A newspaper columnist has published a list of small, everyday moves she says make women go from mild interest to full attraction, insisting the tricks work on almost any man regardless of looks.
She writes that the idea came to her on a recent date with a tall Frenchman. As he ordered champagne, she noticed he kept running his hand through his hair and started stuttering. Despite his 6-foot-3-inch frame, French accent and beard, he was visibly nervous, and she says it was those nervous quirks, not his cologne or suit, that won her over.
She says women are not really as disinterested as the old clichés about headaches suggest. The problem, she writes, is that many men have not figured out what actually appeals to them.
Small gestures that get noticed
The first move on her list is what she calls the "sleeve roll," the sight of a man pushing up his sleeves to carry something heavy or fix the Wi-Fi. She also points to what she calls "firm but fair" behavior. One reader told her she was at dinner when a rude waiter snapped at her, and her date calmly called the server out before turning back to her with a smile. The columnist says it is quiet, competent intervention, not loud bravado, that appeals to women.
Another entry, "Soup, Sudafed and sex appeal," describes a woman who had no interest in her housemate until she got the flu and he showed up with cold medicine, her favorite chocolate and his grandmother's chicken soup. By the second night of her fever, the columnist writes, she wanted to climb him like a tree.
Touch, sweat and driving skill
The list also includes the "soft touch," a low hand on the small of the back as a man guides a woman through a crowded bar, and the "seductive sheen," the light sweat a man works up carrying a couch up stairs or chopping wood. The columnist writes that the combination of competence and pheromones does the rest.
Driving ability makes the list too. She writes that merging into traffic smoothly, parallel parking in one clean movement, or reverse parking with one hand amounts to "soft-core porn for women in the passenger seat."
Chivalry and humor
Watching a man swing a suitcase into an overhead airplane bin, she writes, combines muscle, helpfulness and an "I've got you" smile that has made many women fall for someone before takeoff. Humor matters too. One reader told the columnist, "I didn't even like him until he laughed at something I said. Suddenly I wanted to marry him."
The final move is what she calls the "bodyguard." She recalls a man she was not especially interested in walking her home after a night out. When they reached a dodgy street, he silently shifted to walk on the outside of the sidewalk, between her and the road, without saying a word or making a fuss. She writes that she nearly kissed him right there under the streetlight.
