Step Two: Talk One of the two then speaks. Perhaps he or she makes a comment or asks a question. Even a simple ''Hi!" will do, but something verbal takes place.
Step Three: Turning Now it gets interesting. When one partner throws out the verbal signal, the recipientmust turn at least the head fully toward the speaker and acknowledge the comment receptively. If he or she does not, the Hunter seldom tries again.
However, if the partnerdoesturn warmly toward the speaker, they fall into conversation. Then a crucial pivoting takes place. Hunter and Quarry gradually switch from just their heads turned toward each other to their shoulders. If they like each other, their torsos soon turn, followed by their knees. Finally, in successful meetings, their whole bodies wind up facing each other.
This head-to-head, belly-to-belly, knees-to-knees gradual sequence can take from minutes to hours.
With each increas-
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ing turn, intimacy increases. With each turn away, intimacy decreases.
Step Four: Touching Concomitant with talking and gradually turning toward each other comes a powerful aphrodisiac, touch. A slight brush of his hand while he passes you a pretzel. A light touch on your jacket as she whisks away a piece of lint. The touch is fleeting, almost imperceptible.
How you respond to his or her first touch is a big factor in whether the interaction continues or not. If he or she brushes your jacket and you slightly stiffen your shoulders, your partner can subliminally interpret this as rejection—often wrongly. But it 's too late.
At this point in the progression, Dr. Perper tells us, it becomes impossible to tell which is Hunter and which is Quarry. Once the initial touch has been executed, well received, and even returned, the man and woman are on their way to becoming, at least for the duration of the evening, a couple.
At about this point, yet another phenomenon takes place. Eye contact takes on a different character. As early as 1977, a researcher observed escalating eye contact in couples as they went from more formal eye contact to gazing. Their eyes gradually embarked on travels all over each other's faces, hair, necks, shoulders, and torsos.22 This is the visual voyage we talked about earlier.
Step Five: Synchronization The final step is the most fascinating to watch. As though to confirm their newfound affection for each other, the couple begins to move in synchronicity with each other.
For example, the man and woman may reach for their drinks at the same time and put their glasses back on the table together. Then they progress to subconsciously shifting weight together, swaying to the music together, turning their heads to some outside interruption together, and then simultaneously looking back at each other.
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Dr. Perper wrote, ' Once synchronized, couples can stay in synchronicity seemingly indefinitely until the bar closes, until they finish dinner and drinks and must leave, until their train reaches wherever it is going; to put it another way, until the business of the outside world intervenes and causes their interaction to stop."23 However, if either partner tripped up on even just one of the above five steps (for example, not getting in synchronicity with each other), Timothy Perper and his research
associa tes knew they could start humming the couple's swan song.
Recently, I had the pleasure of watching a couple who were obviously very much in love. I was dining in a restaurant at a table facing the bar where a young couple was sitting. Their bodies were completely facing each other, and they were leaning toward each other, practically falling off their stools. They smiled and nodded as each crooned out bits of conversation.
Their hands occasionally brushed each other's and their movements were in total synchronicity as they lifted their glasses and returned them to the bar. They laughed together. They frowned together. Except for the moments when an outside noise invaded their private world, they maintained total eye contact.
Even then, they turned their heads away and looked back toward each other in unison. People would say they're in love.
As I was paying my bill, the waitress noticed my watching the couple. Smiling broadly, she said,
"Yeah, I've been watching them, too. Aren't they cute?"
"Yes," I agreed. "They look like they're very much in love." "Oh, no," she said. "They just met ten minutes ago!"
I thought, both of them must have read Perper's Principles. Or they were, as Annie Oakley inAnnie Get Your Gun says , "jes' doin' a what comes natch-ur-lee!"
When You Are Quarry
The Dance of Intimacy takes two partners. Even when you are Quarry, you must remember the steps. Sadly, many potential
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relationships never get off the ground because, accidentally, the Quarry repels the Hunter with his or her body language.
Unlike deer or bear hunters, human Hunters and Huntresses suffer from a malady. It's called insecurity or shyness. When a Hunter or Huntress levels sights at you, you must show you are willing Quarry and be a good follower in the Dance of Intimacy.
I was once at a party with a girlfriend, Diana. An attractive man smiled at Diana, and she looked away.
She confided to me, "That good-looking guy over there smiled at me."
"Great," I said. "Smile back."
Soon after, the fellow was standing near us. I don't know whether it was shyness or a desire to play it cool, but instead of turning toward him and smiling, Diana just kept on chatting with me. A few minutes later, we saw the good-looking stranger in a warm tête-à-tête with another woman. Diana was crushed.
She said to me, "Oh, I guess he saw me close up and decided not to talk to me."
"No, Diana," I said, wanting to shake her. "You just didn't respond to his overtures." She missed step one in the basic dance of lovers—turning toward him to show receptivity.
Missed opportunities like this one are happening round the clock, round the globe. Often willing Quarry crying to be captured becomes the one that got away.
The Word That Can Save Your Relationship As you are chatting with your new Quarry, it begins to
