The Flirtatious Waiter

March 11, 2008 — -- It appeared to be the start of a perfect evening as Ian and Jen, married for 11 years, entered a restaurant. Ian was expecting to have a romantic night out on the town, but Jen was expecting something different.

What Ian didn't know was that he was part of an ABC News hidden camera experiment. Previous experiments showed what happened when cute waitresses, actors hired by ABC, put the moves on three men out with their significant others.

This time, ABC News turned the tables on the men to find out how they would react if a hunky waiter flirted with their girlfriends or wives.

Jen and Ian were the first test couple.

The suave waiter named Jake began by pointing to Jen's necklace and telling her it was beautiful.

In general, we expected the men to take longer to notice the flirtation -- but Ian's reaction was almost instantaneous and he pondered aloud, "Is that guy hitting on my wife?"

Just to make sure Ian knew it, Jake fawned over Jen. He told her to enjoy her wine, said the wine mirrored her necklace and told her that he'd be back.

Noticing that Jake wasn't paying any attention to him, Ian commented that he felt like he was part of a social experiment. Jen, who was in on the prank, agreed the situation was weird.

At one point Ian said he felt like John Quinones was going to pop out and say: "Hey! How do you feel … when you were given no attention?"

But Jake continued to pay lots of attention to Ian's wife. He told her that he thought she looked like Deborah Winger and that her eyes were radiant.

She thanked him.

Jake told Ian and Jen that they were a good couple and that he'd be back with their entrees.

Jen giggled. Ian took a big gulp of wine and told her Jake was fawning over her. At this point, Ian had taken off his wedding ring and was twirling it around in his hands.

We asked Donna Barnes, a life and relationship coach why he had chosen to remove his ring. "You know, that's a really very interesting body language," she said. "That ring came off as soon as he started feeling uncomfortable with her possibly flirting with some other man. Almost like, you know, 'geez, did I make a bad decision here?'"