Are Your Touches Sending the Right Message? from The Science of Attraction By: Patrick King

Strategic Touching

Is it a surprise that touch has a huge scientific basis for attraction? It’s what causes our knees to wobble and butterflies to flutter around in our stomachs.

The lightest and subtlest touch, done correctly, can be the difference between seeing someone as a sexual object versus forever seeing them as only a friend. It can be a brush on the shoulder, a hand on the knee, and even a lingering handshake.

In the best (or worst) scenario, a touch can even make you light-headed and faint—maybe that’s the origin of the phrase starry-eyed love?

So many people live in their heads. We rush around our daily lives, talking, working, living in abstract and hypothetical spaces, thinking, thinking, thinking . . . but we can be broken out of that spell when someone lightly touches us and reminds us that, at the end of the day, we are human beings who have bodies.

With how important touching is to courtship and attraction, it makes sense that there is an optimal way to touch others to enhance the attraction they feel for you. In fact, there are optimal ways, combinations, and types of touching that you should use to seduce others, male or female.

Your first step is to take a deep breath and break the touch barrier in general. Here’s why: normally, acquaintances only touch in a particular, careful, unambiguous, mutually understood way. They shake hands or hug when they greet, or they might give a slap on the shoulder in acknowledgment of a joke or a job well done. These are all common and accepted ways of touching among people who know each other well and are friends or colleagues. There’s only a certain threshold the touching will reach in a platonic manner.

Touching someone beyond that threshold instantly raises an eyebrow internally and instantly puts you into a different light. Touch alone can plant the seed of courtship. Attraction only works if you are seen as a sexual being, and sexual beings touch. Touching beyond that threshold sends an unambiguous message that there is attraction and interest. It’s as close as you can get to saying that you are interested without using actual words. You wouldn’t have to tell someone, “I like you and want to date you,” if you always gave them extended hugs and put your hand on their knee during a movie. Think of it as taking that first step on the road that leads to full-on, reciprocal affection.

So when someone senses that, it’s natural that they will begin to consider the toucher in that light as well. Touching also implies boldness, sexuality, and not being passive or shy—all of which are typically attractive in the opposite sex. Someone who is comfortable in their own skin can inspire others to relax into theirs, as well.

A big roadblock many people have with dating is falling into the friend zone—and the absence of touching is the very thing that leads them there. All other signs of interest or attraction are much more ambiguous and leave room for interpretation—touching sends just one message: I find you sexually attractive.

Now how can we touch strategically and effectively?

In a: 2007

The three types of touching are:

1. Friendly touching

2. Plausible deniability touching

3. Nuclear touching

Let’s discuss each of these in more detail.

The first category, friendly touching, is the type of touch I spoke about earlier, the kind you’d engage in with coworkers and friends. Actually, it’s the type of touch you might even share with a stranger and give no second thought to because it’s so casual and sometimes unavoidable.

Examples of friendly touching are handshakes, taps on the shoulder, a hand on the upper arm, high fives, and even bumping into someone else.

Friendly touching is intentional yet harmless. It doesn’t advance attraction and in fact might be used to set a platonic tone. There is no subtext, and this kind of touching is exactly what it appears to be. It is not the kind of touching that sends a deeper message.

If you stick to this category of touch, it won’t register at all that any flirting is occurring because it is so incidental and accepted. You could even do this with a stranger or someone you just met—although it’s normally reserved for people you know (but not people you have a sexual or romantic interest in). There are no second thoughts given when you use friendly touch, and thus no attraction is created.

Obviously, this is the type of touch that is least related to attraction and flirting, but many people still attempt to send messages through it because they don’t feel bold enough for other types of touch.

For example, thinking, “I touched his back for a split second longer as I was trying to get by him, so he definitely has to know what I’m thinking,” is fairly common thinking—even though it was objectively the kind of touch you might use on a coworker to move past them in the hallway of your office.

Part of the problem with touching is it’s mostly relative, which means that people have different standards for what constitutes “a lot” and “only a little” touching. This is why there are so many mixed and failed messages, even though these three distinct categories of touching exist. Learning to distinguish between the three types of touch will help you understand the exact type of message you are sending to others.

The second category of touch is called plausible deniability touching.

First things first—plausible deniability is when you create a situation where you could have a plausible claim that the touch was either unintentional or that it had no particular motive. So, yes, you’ve touched someone, but there is doubt about why you did so or whether you had any specific intention. The touch is over the threshold of a simple friendly touch, but you aren’t sure if it was by accident or intentional—and the key is to get someone thinking about what you meant. Once you have people wondering, you’re in.

People won’t know what to make of you because your touching appears to be above the level of friendly touching—it definitely borders on flirtatious and deliberate, but the touching is contextual and incidental to some degree, so people are left wondering what you actually intended.

