'You gotta licence for that shirt? Or are you wearing it for a bet?'
'Huh! Look who's talking - I can see your knickers, you slag!'
'It's a thong, you nerd - not that you'd know the difference. And that's the closest you'll ever get to it.'
'Who says I'd want to? What makes you think I fancy you? You're such a slag!'
'Better than being a sad geek!'
'Bitch!'
'Geek!'
'Sla - Oh, that's my stop - you coming out later?'
'Yeah - come round about eight.'
'Right.'
'Bye.'
From the conversation among their friends afterwards, it was clear that this pair had been attracted to each other for some time, had just started 'sort of going out' together (in that rather vague, non-dating way the English do these things), and were expected to become 'an item' in the near future. Even if I had not heard this subsequent discussion, I would have recognized the exchange of insults as a typical flirtation - perhaps not the wittiest or most articulate flirtatious banter I've come across, but a normal, unremarkable, everyday English courtship sequence. I only recorded it in my notebook because I happened to be doing a study on flirting at the time, and was collecting examples of real-life chat-up routines.
I also noted that English teenagers sometimes conduct a special form of 'group courtship', in which a small group of males will exchange banter - consisting mainly of sexually charged insults - with a small group of females. This group-courtship banter is most common among working-class youth, particularly in the northern part of the country, where I have even seen male and female groups hurling flirtatious abuse at each other from opposite sides of a street. English teens and twenty-somethings can also be seen indulging in this peculiar form of collective courtship at holiday resorts abroad, where bemused local inhabitants must wonder how such raucous taunting and heckling can possibly be a prelude to love and marriage. (Although I can confirm that it is, I have some sneaking admiration for shrewd local males in Spanish and Greek holiday resorts, who rightly suspect that young English females might be susceptible to more conventionally flattering approaches, and often succeed in poaching them from their loutish English suitors.)
Among older adults, I found that flirtatious banter is less overtly abusive than in these teenage examples, but that the same basic rules of irony, teasing, mock-insults and so on still apply. English females of all ages might very well prefer a more chivalrous, less perversely oblique form of courtship - but the banter rules, like the uncertainty principle, are tuned more to the sensibilities of the emotionally inhibited and socially challenged English male than to those of his somewhat less inhibited and more socially skilled female counterpart. We females are, however, accustomed to complying with these rules, and generally do so unconsciously. We know that arguing is the English male's primary means of bonding with other males, and that banter is thus a form of intimacy with which he is familiar and comfortable. We know that when a man persistently taunts and teases us, it usually means he likes us, and that if the sentiment is reciprocated, taunting and teasing back is the best way to express this.
As with the uncertainty principle, foreign females do not have this instinctive, in-built understanding of English male peculiarities, and so tend to be baffled and sometimes offended by the banter rules. I find myself having to explain to them that 'silly cow' really can be a term of endearment, and 'You're just not my type', uttered in the right tones and in the context of banter, can be tantamount to a proposal of marriage. I'm not saying that English men never pay straightforward compliments or formally ask women out on dates. They often do both of these things, albeit rather awkwardly, and they even propose marriage; it's just that if they can possibly find a more circuitous way of achieving the same end, they will.
MALE-BONDING RULES - AND THE GIRLWATCHING RITUAL
The English male may not be an accomplished flirt, or adept at the finer points of pair bonding, but when it comes to bonding with other males, he's in his element. I'm not talking about homosexuality, repressed or otherwise, but about the universal human practice of male bonding, of men forming close friendships and alliances with other men. Every known human society has some form of male-bonding practices, usually including clubs, organisations or institutions (such as the London 'gentlemen's clubs' for which the English are famous), or at least special rituals, from which women are excluded.
It has been said that men's need for such bonding is as strong as their need for sex with women. In the average Englishman's case, it may be stronger. There is nothing wrong with the heterosexual English male's sex drive, but he does seem to show a marked preference for the company of other men. This is not about the alleged closet homosexuality of English males: if anything, gay Englishmen tend to be more at ease in female company, and to enjoy it more. But it must be said that many of the English man's male-bonding rituals appear to be devoted to proving his masculinity and heterosexuality.
Foremost among these is the 'girlwatching' ritual - the English version of that time-honoured and probably universal male pastime of exchanging comments on the physical attributes of passing females. You can - if you are interested in such things - watch variations on this ritual in pretty much any pub, bar, cafe, night-club or street-corner on the planet. The English variant is, as you might by now expect, conducted in code. Very few of the set phrases used are intelligible without some interpretation. The code is not, however, difficult to decipher, and most of the stock phrases fall into one of two simple categories: approval (that female is attractive) and disapproval (that female is not attractive).
The most quintessentially and convolutedly English of these stock girlwatching remarks is my favourite: 'Don't fancy yours much!' This is a standard comment on any pair of females, one of whom the speaker considers to be less attractive than the other. As well as demonstrating that he can tell the difference (and has a healthy, red-blooded interest in attractive females) the speaker is 'laying claim' to the more desirable of the pair, by designating the less pretty one as 'yours'. Although technically reserved for commenting on a pair of women, 'Don't fancy yours much!' is often used to draw a male companion's attention to the unattractiveness of any passing female, whether or not she is accompanied by a more fanciable alternative. On one occasion, in a pub in Birmingham, I recorded the following exchange:
Male 1, glancing up as a group of 4 women enters the pub: 'Don't fancy yours much!'
Male 2, turning to look at the women, then frowning in puzzlement: 'Er, which?'
Male 1, laughing: 'Don't care, mate - take your pick: they're all yours!'
Male 2 laughs, but somewhat grudgingly, looking a bit put-out, as a point has been scored against him.
Another somewhat cryptic English girlwatching phrase, this time of the 'approving' variety, is 'Not many of those to the pound!' This comment refers to the size of the observed female's breasts, implying that they are rather larger than average. The 'pound' means a pound in weight, not in sterling - so the phrase literally means that you would not get many of those breasts balanced like fruit on a grocer's weighing-scale against a pound weight. In fact it is an understatement, as large breasts would probably each weigh more than a pound, but let's not get too technical. In any case, it is a favourable judgement: large breasts are officially A Good Thing among English males; even those who secretly prefer small ones usually feel obliged to express approval. The 'Not many of those to the pound!' comment is often accompanied by a gesture suggesting the weighing of heavy objects in the hands: the hands are held out just in front of the chest - with palms upturned and fingers slightly curled in - then bounced up and down. Here is another overheard exchange, this time from a pub in London. It sounds like a comedy sketch, but I swear it is reaclass="underline"