In a national survey, for example, only six per cent of clubbers admitted that 'meeting prospective sexual partners' was an important part of these 'dance events' for them. This finding strikes me as an instance of what us researchers call the Social Desirability Bias. You will remember that the SDB is 'a standard error on self-report measures due to respondents attempting to present themselves in a socially desirable light' - in other words: lying. In the clubber survey, we can tell that the respondents were being a bit economical with the truth, as responses to other questions revealed that over half of them had had sex with 'someone they met at a dance event', which suggests that meeting prospective sexual partners was perhaps a more important element of clubbing than they were prepared to acknowledge.
The SDB can be quite useful, though, as a consistent pattern of such 'socially desirable' responses can indicate an unwritten social rule or norm within a group or sub-culture. In this case, it seems pretty clear to me that among young English clubbers, particularly those who regard themselves and their musical tastes as 'non-mainstream', there is an unspoken 'no sex please, we're too cool' rule. It is considered deeply 'uncool' to go clubbing to meet prospective partners, so clubbers will naturally be reluctant to admit to this motive. If they should happen to end up in bed with someone they met while out clubbing, this is a fortuitous by-product of the evening's entertainment, not something they set out to achieve. The 'no sex please' rule seems to be honoured more in speech than in observance. We pretend not to be too interested in sex, but we still manage accidentally-on-purpose to have quite a lot of sex. More of that lovely English hypocrisy.
I found that gay clubbers tend to be rather more open and honest than straight clubbers about their interest in sex: although some subscribe to the 'no sex please, we're too cool' rule, the majority candidly admit that flirtation, mate-selection and sex are important elements of clubbing for them.
Workplaces
Both 'flirting with intent' and 'recreational flirting' are common in most English offices and other workplaces. Surveys have found that up to 40 percent of us now meet our spouses or current sexual partners at the workplace, and some recent research findings show that flirting is good for relieving workplace anxiety and stress: the playful atmosphere created by flirtatious banter helps to reduce friction, and exchanges of compliments boost self-esteem.
We knew that, of course, but it needs saying, as workplace flirting may be under threat from puritanical influences imported from America, where flirting has been officially banned in many offices and other workplaces (an 'unsustainable' move on the part of the political-correctness lobby, as attempts to forbid behaviours that are as deeply ingrained in the human psyche as flirting are doomed to failure). At the moment, workplaces are still among the better flirting zones in England. Technically, they only pass two elements of the SAS test, as alcohol is not commonly available in offices or factories, but in practice work colleagues tend to find opportunities to drink together - and workplaces score very highly on the Sociability and Shared-interest factors. Training courses, sales conferences, academic conferences and other such work-related excursions and gatherings were highlighted by my focus-group participants as particularly conducive to flirting, combining all the benefits of common interests and ease of sociable communication with the added lubricant of celebratory drinking.
In the English workplace itself, however, flirting is usually acceptable only in certain areas, with certain people and at specific times or occasions. Each workplace has its own unwritten etiquette governing flirtatious behaviour. In some companies, I found that the coffee machine, photocopier or cafeteria was the unofficial 'designated flirting zone'. In one it was a balcony mainly used by smokers, who often tend to be more sociable than non-smokers, or at least have a sense of defiant solidarity (one woman told me that she was a non-smoker, but pretended to smoke, because the smokers were 'more fun to hang out with').
Learning-places
Almost all educational establishments are hot-beds of flirting. This is mainly because they are full of young single people making their first attempts at mate selection, but they also pass all three elements of the SAS test - schools, colleges and universities score very high on the Sociability and Shared-interest factors, and while alcohol is not usually served in classrooms, students have plenty of opportunities for drinking together.
The Shared-interest factor is particularly important to English adolescents. Adolescents everywhere tend to be self-conscious, but English ones tend to be especially awkward, lacking the social skills necessary to strike up conversations without an obvious point of contact. The shared lifestyle and concerns of students, and the informal atmosphere, make it easier for them to initiate conversation with each other. Simply by being students, prospective partners automatically have a great deal in common, and do not need to struggle to find topics of mutual interest.
Participant Sports, Clubs and Hobbies - and the Incompetence Rule
Almost all participant sports and hobbies score highly on the Sociability and Shared-interest factors in my SAS test - with the Alcohol element usually requiring some deliberate effort rather than being built in to the activity itself.
I found that the level of flirtatious behaviour among members of amateur English sports teams or hobby-clubs tends to be inversely related to the standards achieved by participants and their enthusiasm for the activity. With some exceptions, one tends to find a lot of flirting among incompetent tennis players, unfit hill-walkers, cack-handed painters and tangle-footed dancers, but somewhat less among more proficient, serious, competitive participants in the same activities. Even the most blatantly incompetent will usually pretend that they are really there for the sport or activity to which the club is ostensibly dedicated. They may even genuinely believe this - the English are masters of self-delusion - but the truth is that their tennis racquets, Ordnance Survey maps and paintbrushes are all primarily props and facilitators of sociability, and often come in very handy as flirting tools.
Spectator Events
While they have the advantage of providing conversation topics of mutual interest, and some achieve a reasonable score on the Sociability factor, most sporting events and other spectator pastimes such as theatre or cinema are not particularly conducive to flirting or mate-seeking, as social interaction of any kind is usually limited to a short interval or requires 'missing the action'.
The most striking exception to this rule is horseracing, where all of the 'action' takes place in just a few minutes, the half-hour interval between races is dedicated to sociability, and friendly interaction between strangers is actively encouraged by racecourse etiquette. Race-meetings pass all three elements of the SAS test, with the added advantage of a ready-made conversation-starter that includes the word 'fancy': 'What do you fancy in the three-thirty?'
Singles' Events, Dating Agencies and the No-date Rule
Singles' parties, singles' clubs and agency-arranged dates pass the SAS test, but only just. They don't score very highly on Shared interest. This may sound daft, as participants have an obvious shared interest in finding a mate, but this interest is too embarrassing to acknowledge, and therefore not much use as a conversation-starter. Even in non-sexual contexts, the English need to pretend that they are gathering for some reason other than just gathering, and the need for another ostensible motive is even greater when something as personal and intimate as mate-seeking is the real purpose of the event. Even when we are on a 'date', the English do not like to use this term; English males are particularly squeamish about the idea of 'dating' - it makes the whole thing too embarrassingly open and official. And too earnest. We don't like being forced to take the whole courtship process too seriously: the very word 'date' seems to contravene the spirit of English humour rules.