Learn · Unit 2: Talk
Banter Lab
Play with someone, not at them: offer one light line, stop talking, read how it landed, and carry on, go back to ordinary talk, or stop.
Start here
Lessons
- What banter is forDescribe banter as light play that both people can join or drop, name seven kinds of it, and tell a friendly, a playful and an overdone line apart.
- One line, then stop talkingOffer one light line in your own style, then pause and leave the next move to the other person, without explaining the joke.
- Reading how a line was receivedTell five receptions apart from what you see and hear (laughs, adds to it, teases back, neutral, disengages), and choose among three next moves: carry on, go back to ordinary talk, or stop.
- Teasing that includes, and where it stopsTease a choice or a situation, never the person, and repair a miss with a short apology and a return to ordinary talk.
- Humor formulas, checkedSay what humor research does and does not support, and audit a numbered humor formula or a promise of status from humor as a claim.
Video summary
Exercises that go with these lessons
Go further
Talks, videos and pages by the people whose ideas these lessons discuss, matched to the topics the lessons cite. They are outside this site, and nothing from them loads until you follow a link. A link is not an endorsement; read the note under each one.
Marni Kinrys: "You Think You're Pretty Smooth, Don't You?" She's Flirting. Not Being Mean.
Kinrys's short presents playful teasing and mock challenge as a sign of attraction and advises playing back rather than withdrawing. Relevant to engaged versus merely polite behaviour.
Keep in mind. Anecdotal; teasing can be friendly, polite or unkind, and is not by itself a sign of romantic interest. Check for reciprocity over several turns.
Marni Kinrys: [Video] Raw Female Perspective On What Turns Women Off - Marni's Wing Girl Method
Free public page where Kinrys gives her perspective on behaviours that put people off; an attributable source for what the Wing Girl Method publicly says.
Keep in mind. Single coach's perspective; do not generalise to what 'women' want. Site sells paid courses.
Jean Smith: The Science of Flirting: Being a H.O.T. A.P.E. | Jean Smith | TEDxLSHTM
Smith's H.O.T. A.P.E. model of flirting signs (humour, open body language, touch, attention, proximity, eye contact), from her interviews in four cities, presented as teachable cues.
Keep in mind. Popular framework from observational interviews, not a validated model; touch is presented as a signal, never as permission.
Vanessa Van Edwards: Why Women Never Make The First Move!
Van Edwards on who tends to initiate in courtship and the small opening signals that precede an approach; read the video before linking to confirm the claims shown.
Keep in mind. Popular-science framing; check any quoted statistic against the primary study before the app repeats it.
Vanessa Van Edwards: 28 Science-Backed Body Language Signs of Attraction
Catalogue of cues said to signal attraction (leaning in, mirroring, proximity, eye contact), with the useful advice to look for clusters of signals rather than one gesture.
Keep in mind. Mixes research with popular lists; the gendered framing and some involuntary-signal claims (pupils, blushing) are weakly sourced. Cues never authorise touch.