Improving my non-verbal senses

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I feel like I can use a little improvement in this department to be more fluid in social skills. You see, I logically know that social skills learning resources teach about what the cues are, but when I have said I wanted to practice it in face-to-face interactions, the moment I am in an actual interaction I forget that I am supposed to try exercising attention of my non-verbals, I only focus on the verbal part. I believe improving in this department would help my quality of life and relationships.

What is your experience and advice?

I’m going to guess that social skills learning resource probably makes it more complicated than it needs to be, as well as more intellectual.

One thing I’d recommend is re-watching parts of some of your favorite movies and/or your favorite scenes with the sound turned all the way down. That way, you can watch facial expressions.

And I’ve kind of built up a library of short phrases which are generally helpful — I hope! — without over doing this. Again, I hope.

Experiment a little with the movie trick.

intense course in acting/dramatic theory would have been something that would have benefited me, but i prolly would have taken issue with the cultural conceits of such courses.

Maybe try communicating with people who don't speak your language(s). BTW, the first night I spent in Hollywood, my friend's roommate kept me up for hours, trying to explain who he was based on the car he used to drive. I wasn't getting it.

Whenever possible, read the screenplay of a movie when you're watching it.

The director's cues will tell you the type of look the characters are supposed to have on their face, what they're doing with their body language, how they're moving, and what they're thinking.

It will even tell you when they're trying to fake their emotion or how that looks.