Say it with your legs

The good news: According to body language research, Venusians make the first move.

The bad news: Men are denser than administration congressmen hearing an impeachment complaint so they never pick up on it.

In fact, women send out roughly five times more unconscious body language messages than men. This was quite a revelation for me. Aside from the occasional bodily gas, I wasn’t even aware that I was sending out body language gestures. But can you blame men? Men are thicker than the Guimaras oil spill when it comes to interpreting body language signals. Evolution turned men into hunters with exceptional hearing and visual skills. In fact, evidence of our Neanderthal tendencies persists until today: we can hear the fizz of beer cans opening within a 50-foot radius and spot bra straps that have accidentally fallen from the shoulders of ample-bosomed women from a 20-foot distance. Unfortunately, men are painfully unaware of the subtleties of body language, such that the ample-bosomed women was actually trying to turn on her body-building boyfriend, who can easily lift three KFC buckets and five soda bottles in one hand. And much to your chagrin, Mr. I-can-crush-your-skull-between-my-pectoral-muscles spotted you eyeing his girlfriend’s dangling bra strap and plans to use you as a prop to unload his testosterone build-up.

According to the East-West Institute for Self-Understanding, most unconscious body language deals with the survival and passing on of our genes to future generations – which is quite a pleasant euphemism for sex (especially if your mom reads this column and shows it to her friends). Habitual body language has evolved for survival and mating purposes and was perfected over millions of generations. But while our female ancestors were perfecting body language or what we know now as "flirting," our male ancestors were playing hooky from language school and were doing something probably fun and idiotic, like throwing spears at one another.

Simply put, men do not have the ability to pick up the visual, vocal and body language of women. And unless women can figure out how to reproduce asexually, women will still send out signals that tell us that they want 50 percent of our DNA. Unfortunately, men are not known for their subtlety. What do you expect? We even make cambio in public. How can you expect subtlety from creatures who get hormonal surges merely by staring at surgically enhanced women adorning the billboards along EDSA? If women want us to pick up subtle messages to show they are interested, they should pick up a heavy, blunt instrument and subtly beat us over the head repeatedly until we are senseless. Then we just might respond.

And Dr. Monica Moore just might agree with us on that point. Dr. Moore, a behavioral scientist from Webster University, Missouri, catalogued 52 non-verbal communication signals used by women in her study Non-Verbal Courtship Patterns in Women. Her research indicated that the more body language signals a woman throws out, the more likely she is to get a response from men. She also found that the women who used a variety of different signals rather than repeating the same signal over and over got more responses. Of the 52 flirting signals identified by Dr. Moore, there are approximately 21 that will immediately attract a man’s attention, seven that will cause temporary cardiac arrest, and two that will turn men into a puddle of goo. These signals included exaggerated smiling, eyelash-batting, puckering up, lower lip-biting, growling and, if all else fails, drop-kicking men and beating them into submission (I was just kidding about the exaggerated smiling).

During her study, Dr. Moore also noticed that men waited until they had a number of signals from a woman before they responded. Men were also more likely to wait for an initial signal from a woman rather than to make an approach without some form of encouragement. This indicates that men were not only built to be torpe, but it also indicated that in the flirting game, women were the initiators through their non-verbal communication. So for my illiterate Martian brethren whose heads are buried in soiled men’s magazines reading up on how to pick up women in bars, you needn’t worry. The women are trying to pick you up (not so much because they like you but more likely because it is a biological imperative). However, you will have to brush up on your reading skills.

Thus, the following flirtation signals should help you boost your body language vocabulary. They are a combination of extensive research from books like The Definitive Book of Body Language and Flirting 101: How To Charm Your Way to Love, Friendship and Success (yes, a real book) and from personal experience – such as having drinks thrown in one’s face at bars before being drop-kicked and beaten into submission. So for those ambiguous encounters you’ve had at bars where a woman made eye contact with you, you now will finally be able to tell if she was flirting with you or if she was looking to pick a fight. Let us see how you click with Venusians on our "Click-O-Meter."

The knee knows, a.k.a "the knee point." This occurs when a woman tucks one leg under the other and points the knee at the man she finds most interesting. However, this position should be distinguished from when a woman intends to knee you in the groin. The knee point is in a relaxed position, which gives the opportunity for a fleeting exposure of the thighs and also takes the formality out of a conversation (mostly because the man cannot form coherent thoughts as he is focused on the fleeting exposure).

