“That’s why you have to look elsewhere. Look at the body! People never subconsciously control where their feet are pointed. If they are truly engaged in the conversation with you, they will face you with their body. They will lean in and protect the conversation with their arms, as if wrapping the two of you up in a box of privacy. But if their body is ‘bladed’—that is, facing slightly to the left or right— that could signify a standoffish cockiness, sure; but it mostly signifies disinterest or discomfort.
“Watch the feet most of all. The feet will always point to where they want to be. If the feet point towards a doorway, or towards another group of people, this tells you that they aren’t enjoying the conversation.”
Lena watched the woman and saw that her body language was well-trained. She had her elbows resting on the table, and her forearms splayed slightly outwards, as if to focus the conversation between the two while appearing ‘open’. Occasionally, she would box the two in, by touching her face repeatedly. This also served to accentuate her arms and shoulders, something that oddly made the man slouch more. Lena knew this was a sign of self-consciousness. When people felt out of control or poorly about a situation, they would cross their arms or slouch in order to take up less space.
His companion picked up on this and straightened up, further dominating the situation. She wiggled her shoulders (as if to suggest a brief chill), which also served to elongate her torso. The man responded by awkwardly closing his legs, a subconscious sign of submission to protect his sensitive parts from attack. Lena knew this man was aroused, and for some reason he really didn’t enjoy that fact.
Obviously, his female companion wasn’t enjoying the interaction in the slightest. Her legs were tightly closed under the table, and her feet pointed towards the exit. No doubt this was nothing but work for her. Yet, as the man wrapped an ankle around the leg of a chair, as if to fasten himself to something solid, Lena knew this man was intimidated by the woman. Perhaps she would get all the information she wanted from him without ever having to visit his room.
Another ‘couple’ sat talking in a darkly lit alcove, and boy, did these two make a pair. The man was wide open, with his forearms and legs splayed to either side of the table. He spoke loudly, with words that communicated his inherent import. Yet his voice was in an upper register, instead of a deeper one, suggesting how important the man truly felt. He used wide gestures with his hands and forearms, but locked his upper arms in place (closing himself off), with weak, floppy fingers (that suggested a non-resolute character—sort of like a bad handshake), and hip-fidgeting (which told the real story of how comfortable he was).
The woman, smiling wide and nodding too much at what he was saying, responded by clenching her lower jaw and squeezing her fists.
“Look at the jaw.” Patrick had told her, “If you see the sides of the face and temple flexing, that signifies stress, and/or the desire to either leave the conversation or get a word in edgewise.” He would go on to describe how adults carried most of their stress in their lower jaw. Even when they attempted to relax the jaw, they almost always failed to relax the sides of the upper just behind the cheeks.
“Go ahead. Relax your upper jaw.” Patrick had said, laughing, when she didn’t believe him.
Lena did. A pressure she didn’t know she had was released on her gums and molars. Yet, it brought her awareness to the knotty stiffness behind her cheeks. It didn’t hurt, per se, but no matter how hard she tried to release it, it wouldn’t go away. And the realization of how much stress she was storing immediately made her clench her teeth again the second she stopped thinking about it.
“See?” her young Stasi officer laughed.
Lena had come to hate those lessons. Not that they weren’t interesting—they were actually fascinating—but now, realizing that entire humans (including ones that she had known forever) could be reduced to a few movements and gestures caused her to despise the transparency of it all. Suddenly, she realized that she hated everyone. Patrick, of course, did nothing to dissuade her from this line of thinking.
“Everyone’s a liar.” he had told her, plaintively, “Even if they don’t yet know it. You have to realize that people don’t say what they mean;they say what they want you to hear. When someone asks you how your day is going, what do you say?”
“Fine. How are you?”
“For someone who spent almost a month locked in a black cell, are you really fine?”
“No. But it’s…”
“…precisely what you are supposed to say.” Patrick interrupted her.
“But that’s not lying! It’s just…” she argued.
“…lying, Lena. It is not telling the truth. But who really tells the truth? No one actually wants to hear about your day. They merely want to establish rapport. They want to walk away feeling like they had a good interaction. So, when someone tells you something, consider that perhaps the words that they use aren’t the truth, but are instead devised to illicit emotions or impart subtext.
“If someone simply says, ‘fine’, maybe they aren’t fine. But maybe they also don’t want to talk. That is worth knowing, because everyone is dying to talk to someone. We’re a social species, Lena. If someone is blowing you off with a typical social interaction, it’s either because they don’t want to talk—which is a lie, because everyone wants to talk to someone—or because they don’t want to talk to you.
“Now, if someone does talk about their day, maybe they are desperately lonely. If someone talks about their new boat, they could be trying to impress you. But they might also be picturing themselves sailing away from all of this. The conversation is a lie. They don’t care about you; they don’t even care about the boat. All they care about is what the boat symbolizes: freedom. And if the boat symbolizes freedom, then what—and this is the only question to ask—is so terrible in their lives that they fantasize about escaping it?”
Reflecting on that conversation, she looked back at the man talking to the woman about his stupid boat. Her torso had elongated even further, and now her hands were crossed, blocking him off, symbolizing how little she was enjoying his story. He had reached over to place a hand over hers, and she allowed it, but his stifled body language now told a clear story about both him and his stupid boat—he knew what she was after, and he was going to let her have it. As much as he might want to keep his job or stay in good standings with his country, he wanted more still to escape from his world for a night, and he was hoping she would be the means of travel. No doubt, some rough waters were ahead for him.
A sudden hush came over the room then. Lena turned her attention back to Lord Piggy, who had spilled even more wine on his suit. One of the serving staff, a very pretty young man with fine hair and perfect posture, had leaned over to wipe some of the wine off of Lord Piggy’s tie. Lena studied this interaction closely. The male server had been awkwardly laughing at the drunken jokes that the idiot was telling, but it was a particular type of awkward. It wasn’t the ‘I don’t want to be here’ type; but an almost caring, ‘feeling-genuinely-sorry-for-this’-type of laugh.