This is not so unusual, but, Julianna introduced all the happy couples through her social networking club for successful single people ...

Julianna and Friends is aimed at people in their 30s and 40s and 50s who are active, attractive, articulate and intelligent.

"The emphasis is on having fun and making new friends while enjoying a great lifestyle," -   she said. "If romance happens, which it often does, then it is a bonus."   "All people have to do is come along with the intention of enjoying the activity, being nice to each other and having a good time - this way no-one feels pressured." -

Activities include tennis + bbqs, dinners and lunches, sailing, bushwalking + picnics, cocktail parties and theatre ... But Julianna said it was a challenge getting through to the people who would benefit most from the club.

"They are reluctant to answer advertisements, yet when their friends 'drag' them along to one of our functions they are pleasantly surprised at how much they enjoy themselves," -   she said.  "A social networking club gets away from the stigma for single people and it is a smart way to have a sensational lifestyle." -  

"I compare it to putting the right fish in the right pond - their confidence levels are boosted once they meet other people in a non-threatening environment."

Roger and Christina met more than two years ago and are now happily married. But it was the way in which they met that makes the couple slightly coy about revealing their full identities.

Not that they are in any way ashamed of joining a social club to meet like-minded individuals. In fact, as Roger said, "it sounded like a good club to go to because it sounded like there wasn't a lot of pressure to pair up".

The only pressure at Julianna and Friends is to have a good time. As a result, numerous weddings, partnerships and good friendships have been formed, according to the club's founding member.

Sydney can be a lonely place, as divorcee Julianna Robertson can attest. In 1994, Julianna decided to do something about the lack of socialising opportunities for single people by starting a club for those in their 30s, 40s and 50s ... The response to an advertisement the Mosman woman placed in a local newspaper was so overwhelming, she gave up her job and began to run the club full-time.

Arranging cocktail parties, dinners, tennis, bushwalking and theatre events, Julianna loves entertaining club members but is quick to emphasise the club is not an introduction agency."We are really just a social club for people who like to have a nice lifestyle but for whatever reasons have lost contact with their normal social circle of friends." -   . . .

Julianna said that, when she split from her husband she spent "three years crying because there was nothing like this around at the time". Singles, divorcees, those on transfer from interstate and overseas - "anything from ambitious secretaries to the managing director" -  make up the membership, (but marrieds are not encouraged to use the club as a "candy store").

Once a business executive in a large corporation, Julianna said she understood how lonely weekends in Sydney could be for single people."I know the problems associated with being a high-flying career-chaser and also of being a freshly divorced, separated person."   . . .

Julianna and Friends provides events for members each week such as visits to the theatre, dinners, sailing, tennis and bbqs, bushwalking and picnics.

Lunches and cocktail parties are also popular, as is kayaking for those who enjoy an active lifestyle.

Julianna said members paid $250 for the first year, reducing to $150 for subsequent years, "which is less than $3 a week".   A small price to pay, according to Roger and Christina, who met at a club-organised Oktoberfest evening and married a year later.

In a flirt's life, success is measured in seconds. Unfortunately, so is failure.

It all comes down to eye contact or the even more fleeting "eyebrow flash".

The authors of a dauntingly forensic survey of flirting describe eyebrow flash as an upward flex of the eyebrows that takes about a sixth of a second.

The best flirts have great success with it.

A well-directed eyebrow flash across a crowded room can lead to a chat and who knows where.

"Assuming your target finds you attractive, an eyebrow-flash with appropriate follow-up could leapfrog you into
instant intimacy," -   said the Social Issues Research Centre in Britain.

Ms Julianna Robertson, the founder of Sydney's Julianna and Friends, a social club for sydney singles, is a dedicated flirt.

"I flirt all the time because it adds joy to life," -   Julianna Robertson said. "The difference between a flirt and a sleaze is when a person invades someone else's space." -  

She agrees that flirting comes more naturally to some and she has recommended remedial flirting courses for really hopeless cases ... one of the basic problems was teaching people to make eye contact. "A lot of people will not hold the gaze of somebody else, even for a second."   ...

The British research puts flirting right up there with Darwinian theory.

"Flirting may even be the foundation of civilisation as we know it," -   they say, reporting that evolutionary psychologists have argued that the ability to charm may be at the seat of all human achievement.

. . . Men are more apt to misread plain friendliness for sexual flirting, overestimate their own attractiveness, and blunder in with a risque joke that is "the verbal equivalent of a bum-pinch".

Even worse is taking their eyes off a woman's face to look at her breasts.

Men would do well to note the results of a survey of American women asked to give the three words they would most like to hear from a male partner.

"The most common answer was not 'I love you', but 'you've lost weight' ... "