Body Language

I had to interview someone the other day. Not job interview, but an interview for an assignment at Uni. The interview was with a published author here in Sydney. The book he wrote was a memoir of being out of work at a certain age and over weight. A great book, I think, and I really wanted to know what he’s been doing with himself over the last couple of year since returning to work and being published.

Anyway…one of the stories he wrote about was his childhood as a boarding school attendee for the age of five. I was a house mistress when I was twenty at the sort of school he writes about. So…the conversation had been going fine, he was waving his arms about in an extravagant way, laughing and generally being very open and frank.

So I asked him how he felt about his school days and if he would consider doing the same with his children (it was I confess a little unfair, I figured he wasn’t quite as open about this particular subject in his book as he liked to think he was). His arms went to his sides and his knee peeked appeared about the table top, as he spoke. A minute more and his arms were folded across his chest and his knee was higher. A couple more minutes and his hands were folded up and under his armpits; his knee was touching his elbow. He continued to speak about those days.

I changed the subject. It was a few minutes of talking about up and coming projects before he relaxed back to waving his arms around once again. We continued talking for another thirty minutes before my time was up and he had another appointment.

The body (and mind, really) is an amazing thing. When happy and comfortable it exposes itself openly but revealing the chest (the most venerable spot). When trying to make someone else comfortable it mirrors the other person (when out, you’ll take sips of your drink or bites of food at the same time as your companion), but when feeling threatened it can give your true feelings away so traitorously, in the guise of defending itself. Surely by showing a need to close itself off like that would show a weakness to be picked at until the barriers fell away? Even better, you don’t know you’re doing these things…unless of course there are pointed out to you.

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