The Wake

It’s 8:15 a.m. and the only thing that makes waking up worth it at this hour is that one guy or girl who sits next to you in class. As you talk to him, his face is pointed towards you, but his body is facing away. Or, as you casually joke about how nerdy the professor looks today, she stares down at her notes rather than you and leans back in her chair as far as she can. What does this all mean??

As a new school year begins, students will meet new people, create new relationships, and drunkenly fornicate with random strangers after doing six keg stands. Last year, there were 28,703 undergrads attending our fine institution, according to University statistics. With a school that large, it’s unlikely to see the same person more than a few times.

Concentrating on their body language could help students create more lasting relationships score a last-minute desperate hook-up, or at least a booty call for the future.

The Numbers Lie
There is this common rule of thumb that about 93 percent of communication is non-verbal. Lately, we have begun to notice this type of communication more and more in our every day lives. We’re no longer simply analyzing stats from a 1970s study in our Psych 1001 classes. The world has changed since then.

Business consultant Ian Brodie writes in an essay, “Debunking the Myths of Non-Verbal Communication,” that the study focused on specific areas of communication, not communicating in general. He goes on to say that there is no real “percentage” of communication that is non-verbal.

Dr. Susanne Jones, a communications studies professor who specializes in non-verbal communication
at the University of Minnesota, agrees and disagrees. She says that 93 percent is too high, but the standard that the communication studies community uses is about 65-75 percent.

“Numbers are numbers so who the hell cares,” Jones says. “The point is the majority of the entire human interaction spectrum is taken up by nonverbal exchanges, which is logical. Verbal communication only has one channel and that’s the mouth. Nonverbal communication is 50,000 different channels and they all work together.”

What Does It All Mean?
Larry Rodrigues was an electronic communications professor at a California community college for 27 years and now is the director of the EastWest Institute for Self-Understanding, which he founded in 1980. He holds a Master of Science in education from the University of Southern California, but more
recently he has gone into a less traditional science - hand analysis - and has written two books on the subject.

Even with his unorthodox new interest, his website, learnbodylanguage.com, is pretty interesting. He has dumbed down his scientific communications research to be easily digested by the uneducated heathens that surf the interweb. Two interesting sections are called “Five Ways Males Flirt” and “Five Ways Females Flirt,” which describe what people should look for to tell if someone is interested in them.

Dr. Jones, however, says that concentrating on only one nonverbal cue is a huge mistake. She gives the example of trying to tell if someone is lying. Usually, we assume that if someone is not making eye contact or has shifty eyes, they must be lying, which is a terrible way to read a liar, Jones says.

“All nonverbal cues are multifunctional,” Jones says. “Me touching your shoulder can have 50,000 million meanings depending on the context and all kinds of nonverbal communication cues that happen at the same time.” (She really did touch my shoulder.)

Men are from Mars and so are Women
What you may find surprising is that men and women do not differ extensively in how they communicate nonverbally. Jones says that in all behavioral research, the sex differences are small, and they vary by only about 10 to 15 percent. We think we are so different because interpersonal relationships dominate our lives, which she says causes us to speculate about the other sex; we all know this can cause a lot of problems.

“It will always be like that,” Jones says. “That’s why all the self-help literature out there is so damaging, because they perpetuate our stereotypical thinking of how women are and how men are.”

The one major difference, Jones says, is that women are, for the most part, better at receiving and sending nonverbal cues than men. On the flip side, she also says that women are worse at reading negative emotions compared to men. A speculation is that women are socialized to withhold showing
their anger.

There are a couple of other speculations for why women can read everyone’s poker faces. One evolutionary approach is that women give birth and have to read the facial expressions of an infant that cannot speak, Jones says. Another is that women are socialized to express emotions, unlike men who are pussies if they shed a tear.

Let’s Get It On
Since men and women are so alike, it should not come as a surprise that we are attracted to the same nonverbal cues. Jones lists three important cues people should look for to tell if someone is interested in doing the no-pants-dance: 1) attention 2) closeness 3) prolonged touch. People will also seek out the person they are interested in and talk to them more.

When one first spots that hottie across the room, these cues may come in a series. First, Jones says, attention and eye contact is the key thing; next is how their body is facing. Depending on how they are facing will be a cue if they are available and interested. These two lovebirds will try to separate
themselves from the groups they were a part of to show they are single.

They will get close and begin to talk and sometimes engage in “blocking cues” like putting their hand on their head and sticking their elbow out or placing their head on both hands and moving closer to block others from distracting their future mate or soon to be defendant in a sexual assault trial.

After that, however, it is up to one’s intuition to make the big move. There are subtle cues one might pick up on that both Jones and Rodrigues give, but he puts more emphasis on them than she does. The most common cue, according to Rodrigues’ site, is preening.

Tossing the hair, stroking it, petting it or anything that moves hair away from the face and shoulders to expose bare skin is a good sign, according to the site. Also drawing attention to the mouth, like licking her lips or rubbing an ice cube around them and then sucking on it is also a plus. Crossing and uncrossing of the legs and adjusting loose clothing are also listed because it draws attention to her body.

Women engage in preening more than men, Jones says. Men try to focus on their posture, straighten their appearance subtly and show off their muscle tone. Like most people probably already know, this all could happen in 10 minutes or a couple of years if the future mate is a prude.

The Real World
Now it’s my turn to try out what I’ve learned and see if it helps me at all. I have been interested in a girl in one of my classes; I won’t say which class, though, so I can to give myself some anonymity. On most days, I can’t tell if we’re flirting or if I’m just acting like an idiot and she’s laughing at me. I usually never look for nonverbal cues, which is probably why I’m in this situation to being with.

Dr. Jones told me something that I found a little creepy. She says that the best way to pick up on someone’s interest in you is to bring them to a casual spot, and bring a friend to watch so they can spot subtleties that you might not see because you are too preoccupied on how you look or are acting.

I’m not quite into the ménage à trois territory yet, so I tried to wing it and see if I could cue in to this shorty myself. After class, we went to The Tea Garden while we waited for our buses. One thing that makes me think she’s interested is that I can make her laugh. Of course, that never came up in my discussion with Dr. Jones, so that’s pretty useless.

I noticed she would laugh, move her chair closer in sometimes or move it back, but I never noticed any preening or taking a banana and swallowing it whole. She told me a funny anecdote about one of her family members and about how her brother made a fool of himself with his fake British accent in London.

This may sound corny, but I realized something later: I was actually listening to what she was saying!! Honestly, I couldn’t really concentrate on what she was doing. Paramore and other crappy pop-punk blared while we talked about London, which is where I’m studying abroad in the spring, so the cues were whizzing past me.

This small experiment, to me, proves Dr. Jones is right; nonverbal communication is fucking complicated. So much goes on when you’re talking to someone, it’s crazy that people communicate using movement and can read what others are saying. Why can’t people just use their mouths and say what’s on their goddamn mind? I guess nonverbal communication is something that makes us human.