My Support Forums - View Single Post

LovelaceF · Mar 29, 2013, 08:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr. Venomous

Hmm…I've talked about this enough times to know that everyone else will disagree with me, which is fine, but I don't agree with the body language thing.

People don't 'read' body language, they make assumptions based on what they see, and those assumptions can be wildly inaccurate. In fact, I don't think they have enough accuracy in them to warrant consideration, but, again, this is all my opinion. People have told me that I come off as angry or unhappy because I don't smile or laugh much, but that's not reading me, it's an assumption about me. Just because I don't express myself with lots of smiles and laughter doesn't mean I am angry, and that's why I hate it when people buy me stuff, because they expect this excited happy response and I can't do that. It doesn't mean anything about what I am feeling. Just means I don't express myself the same way.

You can't possibly tell if someone is confident, shy, wary, or envious from looking at them; it's all assumptions. Someone could be having a bad day, could be tired, could have difficulties expressing themselves, a lot of reasons.

Again, others will disagree, and that's fine, but this is how I see things. Instead of always making judgements I think it would be better if people were more open and talked to each other.

Fortunately, I find that older folks don't seem to have this issue, and that's why most of my 'friends' are in their 50s and older. None of them are remotely concerned about 'body language' and whether someone is confident or not. I would imagine their response to something like that would be, "Welcome to being a human," that there are lots of folks with low confidence and mental health issues and that this shouldn't be the defining factor to be around someone. Older folks are so much easier to be around and talk to!

I find it to be true that people judge others based on facial expressions and body language. They seem to be able to do it within a split second, too. If I'm grumpy, I'm sure it shows. The thing is, though, that I don't mistreat people when I'm in a bad mood. I just withdraw from them. I think there is some sort of "bat signal" that one sends out that we want to be left alone. Unfortunately, certain people seem to give off the signal at the wrong time, unintentionally, when they don't actually want to be alone. Being human is tough sometimes!