Look around. Can you hear all that's being said? Can you see all that's being said? No! No one has the right to say that there's no one around in the immediate vicinity. Well, if that is the case, look at the man/woman in the mirror. Yup! That Brad Pitt/ Rachel McAdams, or whoever's handsome/gorgeous face it is that you see staring back at you. That's all that is needed. We, each one of us are part of a reflection of humanity as a whole. A small part indeed, but nevertheless.
Don't just see. Observe. I am probably on the brink of sounding like Sherlock Holmes. Not that I mind doing so. But really, look around. We are in a sea of information. Not the type one can "Google". This information that drowns us in itself stems from our mere bodily existence.
Walk into any setting with people in it. There will be a subtle change in the way people behave upon your entrance. Not just upon "your" entrance. It's true for just about anyone and everyone. Unless someone in the setting has their back to you, 99% of the people will glance at you. Small shifts in the direction of people's feet in your direction, a small opening up of the frontal regions of their torsos, few craning necks. It all happens without the knowledge of neither you nor the people already in the setting. That's just about the ones who don't have their back to you. The ones who do have their backs to you, well, they, in all probability will turn around to look who just entered the scene. They have eyes behind their heads. Or that they see through the eyes of others. That is unless of course they are having a conversation deep enough that they can completely consider the effort of turning around to look at you a complete waste of their energies. Either that, or they have autism. Nothing personal.
This subtle process of changes that occur are all vestiges of our ancestors. For they had two purposes. Well, primarily two of them.
#1- Self preservation- A self explanatory term, that I shall define further anyway.
The act of protecting themselves from predators, so that our ancestors could survive long enough to give #2 a chance, that being.....
#2- Mating- Paving the path for their future generations... One word? Sex. Need anyone say more?
Strange as it sounds, no matter how much we vilify #1 & #2, more so #2, it's what our ancestors, and consequently we were and are programmed to do. Yes, surely our ancestors had to take a dump, piss around, mingle in groups as part of their survival mechanism. But you see, all of that is pretty much secondary.
Here's the deal. The small changes I mentioned earlier, upon a person entering a social setting is all a result of an evolutionary development. Peripheral vision. The part of our vision that we see, and yet don't consciously register. It all goes via the subconscious wiring of the brain. It's the part of our intelligence that warns us of a potential danger in our surroundings. And it's not just limited to sight.
Coming back to the small changes mentioned above, it is to verify if the incoming subject is a potential threat, or a potential mate. Well, that's all that matters at the end of the day, even today, to be honest.
If the person incoming is of the opposite gender, (read *potential mate*), the persons preen their appearances to appear their best, so as to be the leading contingent in the mate selection process. This is regardless of the initial impressions of the incoming subject. Because, the moment the new person "looks" less than appealing, the already present person simply goes back to talking with his fellows. The subtle opening of the body is purely to put oneself more on display for the incoming subject, to make oneself look as big as possible.
By the way, each intention is applicable to both a potential mate and a potential foe. That is except for the preening of the appearance, of course. The opening of the body language in front of a potential threat is again to look as possibly big as one can, to size up oneself in front of a potential threat. You see, bigger, louder, and more seemingly intimidating the animal looks, the less it is going to be attacked.
The next thing is eye-contact. There's something revelatory about this subject that I realized rather lately. Well, when it comes to a member of the opposite sex, eye-contact is a sub-conscious invitation/ sign of interest. I was frankly psyched to know this, for quite the obvious reasons. Okay, now I run a serious risk. If a lady, any lady for that matter, reads this piece, and then the two of us have a chance encounter of the third kind, whatever that means, the lady, for all I know, wouldn't meet me in the eye. That's a risk I'll have to take, because the risk goes both ways. If the lady happens to be interested, she'll know exactly what to do. All said and done, these thing are not exactly completely in our control. Such is our brain chemistry.
About eye-contact, coming to the part when you run into a potential threat, this is where things get a "little" dicey. Prolonged eye contact is also an invitation to a face-off. There's something so enticing about the sheer aggression that eye-contact can trigger. The sudden spike in blood pressure, the feeling of each of your muscles tensing to make you feel stronger, the raising of the hair, the whole situation almost feels like suiting up for war. By the way, the hair-raising was supposedly to make furry animals look bigger in front of predators. So if you happen to be furry, like I am(haha... I know that was unnecessary information), good for you, if you're planning to get into a fight.
Body language is not just limited to situations mentioned above. It is like a deep undercurrent that flows completely undetected. I guess undercurrents, by their implicit meaning are undetected. Oh! Never mind the nittie-gritties.
For instance, when someone raises both their eyebrows upon seeing you, it is a tacit sign of he/she being harmless in any manner under the immediate circumstances. I do not know the exact origin of this gesture. But it lies somewhere deeply entrenched in primate behavior. In monkeys, this behavior is associated with submission. The wide smile that we so happily give, that in some cases is truly heart-melting, is also a submissive gesture among primates. The term "submissive" here could be greatly misconstrued, to the point that none of my friends shall ever smile back at me, let alone the ladies who have the misfortune of reading this particular section. But here's hoping that the universe shall allow the greater intelligence and sense of judgment in these creatures to prevail.
Now before I ensure that no one ever looks at me with loving eyes, let alone smile at me, I shall end this post. But before that, one last thing. Understanding the body's language, given how deeply rooted it is in our psyche, our DNA, if one may, doesn't just enable our understanding of how human interaction works. It allows us to leverage our own psychology, and potentially that of another person's to create a win-win situation. This is despite that our physical person-to-person communications are so rampantly reducing in both quantity and quality. The knowledge still remains useful.
Allow me to leave with a simple example.
A person you're talking to, standing in front of you,with his/her arms crossed will be least receptive to any idea you're presenting. The crossed-arms position is again, a defensive stance, intended to protect one from a potential attack, physical/mental of any kind. One needs to figure a way out to open up this person's body, remove the crossed arms from the person's front, in order to open his/her mind to what you're trying to say. Sometimes, that might prove to be difficult. But at times, all it might take is for you to tell the person to uncross his/her arms, in the most politest way possible.
Crap! I so hope no one reads this post. I'm sure the post's length shall serve as a sufficient deterrent.
Hahahahahahaha!
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