‘Am I doing this right?’: how to master the lost art of flirting

Some of the joy of flirting lies in its ambiguity – a fleeting glance, a smile returned, an inside joke co-created – but even in a subtle game, the rules can be defined. Illustration: Victoria Hart/Getty Images/Guardian Design

From his birds-eye position in the booth, DJ Rakish has noticed a blue light disco effect on the dancefloor when he plays at “straightish” nightclubs. “If people aren’t already in groups, you definitely see the boys hanging around together and the girls hanging around together,” he says. There might be furtive glances here and there but, “particularly with younger people, game just doesn’t seem to exist at the moment”.

Rakish is not alone in noticing a lack of casual flirting between strangers. Clinical psychologist and UCLA professor Dr Elizabeth Laugeson says: “There is some evidence that young adults today are … engaging in less traditional dating behaviour, compared to previous generations.”