Abstract
Current models of romantic relationship development in cisgender, heterosexual individuals have a gap. They include the initial stages of human courtship—what happens before people become romantically committed (for example, flirting), and they also focus on what happens after a romantic relationship has been established. We focus on the missing phase, which we call the communication of romantic interest. This is the point in this sequence when at least one person’s desire or intention to enter into an emotionally (and, possibly sexually) close, committed relationship is expressed. We compare the verbal and nonverbal cues used by men and women to flirt, based on the literature, to those they use to express romantic interest, based on our research. Finally, we emphasize the need to explore the courtship process for different genders and sexual orientations, which is important for both theoretical and practical reasons.
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Notes
- 1.
“Courtship” is an antiquated term that is often associated with the process leading up to reproduction in various species or social processes that serve as the prologue to marriage. Romantic relationship development is a more fitting phrase. However, for the sake of readability, we have used courtship in various parts of this chapter.
- 2.
Although we are not describing it here, we also asked everyone what their partner did, if the partner was the initiator. Those results corroborated the reports by people who did the initiating themselves, to a remarkable extent.
- 3.
We are not, of course, accusing any of the researchers listed in this section of having this perspective.
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Horgan, T.G., Hall, J.A., Grey, M.J. (2022). The Verbal and Nonverbal Communication of Romantic Interest. In: Sternberg, R.J., Kostić, A. (eds) Nonverbal Communication in Close Relationships. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94492-6_6
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