It started small enough – pointing out an observation to Mei over lunch in the school cafeteria. “Did you ever notice,” I began, waving a forkful of cafeteria-spaghetti around dramatically, “that Derek from Accounting always does the same three things when he walks over to talk to Jessica at the front desk? He’s like a pigeon!”
Mei looked up from her papers.
“Like those pigeons you turned our living room into last semester?”
Last semester I’d gotten wildly obsessed with bird mating rituals, which had reached its peak when I constructed a replica of an actual bower bird’s mating ‘stage’ out of blue items placed in a meticulously ordered pattern all over our living room floor.
I was attempting to deduce, using a scientific method, what exactly makes a good-looking bower bird nest. My now landlord had caught me squatting in the middle of the circle of blue pens and binder clips and every other electronic device we owned unplugged one morning while I made adjustments.
“This is the same thing!” I sputtered, flinging spaghetti at my coffee cup. “Humans are animals just like pigeons. Look, we have these complex behaviors PROGRAMMED into our DNA!”
And just like that I found myself three days later with a cardboard box full of office supplies perched on my desk outside the copy room and notebooks upon notebooks of detailed observations about exactly how humans hit on each other at the office.
Complete with timestamps and charts I’d managed to distract ourselves from harassing our landlord by constructing what might casually be described as a fort underneath the stairwell stairs. I had charts upon charts full of notes marked with precisely what behaviors each participant exhibited at what time during each attempted interaction. I’d even managed to convince our semi-annoying security guard that my oversized University ID card and my passionate rambling about “social mating habits” made me legitimate enough to avoid getting kicked out.
In all honesty, my initial findings were incredible. Humans had such distinct mating habits! I’d discovered five different ways people walked over to talk to someone they liked, four variations on preening routines, and it TOTALLY clicked that people tapped their foot three times when they wanted to walk over to someone’s desk- that was boundary marking!
“Maxwell,” Josh complained as I burst into his office one Tuesday morning brandishing my latest notebook filled with observations, “this is how people get sued.”
“But the foot-tapping Josh!” I whipped up a chair to perch atop his desk and proceeded to shove half his paperwork onto the ground. “Don’t you see how similar it is every time!? Michael126482MD does the exact SAME three foot-taps -> walk across half the hallway -> grab a fake excuse to hold the other person’s paper the same way every Wednesday and Friday at 10: 03 when he walks over to say hi to Sarah199812MA!”
Josh pinched the bridge of his nose- what I’ve since cataloged in my mental boyfriend-deficiencies chart as Category 4 nuisances.
“Maybe normal people just call that having a crush?”
“Ah, but you see,” I leaned back, causing our stack of chairs to clatter dangerously. “That’s where you’re wrong. I’M MAKING A BOOK OUT OF THESE PEOPLE.”
THE BOOK- as I decided to officially call it, because every science blog needs a catchy title- took on a life of its own.
I expanded my observations to adjoining offices and quickly graduated to including Food Services. I developed better statistical models, timing my observations and starting to estimate frequency of specific actions. I hadn’t been this excited about a project since my four week exploration into whether or not plants feel happy when you listen to them died down (PRO TIP: soil pH can only tell you so much about how your plants feel about Iron & Wine versus hardcore gangster rap.
). My first type was my favorite. I dubbed them ‘swagger swagger pets’ because of how THEY WALKED INTO A ROOM.
Male, loud, almost always talked over in group conversations- these were the people who positioned themselves in the most obvious seats in a conference room and described things using exact numbers like they were automatically entitled to everyone’s attention. “Ohhh yes,” Dr. Khatri said when I proudly relayed this information to her over lunch one Tuesday.
“You have found Pavlovich from HR all over again. Congratulations on revolutionizing science.”
And thus began my taxonomy. By the end of that month I had identified:
-The Perrier Poser: Identified by their incessant need to buy the person they liked drinks or lunch.
Initiation behaviors almost always started with bringing coffee then extending their work-related antennae ( aka ‘doing you a favor’) and finally graduating to bringing specific items that said ‘I was thinking of you when I went to the store.’
-Tightrope Walker: These walkers literally spend weeks on end FINDING reasons to sit as close to their love interest as humanly possible without getting in anyone’s personal space. I watched one guy maneuver his WHOLE desk 5 inches to the left over the span of 8 weeks just to be able to look at his crush without turning his head. -Foam Fanatics: Easily identifiable by their cyclical outfit, hair style, and accessory changes that coincided with the DAY they knew they would see the person they liked that week.
Quantifiable data included: 34% increase in cologne application, 15% increase in brushing of hair, and strategic use of eye-catching (but not annoying) accessories to initiate conversation (COLORFUL SOCKS, MY GOD SOME PEOPLE HAVE BASIC WHITE SOCKS AND CLAIM THEY DON’T HAVE ANY SOCKS THAT WILL START A CONVERSATION.) (The past tense being used because I found him. Died inside when his mom emailed me he was born in Canada.
Amazing graphs though.) The Snowflakers: Masters of using friends to FINALLY get to the people they liked. They invested all their time in befriending their target’s closest friends, slowly integrating themselves more and more into their social group until it was only natural that they stuck by their friends table at lunch.
