and practice those crucial one-liners.

Don't panic if you think you haven't got time to turn your clumsy attempts at flirting into a polished Valentine's day performance, Dr Cecilia d’Felice is here with all her top tips!

Dr Cecilia's tips include ‘being selective.’ One of the greatest flirting myths is the belief that you have to play ‘hard to get’ but studies have proven otherwise. In one college, men asked five women on a date. Those women who were deemed ‘easy to get’ and responded positively to the date were rated more favorably than those deemed ‘hard to get’ and acted as if they had other dates. But the cases that produced the best responses were those in which the date seemed easy for the man in question to get a date with, but difficult for everyone else.

Also ‘Don’t be afraid to tease’. Teasing can feel like a risky strategy, and it certainly has potential to backfire. Still, research has shown that men in particular interpret it as a sign of sexual interest. Dr Cecilia's tips can be found in the latest edition of Psychologies magazine but she is taking time out of her busy schedule to join us live today, in an interactive web TV show.

Join the fun today and put your questions to our experts Dr Cecilia d'Felice, flirting expert, and Maureen Rice, Editor of Psychologies Magazine on Thursday 31st January at 15.30.

H: Mark Ryse, host

C: Dr Cecilia d'Felice, flirting expert

M: Maureen Rice, Editor of Psychologies Magazine

H: Hello there and welcome to the Lifestyle Show brought to you by Psychologies Magazine, I’m Mark Rise. Well today we’re talking about flirting, it can be a dangerous thing, you know when man meets woman, when woman meets man, what do you do? Is it the subtle licking of the lips? Is it the eye contact, is it the – maybe – touching of the hair? How do you stop yourself looking like a gangly teenager in front of someone you fancy? Well, with Valentine’s Day approaching and for the dates across the rest of your life, if you need some help I’ve got two flirting experts here in the studio with me to give us some help today. Let me introduce to you flirting expert Dr Cecilia d'Felice, and the Editor of Psychologies Magazine, Maureen Rice. Hello ladies

C: Hello

M: Hi

H: It’s all very awkward flirting isn’t it? Do we know when we’re doing it, are we doing it right? How – what’s the overall here?

C: I think it can be a bit of a minefield, especially if you’ve got a lot riding on it, if you really fancy somebody for example it really ups the stakes, but I think we can think about flirting as – in encompassing a whole host of behaviours that are really about making people feel good, and being interested in them and showing them that

H: So it’s not really sexual or non-sexual, it’s every situation then Maureen?

M: I think it’s on a spectrum and I have to first of all declare myself not as a flirting expert but a flirt-in-training, because flirt was a word I couldn’t even spell until recently

H: Can I join you as flirt-in-training? I think for the purposes of this show that might be a lot of fun

M: Yes – and it’s very – there’s a whole spectrum isn’t there –

C: Yes

M: There’s kind of flirting which is for fun and charm and social ease with everybody, and that’s the kind of flirting I’m very interested in because I’m married, and flirting for married people belongs there, and then there’s flirting when there’s someone you really like, and want to attract, and there’s a bit of a spectrum, but the behaviours are not dissimilar, you just have to ramp it up a bit I think

M: Well if you’d like to join in the show this afternoon you most certainly can, we are live today and all you’ve got to do is just send us a question direct to the studio is fill in the little box that you’re watching next to, just fill in your name and the question and it will come up on my screen and I will ask the ladies and maybe get you some flirting advice. Well I tell you what, sometimes you need demonstrations to see what’s good and what’s bad in flirting. We have shot some VT of two people going on a date so we will examine what is good flirting and what’s bad flirting

C: Fantastic

H: Take a look at this

Video footage

H: So were you taking notes then, did you spot the good flirting and the bad flirting? Well let’s go through some of it ladies shall we? I spotted them both seeming quite interested – wide eyes, there was a little bit of touching the neck going on, I wasn’t sure about that one from the girl there. What’s your take on that?

C: Well I think the stroking of the skin is rather a lovely thing to do, it sort of draws your attention to a pretty part of the body, a female neck is a rather lovely part of the body, and also our lady in the video had beautiful skin and so she was quite right to stroke herself and to point that out

H: I was only concerned because I wondered if it brought on some nervousness and later we saw her stroking her hair, and she looked a bit nervous there, as in maybe she wasn’t reading his signals right

C: Yes, well the twiddling of the hair isn’t such an attractive thing to be doing –

H: So that’s a no-no then?

