TikTok has cottoned on to a new dating trend that purports to guarantee a first kiss.

Dubbed the ‘triangle method’, folks online are saying it’s the best way to get a kiss without saying anything at all.

We’ve all come to the end of a good date where the will-they-won’t-they smooch me question hangs over the farewell.

While some may simply ask if they can kiss you (yay, affirmative consent!), others have complained the interaction is awkward and perhaps a little unromantic.

The triangle method offers an alternative to those wanting a Hollywood kiss and need some help dropping a hint.

Here’s how to do it – and how to spot it if your date is giving you the ‘triangle eyes’.

What Is The Triangle Method?

Apart from the ability to keep your chill (easier said than done!), the triangle method is easy to execute.

It simply involves:

  • Making eye contact with a person
  • Slowly shifting that contact from the left eye…
  • To the right eye…
  • Then down to their mouth…
  • And repeat.

Note, there is some debate about whether you go eye-mouth-other eye versus eye-eye-mouth, but ultimately it doesn’t matter. Just go slowly and don’t race over it like a Looney Toon.

Where Did The Triangle Method Start?

It’s hard to say who exactly coined the triangle method. Sometimes called ‘triangular gazing’ or the ‘triangle technique’ the strategy has been floating around parts of the internet for over a decade. Given evidence of its existence in films in the XXs, it clearly existed well before that. Perhaps it started as a visual technique deployed by film directors wanting to convey the tension build-up in a romantic coupling, or perhaps it has existed since time immemorial as a tried-and-tested way to suggest you want a smooch.

Regardless of its origins, it’s certainly not new.

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The sudden booming popularity of the triangle method can be traced back to one place: TikTok.

In 2022, Valeria Romero posted a video claiming the triangle technique would make anyone “be obsessed with you”, and that she’d used it recently to great success.

“I was hanging out with this boy and we were having a deep conversation We were looking at the sunset and everything and he was sitting across from me. Then he just kept looking at me, so I did [the triangle method],” she starts. “Like, I know he fell in love in that moment.”

Her viral video has since racked up over 10 million views.

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Others have since posted clips explaining the technique, sharing how it worked for them, and showing how it has been used in pop culture.

Does The Triangle Method Work?

Who’s to say? Well, some on TikTok say “absolutely”. Though, we can bet they’re a little louder than anybody going “yeah, I tried this and got stonewalled.”

Psychology Today points out that the method is “more gimmick than gamechanger”, as success in dating has and will always come down to being yourself. Further to that point, perhaps any aversion to asking for a kiss is simply a widespread discomfort with talking about sex – a problem of consent that advocates have been desperately trying to correct.

So, if you want a kiss, perhaps try a combo of triangle method and “hey, I’d really like to kiss you”.

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