I’ve watched some snowflakers take months just to perfect their alliance chains. Weak Buttwipes: Weak-buttwipes would open up to the person they liked in very calculated ways, always ensuring they could quickly backpedal if the person they liked DID NOT respond with positive nurturing behaviors. Weak-buttwipes were also INCREDIBLY reactive to their target’s responses.
They SUCKED at their mating dance if I’m being honest, constantly trying too hard. The successfulweak-buttwipes I observed fell into a neat ratio of ‘times they bragged about themselves’ to ‘times they showed vulnerability’ of about 3:1. “I know what you’re doing,” Derek whispered into my ear from behind.
I jumped, causing me to involuntarily shove my Nature Tumblr printed notebook into my chest. My heart zoomed in my throat. Had someone found me?
Did Derek work in IT? “You’re researching us,” he hissed, jerking his head at the crowded office around us. “I caught you staring at people and writing down notes a few days ago.
You think you can psychoanalyze who has a crush on who?”
“I am,” I squeaked, my brain still scrambling for an explanation. “On office mating rituals based on behavioral patterns!”
Derek rolled his eyes something fierce, moving into conspiratorial mode- aka leaning in real close and whispering like he was about to share the location of Shiawase’s Best-Kept SecretChocolate Cake with me. “Look, I know you’re getting too into your damn science blogs or whatever to hear me out, but lemme help you with your studies here.
I know YOU’RE A SWAGGER SWAGER but what does Jessica from the front desk even LIKE?”
And that, my friends, is how I started getting paid. Three days later I had SIX people loitering outside my department’s entryway stopping by to ask me if the way they flirted was effective. By Friday I was having secretive meetings with lovesick marketers and building inspectors in the backstock closet on the third floor whipping out my behavioral charts and scrawling mixture advice.
“You’re a DEFINITE swagger swagger pet,” I explained to Marcus from Marketing as I slid my copy of THE BOOK across his desk. “But from what I see Jessica here reacts more positively to Weak Buttwipes.” I paused, hands steepled thoughtfully. “So maybe dial back on the showing off how awesome you are and work on strategically failing in front of her.”
Two dates later my little secret had spread past my office.
People I didn’t know were sending me email messages asking me to ‘help them out’ with their love life. It was nuts. I actually made someone cry when I told them their routine fell into the Perrierposer category and that Jessica from marketing would NEVER notice them if they didn’t diversify their strategies.
This was when I started having serious moral quandaries about my project. Was it WRONG that I was telling people this information? Did observing these people change how they reacted to each other now that I mentioned my theories to them?
These were the conversations I had with Mei late into the night as she refreshed herApplyPhysicsDoctorate programs on grad school websites, chuckling to herself at my very adult affairs. “The issue,” I gestured wildly at my twin half-empty glasses of ice as we drank alone in our kitchen at midnight, “is I’ve gone beyond simple observation now. I’m affecting the experiment!”
Mei set down her Peace Tea Latte.
“Or you’re just helping weirdos be less weird around girls.”
My burgeoning internal crisis came to a head when I attended the department’s next social. To say there were WAY too many people from work I was studying would be an understatement. Nearly every person I’d taken notes on that day was employing one of my tactics to approach someone they liked, with wildly varying degrees of success.
I was stuffing my face carelessly next to a table of punch when Dr. Khatri sidled up next to me. “Maxwell,” she began, eyeing our department’s less-than-stellar attempts at small talk with obvious disdain.
“Word around campus is you’re giving people advice on how to get office people to like them back.”
I cringed. “It’s not technically– Listen, I WAS studying mating habits between coworkers in small professional environments BUT THEN they found out I was watching them and ASKED ME FOR MY DATA AND THEN”
She waved a hand in front of my jittery fingers. “Remember the grant you wrote to study how humans can best communicate with each other at their jobs?”
“I DID!” I shouted, slamming a hand on the tray of cookies between us.
“That’s what this is- OH MY GOD DO YOU SEE THAT? ?”
She followed my pointer finger out of the kitchen and onto the dance floor where Derek was deep in his weakness, showing Jessica how much of a pushover he could be over literally the worst dance song known to mankind. Dr.
Khatri sighed- the kind of long, tired sigh you do when you’ve raised a particularly rambunctious child your entire life and you suddenly developed exhale points. “Only you, Maxwell Harrow, would accidentally start a professional dating service while studying how people annoy each other at work.”
She wasn’t wrong. After MONTHS of quietly sitting in boxes and stalking people at work I had somehow graduated to BEING PART OF THE PROBLEM.
Instead of cataloging types of office-daters I had CREATED them. Instead of learning how people awkwardly hit on each other I had accidentally prescribed the exact method in which they should.
It was not at all what I intended to do.
But you know what? It worked. After everything I had meticulously watched and written down and statistically analyzed- PEOPLE were dating each other.
I had helped guide Derek from Accounting finally ask Jessica from Reception out on a proper date- and if interviews held any weight, they really liked each other. Hell, I even gave them a ridiculous 67% chance of actually working out based on my charts.
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