C: If you want to stroke your hair it’s probably nicer to do it like this

H: Ok

C: That’s a little bit more sophisticated, but yes of course she was nervous and she was very much wanting to get his attention, and she did it very successfully on many occasions, she did well

H: To be fair we don’t know whether that was a first date or not. Maureen, did you spot the Diana eyes, what I call the Diana eyes there, the head down and the look up, I thought that was particularly effective for her

M: Actually it was fantastic on her, I thought she looked amazing and I could not imagine myself doing that in a million years. To me that looks like the gesture of a very young girl, so if you’re flirting, if you’re a bit older or you’re not going to be quite so full on, I just don’t have that vulnerable, shy, ingénue in me, how would – I just don’t think – not everything is appropriate for everybody

C: But there’s – I think there’s a way of doing it when you’re older where it’s more coquettish, where it’s sort of more of a sideways glance

M: Yes

C: More of one of these, but yes as you say for a younger woman that is very very attractive and of course we know that the Princess of Wales did a wonderful job of using it

H: Well let’s talk about him for a second, because I thought he was full of no-nos, I didn’t think he was mirror – because mirroring is something that they say, so you mirror the language of what the other person –

C: That’s right

H: I didn’t notice that much of that going on there

C: No it was a little bit stilted but there were moments when they were quite mirrored and I thought that again our beautiful young lady was better at that than the man. But what was really lovely was the eye contact, that was the thing that really won them over to each other I think, and the goodbye was charming, they couldn’t let each other go, that was very sweet

H: You know there’s another date around the corner don’t you?

C: I would say so, I would say so

H: Absolutely after that one. I did notice one thing for him, and it’s a big no-no with guys, because you know guys sometimes fall into these traps. He looked away as if something had caught his attention across the room, now that’s a big no, you’ve got to stay focused haven’t you?

C: Well I’m not so sure, I think that’s quite natural, we do look away when somebody’s putting a lot of intense gaze upon us, and when we’re talking we often look away, or whatever, so I think that actually that wasn’t so catastrophic, and she was good at getting his attention back, and in a way that would kind of reinforce the connection that she was able to get his attention back, so if you are feeling a little bit on the spot, a little bit shy, don’t be afraid to look away, but obviously come back again

H: You make a very good point – how do you get it back if you feel you’ve maybe lost a bit of attention?

C: What do you think Maureen?

M: Well that’s one I’d really like to know, because I think flirting is a dance – you know you make a move –

H: Oh very much so

M: And then the other person has to make a move back

C: Yes

M: But if you make a move and the other person doesn’t make a – doesn’t seem to reciprocate the move, or you think it was going well and now it’s not, that’s the bit where it gets tricky, where people start to panic or lose confidence, and I would really like to know what you do at that point

C: Well it’s a very good point and I think the thing to do is always try and do the thing that worked before, because that’s probably the most likely route back to engaging again and making that connection, so there are things going on in your early bit of the conversation where it felt very good and reciprocal, well just go back to doing that because maybe you’ve just stepped over and you’re just trying a bit too hard and the other person is getting a little bit freaked out by it, and then just going back to something a bit more relaxed, a bit more casual, will bring them back again

H: Very good advice. Gemma sent us a question, thank you for sending it in Gemma, saying “I’m really confident generally but I become really shy around a guy if I fancy him. Any advice?”

M: So many people –

C: Classic one, we all suffer from that don’t we?

H: This is the whole thing that we’re talking about, about it not just being sexual flirting, you’ve got to practice – practice makes perfect

M: Absolutely, well in fact I said I haven’t flirted in 20 years, except with my gay friends with whom I flirt all the time, but apart from that I haven’t flirted so I would be a classic case like that if I was single

C: Yes and I think that’s the thing to do is just keep practicing on people where it’s not so loaded and having lots and lots of fun with it, flirt with the guy who sells you your paper, flirt with the person that drives the bus, you know flirt with everybody, but when it comes to the guy that you really like then you’re sort of going to feel more comfortable and it’s not going to feel so intense because you already know you’ve done a lot of practice

H: Do you think that works around the office as well because some people really fear getting the label “office flirt” don’t they?

C: Yes

M: I think if flirting is something you only do in a really make or break, that’s the love of my life situation, it’s always going to be very difficult, very tense and full of potential to be disastrous. If flirting is something that you do on a low level with lots of people a lot of the time, then just kind of ramping it up a bit when you genuinely do like someone just becomes so much easier as – if it’s just a part of your social skill set really, something you do all the time, it’s a good idea

H: Boys versus girls, I know that we do come from different angles on this, but these are tips that will go with either sex. Lucy sent us a question, thank you Lucy asking “my friend always says it’s the guy’s job to ask out a girl. Do you think it’s true and if not, how can she pluck up the courage to do it?”

C: Do you know I think men just love it when they’re asked out, because it makes such a change. Men have a really hard time of it, they’re used to rejection after rejection after rejection because it’s them that have to ask the girls out, and for a woman to go up and ask a man out I think it would just make his day, and do you know if he says no it doesn’t matter, you’ll still have made someone’s day and that’s the whole point about flirting, it makes people feel good, so do it anyway as long as you don’t have a huge attachment to the outcome

H: It’s the whole thing about he’s the idiot for not saying yes?

