Recently I read a couple of body language books. The reason I read two was not that after enjoying the first one, I was desperate to quench my thirst of more body language interpretation, rather that the first one was awful, and I hoped the second one would be better. It wasn’t.
No one can be blamed for being enticed into one of these promising manuals. After all, the claims they make on the covers and blurbs are extraordinary.
“How you can tell someone is lying, just by watching the movement of their elbows”
“How to tell if someone is angry, simply by looking at their face”
and of course the mega-enticement:
“How to tell if a girl is interested in you”
This is the big hook for the introverted and the shy, the promise that you can tell if a girl will like you without having to go through all those horrible but unnecessary stages like going up and talking to her.
The problem is that these books just don’t follow through of their promises, largely down to one basic problem: ambiguity.
The first thing a book like this will tell you is that there is nothing definitely you can get from any piece of body language. Sure, it’s a clue, but it can be a clue to many different, often contradictory things. They’ll always give you example of CIA interrogators or University Professors who would appear to be the real-life incarnation of Sherlock Holmes, but in actual fact their claims of body-reading perfection seem just as fictionalised. They certainly are if the training they’ve had has come from these books.
Here’s an example of the problem of ambiguity, based on the “How to tell if a girl is interested in you” promise. You’ll see the problem.
“If a girl is smiling, it means that she is comfortable with herself and therefore available. In this circumstance it would be appropriate to go up and talk to the girl. However, the girl may be smiling because, rather than being available, she is happy. In this circumstance, it would be inappropriate to approach her, as this will make her sad.
Which brings us on to…
If a girl is sad, it means that she is unhappy that no one has come up and tried to talk to her. This means that she would be available, and it is therefore appropriate to go up and talk to her. However, she may also be sad because she misses her boyfriend. In this case, it would be inappropriate to approach her, as this may make her cry.”
As you can see, no help at all.