For example, buckling someone else’s seat belt for them. This can be done in a relatively clinical manner, though your hands will definitely enter private zones on the other person’s body. The plausible deniability here is just that you are in a hurry or you wanted to help someone buckle their seat belt. It raises eyebrows but is also acceptable in the context. Another example is when you fix someone’s hair or find any flimsy excuse to be in a person’s face or personal space. Maybe you’re there to make a move, or maybe you’re there for a perfectly legitimate reason and you shouldn’t be presumptuous!

You are in a gray area when you touch people this way, and that’s effective because you can essentially touch a lot but not directly show your hand, so to speak. This is extremely effective for flirting and playing the game because you are sending an effective mixed message. On one hand, you are touching a lot and nearly violating their normal boundaries, but on the other hand, perhaps you just want to help them buckle their seat belt.

The important part is that they’ll be thinking about you and your touch—you’ll be on their mind. The first step to having sex with someone is to have them envision it, and that’s exactly what this type of touch does. It makes a suggestion, but it also raises a question and makes your intentions mysterious enough to keep them wondering.

Flirting works best when there is a degree of uncertainty in the equation and you don’t know exactly what the other person is thinking. It’s like a game of cat and mouse, but each person thinks they are the cat. It’s easy to see why plausible deniability touching can work wonders—the uncertainty is thrilling, just like a sports match would be far less interesting if you already knew the outcome.

Here are some additional opportunities for plausible deniability touching:

• Giving someone a brief shoulder massage

• Comparing the size of your hands (or other body part) with theirs by placing that body part next to theirs—as in placing your palms together

• Asking to examine something close to them, such as a piece of their clothing

• Holding someone’s hip or waist to pull them in one direction

• Demonstrating a physical act (like a salsa dance move) on them

• Using your body to bump someone out of the way of something while you are walking together

Let your imagination run wild on this. Just remember that you need a plausible alternative explanation for being in someone’s space, and your goal here is to be direct but also sow uncertainty.

The third category of touching as it pertains to flirting and attraction is dubbed nuclear touching.

This is where the rubber hits the road—there is no ambiguity here about your intentions and level of attraction. You meant to touch the person that way, and you meant something very deliberate by it.

Visualize a scenario where you know a kiss is imminent. What kind of slow, seductive touching would you use in the moments building up to that kiss? This is where you’re making a statement and putting yourself out there for a potential rejection, which is something the other two types of touches explicitly avoid.

There are three main measures of nuclear-level touching. First, where are you touching? Nuclear touching occurs in zones that other types don’t venture near. It’s difficult to mistake your intent when you touch someone directly on their lips, grab their buttocks firmly, or pull someone between your legs. There can be no plausible deniability for any of those actions. Other areas that cause a nuclear reaction besides the obvious erogenous areas are the neck, face, and belly.

Second, is the touch by itself, or is it combined with other signs of attraction and flirting, like sustained eye contact and a lowered tone of voice? Touch by itself is one thing, but it is amplified when done simultaneously with other signs of deep attraction and flirting.

Third, how deliberate do you appear? For example, if you slid your hand onto someone’s buttocks and they looked at you shocked, would you just smile and not move your hand, or would you immediately back off and apologize for being too forward? These two different responses from you demonstrate markedly different levels of intent and attraction.

Nuclear touching can be difficult to define, but you just know it when you see or feel it. You’ll feel a rush of blood to your cheeks—and maybe elsewhere.

Now that you understand the three different categories of touching, is it possible to diagnose your flirting issues by the types of touch you’ve neglected or used ineffectively?

Perhaps you only use friendly touching and don’t send the message you intend to. You’ll think you are subtly sending a message, but in reality, you are just treating someone like a new friend. Or maybe you use nuclear touching too much and it scares people off or makes you seem predatory and overly aggressive.

The study went on to suggest that the most effective type of touching is actually a combination of plausible deniability and nuclear touching, with friendly touching not making much of an impact at all.

This shouldn’t be surprising if we consider that flirting thrives in uncertainty and creates a push (they like me) and pull (they don’t like me), and this combination creates the very same effect. The power is in the combination, because each type, used by itself, doesn’t convey the message you intend.

For example, friendly touching by itself just makes you appear to be the friendly type at work or in social situations.

If you overuse plausible deniability and never let it slide into nuclear touching—so that there is no question of your intent—eventually the other person will lose interest. They will assume you are either clumsy or without couth; they won’t assume you have an interest in them. You will have disguised yourself too well!

If you use nuclear touch too much, it can be too direct and aggressive and will not create mystery for the other person to wonder about. Or you’ll just get slapped. If you make your intentions too direct and don’t give them a chance to process things for themselves, their fight-or-flight mode will be activated. They might just panic and retreat.

If there is a single lesson to be taken from this chapter, it’s that you have to make yourself a sexual object. This is the biggest failing of the so-called friend-zoned men and women—they hope to show their potential as a mate through everything but sex. But we are, at our root, just hairless primates that want sex—so make yourself sexually viable with touch, body language, and eye contact.