C: Well nobody ever minds being asked

H: No true, very – everyone loves being asked actually

C: I think everybody does but if you’re somebody who really couldn’t do the final asking or you think he’s someone who wants to do the asking, I think the harder a flirtation – as you said the reason he won’t ask is the fear of rejection, your flirtation is going to put him in a position where he knows when he asks you’re going to say yes, so basically he will ask, but you will do all of the manipulating to get him to ask

M: Yes

H: Because it’s the whole thing about further down a relationship as well, mainly people don’t ask people to marry them until they know they’re going to get a positive answer do they, because they don’t set them up for that

C: You’ve got to get the cues

H: So it is giving the right signs?

C: Yes you’ve got to give the cues, the cues are really important and they are all around, really simple things like be interested, maintain eye contact, smile a lot, be warm, be open – share something about yourself, reveal something about yourself, and that allows the other person to then relax and reveal something about himself and you’ll get a date

H: Well Maureen in Psychologies Magazine we’ve got 5 top important hints haven’t we?

M: We have, I’ve been studying them carefully, I have

C: Excellent!

M: I have

H: And so let’s get through them one-by-one shall we because they’re all really useful tips –

M: They are good tips

H: Where do we start?

M: I think the first point – Cecilia’s point just now, playing hard to get is a myth. It is not – men do not love women who play hard to get because they love the thrill of the chase and someone whose unobtainable, in fact exactly as she said, what they like ar those subtle, constant drip, drip, drip of clues letting them know, you are welcome, come closer, or your advances will not be rejected

H: So it’s make your message clear?

C: Yes, tell them you like them, tell you like them

M: Make it easy for them

C: It’s really basic and fundamental; let them know you like them

M: Make it easy, make it easy

H: Sounds good. It’s also be selective though isn’t it, you’ve got to be relatively selective about the messages you’re giving

C: I think that’s right because it goes back to your point about the office flirt, I think there’s a problem with – if you spread your favours too far and wide, perhaps then the intensity of them is lost, and so yes be interested in the people you’re genuinely interested in when it counts, but also practice your flirting skills when it doesn’t count, so it’s getting that balance right

H: One of the tips is create an experience. What do we mean by that?

M: That’s my favourite one actually because I think that’s for every bit of flirting on the spectrum, whether that’s you know you’re at a wedding and you just want to be nice to people or you’re genuinely flirting, and that’s creating a little scenario between the two of you where you’re having a good time, you know where you’re telling something about you, they’re telling you something about themselves, you’re both seeing the best in each other, it’s very light, it’s very fun, it’s a little world for the two of you that nobody wants to leave, just for a few minutes

C: It’s a shared experience

H: And revealing a little, this is not just revealing a little about yourself though is it?

M: Well –

C: What are you suggesting Mark? Revealing what about yourself?

M: Exactly

H: A bit of leg maybe

C: Lovely. Well yes it is – reveal something about yourself so that they can reveal something about themselves, but again don’t be afraid to show off your finer points

H: And these can be basic things as well, like you’re a dog lover –

C: Yes

H: Or whatever, so it can be from very very basic

C: Very simple

H: To much more, you know I want to get together

M: Yes, and if you’ve got parts of you that you’re proud of, like if you love your hands or you love your ankles or something like that, and you’re wanting to be more sexually flirty, then show them off so you can reveal yourself in another way as well

C: A good way to build that kind of building the experience thing as well as all those good tips is to put the two of you versus everyone else in a way, so if you’d met at a social function, say you’re at this wedding that – this mythical wedding – and you kind of say “did you notice the bride’s mother” – so the two of you have got your little thing

H: It’s like a conspiracy – interesting, yes

C: Nothing nasty, nothing mean, but the two of you have got your little moment that you’ve both noticed

M: It’s very intimate

C: Yes it’s very intimate, it’s a shortcut to intimacy

H: One of the things that we know that we’re – we’re not going to come to blows over but I know that we don’t agree on, is you say for girls don’t be afraid to tease, now as a boy I’m going I’m not so sure about that

C: Well teasing is one of those things where you have to read the cues really carefully because some people are very sensitive and if they’re not used to being teased for example if they don’t come from a big family, they’re an only child or something like that, they won’t have the same sort of experiences, so if you notice that somebody doesn’t like being teased, stop teasing, but some people do really like being teased and it’s often a very good way of getting a man to relax and to create that intimacy that you’re really after

H: Do you think men are not as good at flirting as women, or there’s no real –

C: I think – they say one of the most famous flirts in London is John Mortimer, whose 85 and in a wheelchair, and everyone in London adores him, and he said “at my age darling I forget everybody’s name, so I just say darling you look fantastic to every woman I meet” – and that actually every woman adores him. Some men, like some women are just very naturally good at making people feel good about themselves

H: It’s interesting when you say it’s not just about compliments though at all, is it?

