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Ignoring specific cues given off by the opposite sex
is a sure way to embarrassment. Reading women incorrectly is fairly
easy if you do not catalogue all cues they give off. Some
researchers put the level of nonverbal communication as high as 80 percent
of all communication. More reasonably it could be at around 50-65
percent. That's exactly what Mehrabian discovered in his
communication study. He found that only 7 percent of communication
comes from spoken words, 38 percent is from the tone of the voice, and 55
percent comes from body language. Thus, if you aren't conscious of
what is happening nonverbally, you are missing out on the vast majority of
what is going on during a typical conversation. No doubt, you could
easily get away without the conscious ability to read others' body
language, however, why ignore such a powerful tool when it is so easy to
master?
Throughout the book, I realize that I speak
mainly in terms of what I find useful as a man with respect to reading
women, but that is only because I show my true bias. The tools
contained within, however, are still very useful and practical for
women. By knowing the meanings of the cues, women can better control
the outcomes of specific situations. If, for example, a woman really
enjoys the company of a particular man and wants to push the relationship
forward, she should know the proper signals by which to make this
happen. On the other hand, if a woman is disinterested or finds
herself in a situation where an advance is unwanted, she will be armed
with the knowledge of what cues to deliver to thwart the advance. A
woman who is perhaps careless with her gestures, may give off particularly
confusing cues to a man. A confused man is never a good thing!
If he is interested in you, then more often than not, he will continue to
pursue. With the knowledge of nonverbal communication, women can
give specific and accurate cues to others.
Another useful way to appreciate how body
language works and to make it appear more logical in our minds is to
picture specific body language poses as they would appear if the person
were nude. This is especially important since the cues have evolved under
these circumstances. For example, take legs crossed versus uncrossed. How
would legs spread wide open appear on a woman? How about on a man? What
about a person with their legs uncrossed with their hands up behind their
head slouched down in a chair? This would most certainly come across as a
dominant and an in-your-face kind of posture. Now imagine this very
same posture coming from an arrogant boss if he was completely nude with
his genitals fully exposed! While our clothing masks some of the
offensiveness of these postures, the meaning is still relevant.
A bit of caution is in order here. Keep the
information in this book to yourself. The first rule of body language is:
don't talk about body language! This type of thing is better left unsaid.
I made the mistake of telling a bunch of intoxicated people that I was
doing some reading on body language. Everyone immediately stopped talking
and they sat in silence doing nothing. They knew that I could read
them but they did not want to be read. They wanted to keep their thoughts
and emotions to themselves.
And finally, reading body language is not
magic, it's science. It's not exact, but it is pretty close. It is very
likely the best tool that exists for accurately reading people, even more
accurate than outright asking them their thoughts. It is well known that
people tend to lie. We lie for various reasons, be it to avoid
offending someone, to avoid the hurt of rejection, or simply because we
have not yet brought our true feelings to consciousness. I hope you have
as much fun reading this book as I have had writing it and I do hope you
will tell your friends goods things about the sections to follow and help
The Body Language Project grow so that we can bring you future
publications and resources! We welcome any positive or negative
experiences you've had with body language as a result of the information
contained in this book, so feel free to send us an e-mail anytime!
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