Ever caught the eye of a handsome stranger across a pile of 3-for-2s in your local bookshop and wished you could strike up a conversation? Or maybe you’ve got chatting to someone in a supermarket and it’s led to happily ever after? If Hollywood blockbusters and American TV shows are to be believed, single thirty-somethings are forever meeting potential partners in the dairy aisle and securing dates in art galleries. But does this kind of chance encounter ever happen in real life?
Social anthropologist and relationship expert Jean Smith is living proof that it does. Jean has travelled the world studying human behaviour, looking in particular at how humans flirt. Jean herself has met partners simply by striking up conversations in cafes and at bus stops, and for the last seven years has been passing on her skills and experiences through her own interactive flirting seminars and tours.
In your twenties it was easy to get chatting to people in bars and clubs, but once you get to a certain age, and would rather have a nice sit down somewhere quiet, trawling bars losses its appeal. This can leave single women wondering just how to meet like minded men. So, in the name of ‘journalism’, (honest), I recently decided to test out one of Jean’s ‘flirting tours of London’, hoping to pass on some top tips to single women everywhere.