Okay, here’s a few tips on body language that I think everybody just has to know.

This is very condensed, just to check your interest level. Look for body language books if you find what I present here interesting/useful.

Liar liar

A person’s most likely lying if he/she does any of the following while speaking:

• lightly brushes against his/her nose
• rubs ear
• rubs eye
• covers mouth (“The Mouth Guard”), sometimes disguised as a cough

If you’re the person speaking instead, and the listener does any of the actions, then the person listening thinks you’re lying! To remember these tell-tale signs, remember the three wise monkeys who “see no evil”, “hear no evil”, and “speak no evil”.

If the person thinks you know he/she is lying, these are some tell-tale signs:

• he/she scratches neck
• pulls collar away from neck

Body language for love!

When a man is interested in a woman, the number one thing that he would do would be to pull up his socks!

When a woman is interested in a man, the number one thing that she would do is dangle her sandal/slipper while looking at/talking to him (while her legs are crossed).

Came across these in an episode of “Women are from Venus, Men are from Mars”. I don’t like the show, but the guest speaker was a person specialising in body-language, and I just lurve body language!

About the guy bit. As a guy I never pull up my socks, or at least I never remembered pulling up my socks before. But it is the number one tell-tale sign.

I remembered a few more of the women bits though. A woman will also do the following if she’s interested:

• moisten lips by licking lips with tongue
• twirl tips of her hair
• sit cross-legged while speaking to her man in a way that the leg further away from his acts like a shield against everyone else in the area
• uncrosses and re-crosses her legs in front of her man (a la Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct)

Interested yet? You should be! Remember, body language is rumoured to be over 60% of the message, while verbal language only accounts for 40%!

My favourite

This is also one of my favourites, if not my favourite. The very, very obvious defensive arm-crossing stance. It’s my favourite because it’s so easy to spot! I didn’t even need to try to see how someone slowly grew from open (arms by side) to defensive (arms crossed with look of annoyance on face).

Recommended Reading (lots of pictures!): Body Language by Allan Pease
And as a bonus for those who read this post till the end, here’s a link to a great site showing quite a bit of body language pictures!

Categories: Misc

Donn Lee

I love to read and write. Professionally, data science, technology, and sales ops are my thing. In my non-professional life, I aspire quite simply to be a good person, and encourage others to do the same. For those who care, I test as INFJ in the MBTI.