Click-O-Meter: Three clicks if she gives you the knee point, minus five clicks if she knees you, minus 10 clicks if you forget to look at her fleetingly exposed thighs, you dork.

The lock and load, a.k.a. "the leg twine." When a woman entwines her legs (men do not try this position at home lest you enjoy suffering groin injury), this is a gesture to consciously draw attention to the legs. There has been some debate as to the meaning of this gesture. Some authors assert that it means she is protective and closed to sexual advances from men. However, Albert Scheflen, a behavioral anthropologist who has written such riveting works as "Quasi-Courtship in Psychotherapy," says that when one leg is pressed firmly against the other it is to give the appearance of high muscle tone. Apparently, this is a posture that the body takes when a person is ready for sexual performance. Wow, I didn’t realize you could read that much from the legs. All I could read from my yaya’s legs were her varicose veins (but that is for another column when I have a horrible case of writer’s block).

Click-O-Meter: No clicks if she entwines her legs (because you aren’t really sure what it means), minus three clicks if it meant that she had to go to the bathroom.

The telltale foot, a.k.a. "the shoe fondle." When a woman, while sitting with her legs crossed, bounces her foot back and forth while rhythmically dangling one shoe off the end of the foot, this indicates a relaxed attitude. According to the book on body language, this also has phallic symbolism, indicated by thrusting the foot in and out of the shoe. This action unsettles many men because they cannot interpret what is happening. If you do not pick up this signal, please find somebody to beat you senseless because you probably deserve it.

Click-O-Meter: Five clicks if her foot is bouncing, plus three clicks if her shoe is dangling off the end of her foot and minus three clicks if the shoe accidentally flies off the end of her foot and smacks you in the face.

The longest crossing, a.k.a. "the crossing/uncrossing of legs." When a woman slowly crosses or uncrosses her legs, this is an unmistakable sign of flirting. If you do not react to this flirting signal, you are either a eunuch or you are dead. To further accelerate the flirting process, she will straighten out her skirt or dress uncrossing her legs and, if God has so preordained, she will flash some bare skin in the process. And if she really likes you, while her legs are crossed she will gently stroke her thigh with her hand, indicating a desire to be touched. However, unless the woman indicates otherwise, all the hapless male can do is stare at the woman stroking her thigh and then go home to dip himself in a bathtub full of ice cubes.

Click-O-Meter: Five clicks if she crosses her legs, plus 10 clicks if she strokes her thigh, plus 15 clicks if she flashes you and one mercy click for every hour that you spend in the tub.

Admittedly, reading a woman’s body language can be more difficult than solving a 100x100 sudoku grid blindfolded. However, for those of you who have stashed away enough money in your German bank accounts, buy yourself a round-trip ticket to Ireland and pay a visit to the Blarney Stone. The Blarney Stone is a stone set in the wall of Blarney Castle tower in the Irish village of (duh) Blarney. If you kiss the stone, you supposedly gain the gift of the language. Now, rub yourself vigorously against the stone if you want to acquire the gift of understanding body language. This will also hopefully exorcise from your genetic makeup all the times your male ancestors caught spears with their heads. However, if you don’t acquire an understanding of body language, you can console yourself with the fact that there was some vigorous body rubbing involved. Something which you have not experienced since you grew hair in areas that you would much rather keep hidden from public view.

Next week: "Your Body is a Wonderland (and I’m just too damn short to get on any of the rides)" — Part 2 of our "Body Language" series. For comments, suggestions or you want to show me your body language, please email ledesma.rj@gmail.com or visit www.rjledesma.com. Click on to the following: Smell like a million bucks! Le Bleu de Issey Eau Fraiche (It sounds so shmancy you just gotta have one), the new men’s cologne by Issey Miyake available initially at Watson’s. The Mercedes Benz B-Class Compact Sports Tourer series (CATS Motors was kind enough to loan it to me so that I could channel Ferris Bueller over the weekend. Check out www.mercedes-benz.com.ph if you feel like drooling). And 50 clicks to Andrea Casiraghi, son of Her Royal Highness Princess Caroline of Monaco and second in line to the Monagesque throne, who is in the country to support the charity work of the Amade-Virlanie Foundation. Casiraghi was named by People magazine as one of the "50 Most Beautiful People" in 1999. I had the privilege of dining with him and his entourage, so now I feel beautiful by osmosis.