An Article Evaluation Essay, Research Paper

Although I can remember the first sight accurately, I cannot for the life of me recall what happened next. Although several scientist would bet their microscopes and their salaries that sometime after the butterflies got out of my stomach and I my hands stopped sweating, that I was in actuality flirting with a complete stranger. As I watched him walk to the counter with his poor posture and his veins bulging out of his arms, I knew that there was something special about him. At that moment, I was not sure what that something special was, but I knew there was something about him. What eventually got us, these two complete strangers from across a jammed packed room to each other s side, was what does it for all of us in a word, flirtation. In the article Flirting, by Joann Rodgers, she explains what flirting is and why we flirt. The author lets us know that we flirt without even noticing it and that we are constantly using body language to exchange information with one another. Flirting is used to find possible partners, to find dates, and to just plain and simply, let someone know we are interested in them. Throughout her article, Joann Rodgers explains what flirting is, where flirting originated from, and who has the most mating success. Flirtation is a normal behavior that humans engage in on a day to day basis. Joann Rogers states in her article, the capacity of men and women to flirt and to be receptive to flirting turns out to be a remarkable set of behaviors embedded deep in out psyches (38). Flirting is implanted in our genes and in the operating system of our brain. People flirt in the hopes of finding a potential mate and as a way of going all the way without risking pregnancy or any sexual transmitted diseases. Flirting is a relatively risk-free way for people to send off signals and vital information to potential mates. Flirting is a subtle way of saying to a person, I am interested in you, are you interested in me? In spite of the fact that it may not seem like somebody could have actually invented flirting, a man named Ironies actually did discover it. Rodgers explains that flirting emerged thirty years ago by Irenaus Eibl-Eibesfeldt, who is now the director at the Ludwig-Boltzmann institute for Urban Ethnology in Vienna. He discovered that people in dozens of cultures engage in hand movements and signals in order to test their sexuality and their interest in another person. Joann Rodgers notes that, whatever specific physical features men and women are primed to respond to, they all have a quality in common symmetry (64). People have to have an outward appearance of evenness and right-left side balance. Elizabeth Taylor, Denzel Washington, and Queen Nefertiti are universally acknowledged as attractive and full of sex appeal because of symmetry. Women view symmetrical men as more dominant, forceful, richer, and better love-makers and marriage material. The symmetrical men describe themselves the same way. On the other hand, men view symmetrical women as more fertile, more attractive, healthier and better sex and marriage material too. According to Joann Rodgers, the males and females with the most symmetrical bodies, have the most mating success. This magazine article is something that teenagers and people in their mid-twenties can read and relate to. Everyone knows that teenagers flirt and they could always us helpful hints and tips to better flirting techniques. On the other hand, Joann Rodgers mentions that flirting is meant to lead to intercourse and to potential mates, which hardly anyone under the age of eighteen, can inevitably relate to.

The author gives great examples on how to give subtle signals and how to use body language. Social psychologist Timothy Perper, noticed that when women were simply trying to say, come hither, they would wiggle their nose, smile, gaze, lick their lips, and they would sway back and forth. He also noticed that most of the women were wearing high heel shoes and when they walked they would force their buttocks to tilt out and up and thrust their chest forward. Of course, the men had a different approach to flirting. Timothy Perper states that the men arched, stretched, and swiveled, while making grand gestures of whipping out lighters and lighting up cigarettes. They would point their chins in the air and loop their arms in a wide arc as if they were male baboons or gorillas that belonged in the wild. Although there are several things Rogers did that were good, there were also some things that needed some enhancement.Joann Rodgers does not organize her article too well. She starts with an example, then goes to how to flirt and when to flirt, and then she talks about symmetry. The article was only ten pages long and she talks about symmetry for five of them. She states that people with symmetry have better luck with finding mates, but she does not mention anything about the people who necessarily are not symmetrical. What about the women who are not lucky enough to be born with the perfect hour-glass figure,” or even the males that are not born with that perfect rugged domineering look? What about all those people who are not lucky enough to look like Cindy Crawford or Brad Pitt? Does that mean everyone without symmetry is going to be alone for the rest of his or her lives or not have as much success with finding mates as people with symmetry? I think not. Joann Rodgers does not clarify what a person with symmetry looks like or if too much symmetry is a bad thing. Joann Rodgers uses many different people in her article, all of which who have done investigations and experiments, but she has not done any studies on her own. She is relying on research done by other people. She has never tested their ideas or even conducted any experiments of her own. Just about everything in her article is based on someone else s theories.I think the article was worthy. I selected it because I knew that I could relate to it and the title of the article really captured my attention. While I knew how to flirt and what signals to give out, I honestly did not imagine that a majority of the people flirted to exchange information and to find potential mates. Although the article has certain things that needed work on, there were a few things that I liked. Another thing I liked about the article, was that she gave a couple of sample scenarios of people flirting, what signals they gave off, and how they reacted to them. I would defiantly recommend this article to read. Even if you think you know everything there is to know about flirting and finding dates, Joann Rodgers does mention several worthy tips that anyone could use.