There is a lot of science behind success or failure at the time of human courtship. Biologists, ethologists and psychologists have discovered that, when deciding on one or another candidate, aspects as disparate as the symmetry of the face, whether the person smiles or remains serious, the color of the skin, the whites of the eyes, the number of words you speak in a minute, your ability to make you laugh (or laugh) with a joke, and even the color of the clothes you are wearing. Here are six things to keep in mind:
1. The vowels of your name
The name can also be key when it comes to seducing. According to a study by the MIT Institute, women are unconsciously sexier when their name contains “curvy” vowels, that is, the “a” or the “o”. With men the opposite happens: the most attractive are those with first names that contain the “e” and the “i”.
2. Flirting consumes energy
Flirting makes us consume more energy throughout our lives than we imagine, according to biologists from the University of Bogotá (Colombia). In eye contact during flirting, they burn 11 kilocalories per minute, compared to 3 kilocalories consumed by men at the same time. However, they give it their all when they decide to ask a girl out, an activity in which they invest around 95 kilocalories.
3. The benefit of the doubt
Did you liked or did not like? When a woman is unsure of the answer, her suitor will have more opportunities to flirt than if he clearly shows that he is physically attracted. It is the conclusion of a study by the University of Virginia and Harvard University carried out last year with the help of the social network Facebook. According to the authors, on the first date it works better for boys to “pretend to be interesting” and not give clues.
4. Compete before flirting
After participating in a competitive male game, men are more daring when it comes to flirting with unknown women. Specifically, Leander van der Meij has shown that, after competing with people of the same sex, they tend to take the initiative to introduce themselves, smile more and maintain eye contact for longer with their “potential conquest”. This behavior is due to an increase in the levels of testosterone in the blood.
5. A matter of color
People with red eyes appear sadder and are much less attractive than those with a uniform, pale hue to the whites of the eyes (the sclera). Skin color matters too: According to a study published in Perception magazine, what makes actress Halle Berry and Formula One star Lewis Hamilton so powerfully attractive is that they are mixed race.
6. Voices with magnetism
A survey carried out by the British company OnePoll of 5,000 women reveals that, for them, the sexiest accent is that of the Irish, followed by the Italian intonation and the Scottish accent. The French was relegated to a fourth position, while the eighth place went to the Spanish accent. Accents aside, researcher Andrew Linn, from the British University of Sheffield, claims to have found the secret formula for voices with the most sex appeal: a sound frequency between 34.5 and 12.2 hertz – neither too low nor too high. -, at an approximate rate of 164 words per minute, and with pauses of 0.46 seconds between sentences.