C: No, in fact sometimes it can be about humour, the teasing, especially people from big families, I think that’s a really good point, they almost sort of – they almost pick up on people’s faults but in a very humorous, nice way, it’s not bullying or mean, like they’re saying “oh for God’s sake Mark, you know that jacket, again!”

H: Thanks very much – enough. See I’m being picked on already

C: I do tease

H: See I just don’t do teasing. Alistair has sent us a question –

C: Need some training

H: Alistair has sent us a question saying “I find it impossible to speak to girls without becoming cocky to the point of maybe even seeming rude to hide my nerves, have you got any advice?” You see this a lot actually don’t you?

M: Yes, two sides of – extreme shyness or extreme cockiness, all coming from the same place

C: Place yes, well –

H: What can you do?

C: I think, what he’s doing is he’s recognising that problem, and the fact that he’s recognising it means that he can do something about it. What I would suggest is that he just slows it all down, doesn’t –

H: Don’t let your mouth run away

C: Yes he doesn’t have to try so hard, just be interested in the girl that you’re interested in, ask her about herself, don’t talk about yourself. If you feel you’re going to go onto motor mouth mode then just ask her some really simple questions about herself until you relax and you start to feel more confident and then you can just be yourself

H: Jane wants to know, and this comes onto a point that you were making slightly earlier Maureen, she says “I’m recently divorced at the age of 40 and have been left with very little confidence” – understandably. “I want to go back into dating but I’m terrified of ending up old and lonely. What advice can you give me?” I think we’re all terrified of that, it’s just because your confidence has been knocked doesn’t mean to say that you can’t go back out there does it?

M: I think it’s baby steps, you don’t try and plunge right back, you know you’ve been through a divorce, you’re feeling a bit battered, you need to start very small and very slow with very safe targets. Again it is the guy you buy your coffee from, who sees you every day. It’s beginning very slowly and very slightly to move your way up, until you get some confidence back in yourself. Look after yourself, you know it’s a kind of whole package of things for somebody in their – all the things that make you feel better about yourself.

H: I guess if someone says “but I would feel silly doing that” – give it a try, give it a try because actually it’s what you were saying about, you know you’re making someone else’s day, not in a sexual way, just in a very friendly way

M: Actually that’s a really good point, I think if you – because I have so felt that way, I will look like a fool if I try to do these things, I will feel like an idiot, I’m self-conscious and I’m shy to do it, and actually if you stop thinking this is about me flirting with you, this is about me making a little gift ot make someone feel better about themselves, then it feels completely different as the thing to do. You know I do it with girls in the office now, that’s how I started practicing, with all the younger women that I work with, and then with the guy that I do – who sells me the coffee. I’m just able to do it in a much more low level, nice way with everybody. There’s this – it doesn’t look stupid, it’s such a nice gift, I love it when people do it to me, I think if I like it when people do it to me, why do I think it’s bad when I do it to them?

C: Good point –

M: take some risks, take some risks

C: It is risky

H: Take some risks, fine, but you can go over the top can’t you?

C: Oh well yes

H: You know you can take a risk but there’s a risk too far

C: But then you learn, you know, that’s the whole point – you should be exploratory, you should be curious, because taking risks is nerve racking and sometimes we do fall flat on our face, but it’s not the end of the world

H: But Cecilia, what are the big no-nos, what would you say are the don’ts, the real don’ts of flirting?

C: I think if you don’t know somebody very well, and it’s the first time you’ve seen them in the room or whatever, be subtle, you know not be stand-offish or play hard to get but be subtle, you don’t need to throw yourself at somebody. Men like a little bit of mystery. So be subtle, be gentle, be feminine, you know men like feminine women, be feminine, and allow your personality to shine because that’s the most sexy thing that you have, it’s your personality, doesn’t matter what size you are, doesn’t matter how gorgeous you are, or whatever, it’s your personality, that’s the thing that people are going to find attractive, so let that be the thing that shines

H: And I guess the more confident you are in yourself, and it is what you’re talking about, the baby steps of practicing, the more confident you are in yourself, the more you exude that confidence and people love that, whatever shape, size, colour you are –

C: Exactly

H: Everybody always loves a confident person

C: That’s always nice, that’s always attractive

H: Well there you go I think that is the flirting 101. Maureen, Cecilia thank you so much for joining us. I hope you’ve learnt one or two things. If you want to find out a little bit more, do please go to psychologies.co.uk, and I hope you’ve picked up a tip or two, thanks for watching our Lifestyle Show, I’ll see you soon.

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