The Difference Between Flirting for “We” and Flirting for “Me”

Tuesday, January 6, 2026.

The problem isn’t flirting.
The problem is mistaking charm for intention.

We like to treat flirting as a harmless social tic—chemistry with manners, a little verbal jazz.

Something that floats in the air and dissolves without consequence. This new research suggests that for a meaningful subset of people, flirting is not atmosphere. It’s infrastructure.

A study published in Personality and Individual Differences finds that folks high in so-called Dark Triad traits are more likely to flirt instrumentally—not to build connection, but to secure advantage. Flirting, in this frame, is not a prelude to intimacy. It’s a tool. Sometimes it’s a screwdriver. Sometimes it’s a crowbar.

The researchers—led by Braden T. Hall—asked a deceptively simple question:
Are some people flirting to build a we, while others are flirting to benefit me?

The answer is yes. And the difference is not the room. It’s the person.

Two Flirts, Same Smile, Different Agenda

Psychologists have long distinguished between relational flirting (meant to initiate or deepen connection) and instrumental flirting (meant to obtain something specific: favors, resources, access). What this study adds is a personality lens.

Using a large sample and an unusually strong design—self-reports plus two informants per participant—the researchers found a consistent pattern:

People high in Machiavellianism and psychopathy were more likely to flirt for gain. Not occasionally. Habitually.

This is what I’d call extractive flirtation: social warmth deployed as a means of acquisition.

The behavior can look identical on the surface. Same eye contact. Same laugh. Same tone. The difference is not style. It’s motive.

Narcissism Isn’t Strategic — It’s Theatrical

One of the more interesting findings is what didn’t show up. Narcissism was unrelated to instrumental flirting.

That surprises people until you think about it properly. Narcissism isn’t primarily about outcomes. It’s about attention. Narcissists flirt because they like mirrors that smile back. Not because they’re angling for a concrete reward.

Machiavellianism plans.
Psychopathy extracts.
Narcissism performs.

Lumping these traits together obscures more than it reveals. The study’s value is that it doesn’t.

Context Creates Romance. Personality Creates Strategy.

Here’s the cleanest takeaway—and it’s worth stating plainly:

Instrumental flirting is driven more by personality than by context. Relational flirting is driven more by context than by personality.

People flirt for connection when the setting invites it—romantic environments, sexual contexts, moments where intimacy is structurally possible. Almost anyone might flirt “for we” under the right conditions.

But flirting for advantage follows the person. Change the bar. Change the office. Change the relationship. The strategy persists.

You can redecorate the room.
You cannot redecorate the operating system.

The Gender Finding Everyone Will Oversimplify

Women in the study reported slightly higher instrumental flirting motives than men. This is not a moral statement. It’s a market one.

Women are more often positioned to receive material benefits in flirtation contexts—free drinks, preferential treatment, small social concessions. Behavior follows incentive. That’s sociology, not pathology.

The study is careful here, and so should we be.

Where This Shows Up in Real Relationships

In couples therapy, this dynamic surfaces quietly and often.

One partner notices that their spouse is suddenly charming with waitstaff, colleagues, or strangers. Animated. Attentive. Warm. The question that forms isn’t accusatory. It’s confused:

Why don’t I get that version of you?

Because that version may not be about connection. It may be about leverage.

This is where resentment begins—not with flirting itself, but with the dawning realization that warmth is being used selectively, transactionally, elsewhere.

People can tolerate many things. Feeling managed is rarely one of them.

A Necessary Caveat (Before the Internet Gets Busy)

The effects in this study are statistically modest. Personality is not destiny. And the authors are explicit: flirting instrumentally does not mean someone is narcissistic, Machiavellian, or psychopathic.

But small tendencies, repeated across years and contexts, accumulate. Patterns form. Reputations harden. Intimacy thins.

Charm without care eventually reveals itself.

Final Thought

Flirting is a social technology. Like any technology, it reflects the values of the person using it.

Some people flirt to connect.
Some people flirt to collect.

And most of us have, at least once, mistaken one for the other.

Be Well, Stay Kind, and Godspeed.