Flirtation,climate and alcohol consumption

According to evolutionary scientists, the supposedly superior intelligence in the form of the human brain may be equivalent to the tail of the male peacock, the function of which is to attract and retain partners of the opposite sex. Over the history of time, we would observe that most of our achievements and events stem from the basic need to charm one another e.g. art, literature and even one or two wars.

I would like to share personal observations I made in the social behaviour in different Europeans. I use Europeans because I spent 3 months in a language course in France, and had opportunity to meet and interact with course mates and holiday goers who were mostly from various parts of Europe.

I found that people from Mediterranean countries such as Spain, Italy and France were the most open, with the highest social self esteem. Here is a very interesting example: I was walking down the streets of Nice, in the south of France one evening, and this young man on his moped spotted me, caught my attention and started to follow me.

So I thought, okay, fine, if I ignore him long enough, he’ll leave me alone, but all of a sudden started to sing to me in French. I couldn’t’ help but blush. This man’s behaviour was one of such I have only ever seen in movies. So that’s the Mediterranean for you. Very, very flirtatious.

I noticed that the English and Irish, on the other hand, were always quieter initially, especially during our French classes in the mornings. But during outings in the evenings, they loosened up after a few beers.

Now, the Swedish, were quite unfriendly. In fact, they were so cold during class; it was so difficult to talk to them, I always avoided them during group activities. It wasn’t until maybe a Friday evening at a club, after they’d had a few shots of Vodka that they got friendlier.

So one afternoon, I told my French teacher about these behaviours I noticed. And since he is well travelled, I thought he might have a good explanation, and he did:

He made a very interesting connection between variations in the European climate, the rate of alcohol consumption and social skills. He said that people from Mediterranean countries are the most open and flirtatious because they experience more months of sunlight and warmth over the course of the year, and therefore spend more time outdoors, physically interacting with each other on the beach or on the streets.

I actually noticed that most of them did not have smart phones, another indication that they rely less on social media and more on face-to-face contact.

He said British seemed less friendly because they experience fewer months of warm weather and sunlight. Therefore, they spend more time indoors. So when in a social environment, they have a little more difficulty interacting with outsiders, and so need a little push, which they derive from alcohol, to increase their social self-esteem.

In fact, according to the Social Issues Research Centre (http://www.sirc.org/publik/flirt.html)  27% of British couples first met their current partner in a pub, and what’s more interesting is that alcohol was voted the most effective aid to flirting.

As for the Swedish…apart from Vodka production, can you guess what they are known for?........... IKEA...In short Sweden is so cold that they specialize in producing furniture and other household related materials to encourage people to stay indoors.  So one can understand why they may seem to lack social skills.

Well, this relationship between flirtation, climate and alcohol consumption is a mere observation, which I thought was very interesting to share. Next time you find yourself in a social interactive scenario, play the role as an observer and take note of these three factors, Flirtation, Climate and Alcohol, and you’ll be amazed at the different behaviours we human beings display.

Written by Oyin Egbeyemi.

Oyin Egbeyemi is an engineer-turned-consultant-turned-educationist, runner and writer.