Reading body language

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Do you know how to read body language?

We probably know the basics. If I am talking to a woman, and she looks back after talking to me, then she MIGHT like me. If she is with a group of friends, and she kind of moves away from them and gets closer to me, she might like me.

If someone looks at his/her watch while talking to me, or rolls his eyes, I might be boring him/her.

If someone leans forward while sitting on a chair, or is bobbing his leg up and down, he is definitely nervous.

those sound like the bread and butter ones that are good to know well. of course, there are hundreds of other "phrases" of body language that would make one's life immeasurably better if they also were well-understood- the handiest of these are the ones indicating deception- the lions' share of such units of dishonest body language must be interpreted from incongruities in physical expression, i.e., when one part of the body does something inconsistent to what another part of the body is doing, like a person saying "no" but nodding the head at the same time, or a person making an affirmative statement but turning away subtly or covering the mouth simultaneously. it must also be mentioned, that sociopaths have the body language thing down pat, they can play their bodies like a violin, and are very good at seamlessly using the whole repertoire of body language to be deceptive.

After trying to learn it my whole life, I think it's time for me to accept the fact that body language will always be foreign to me.

To be honest, I couldn't really tell you whether I'm good with reading body language or not. I seem to know body language well, by intuition. Often when you know things from intuition you just take it for granted and do it so automatically that when you actually stop and think about it, you wouldn't know what it is even. I seem to notice the things I find difficult, more than the things I do automatically, so my body language skills must be average.
But often I see NTs misinterpreting body language too. At lunchtime at work two of the workers there were sitting at a table eating their lunch, and one was reading a newspaper. I could tell she was getting absorbed into her newspaper and didn't want to be disturbed, but the other person kept on asking her random questions and talking, as though she didn't seem to see that this person was trying to read the newspaper. She kept just saying, ''uh-huh'' and ''mm'', as though she was getting a bit fed up of this person who was yapping away to her. Even I could see that the person was trying to read the newspaper and the other person didn't seem to notice that she wanted to read the newspaper.

I know I am horrible at it. It's been pointed out to me and people act like mind readers so it must be the body language they are reading. I used to think I could read it so I can maybe read some or simple ones like if I put my hand on you and you pull away, I know you don't want to be touched. It's been other people like my parents who can't seem to read that so I would eventually have to spell it out to them and they still couldn't learn eventually what that body language means. Who's the aspie now?

And I also know lack of eye contact means they aren't interested in you (comes to dating and romance or meeting men or women) or that they are lying or they don't like you or are just shy. But this is just hard for me to see this when it happens while I know the cues but why do I have the hard time picking up on it.

But I know when you are talking about something and the person isn't looking at you nor asking you any questions nor initiation the conversation, they are bored and not interested so time to stop and talk about something else. You just need to look at them every few minutes to make sure they are looking at you. Eye contact can also mean they are talking to you. When I hear someone talking, I always turn my head and look to see who the person is talking to and if she isn't looking at me, I assume she isn't speaking to me so I ignore her. It saves me the embarrassment of answering someone and then it turns out they weren't even speaking to me.

Rolling eyes, I know that indicates boredom or that you said something stupid but I still can't tell the difference.

If someone looks at their watch a lot, it means they need to be somewhere at a certain time.

When a person paces, they are nervous.

If someone is reading a book or listening to music or reading something and you are speaking to them and they aren't responding much, they are probably not really listening. Same as if they are talking to someone and you start talking to them but they don't ever respond to you, they are ignoring you and not listening.

If you ask someone a question and they don't answer and if they ignore it more than three times, they are probably ignoring you so do not keep asking or else they might just snap at you. It's different with friends and family though but not with people at work or bosses or strangers or acquaintances. I also knew this on my own too.


I learned all this by reading and being told.

I can pick up a few things, here and there. I'm still learning how to 'read' people though.

I still miss a lot during a conversation, even body language I intellectually know I might not process correctly or at all when talking to someone.

Don't think I have trouble reading body language from other people. I probably read too much into body language sometimes and take things too personally.

It's more about having control of my own body language. I'm told I look deep in thought a lot of the time and can appear unresponsive even when I am listening. I suppose the deeply focused thinking part of me tends to override the part that tells me I need to make myself more animated for the sake of communication.

i have been told i am eerily without body language, that only my mouth moves when i talk and when i listen i just stand motionless.