The Art of Flirting: Turns Out, Your Crush Probably Can't Tell

Flirting with your crush? Chances are, they might not know it.

Researchers at the University of Kansas found that the relatively only foolproof method for letting others know you fancy them is to be completely straight forward. The findings are published in the journal Communication Research.

For the study, researchers examined 52 pairs of straight, single college students who were set in a room alone with strangers to talk for 10 to 12 minutes. During this time, they thought they were part of a study on first impressions. Among other things, students had to note if they flirted and if they thought their counterparts had.

Findings showed that only 36 percent of men and 18 percent of women were able to correctly judge flirtation. Findings also revealed that 80 percent of the participants judged correctly when their partner was not flirty. However, only 36 percent of men and 18 percent of women were able to detect flirtation from their partners.

"Behavior that is flirtatious is hard to see, and there are several reason for that," lead researcher Jeffrey Hall, an associate professor of communication studies and author of the 2013 book "The Five Flirting Styles," researchers said, in a news release. "People aren't going to do it in obvious ways because they don't want to be embarrassed, flirting looks a lot like being friendly, and we are not accustomed to having our flirting validated so we can get better at seeing it," he explained.