obsessively observing

I had been surfing the internet a few weeks ago and ran across an article about the non-verbal communication of dating. Apparently, there’s quite a bit of body language that I’ve been missing. And with very little results in the dating department lately, I figured that a more scientific approach was just what I needed.

I’ve always been pretty observant, I reasoned. I’m pretty good at spotting toupees and, as a kid, I was always finding nickels and dimes on the sidewalk. Now I would just have to use my powers to improve my dating situation. I studied up, committing to memory all those little subconscious behaviors that we send out when we’re interested in somebody.

I was well prepared. And when I found out that a friend of a friend had a friend that wanted to meet somebody, I agreed to a blind date.

Before we had even sat down to order dinner, I was already on the lookout. One tell-tale sign, I had learned, was to notice what direction your date’s feet were pointed in…a slightly pigeon-toed position indicated that they were interested. Why this would be, I had no idea, but who was I to question the experts?

I discretely dropped my napkin several times to get a better look at my date’s feet. No pigeon-toes. Though, at one point in the evening, her right foot was slightly turned in toward her left. Did this indicate a slight attraction, I wondered? Perhaps the left side of her brain was in argument with the right over whether or not she was interested in me. By studying her feet, however, I learned nothing…though, considering the number of times I dropped my napkin on the floor, I probably looked incredibly clumsy.

More observation was needed, and I had also read that, when interested, your date will unconsciously touch and play with her hair. So when the foot thing turned up empty, my attention turned toward her head…but she didn’t make any hair touching movements at all. Though, there was a point before our appetizers came when she did begin stroking her hair…but I think that this was more because I had accidentally squirted some lemon juice on her. That’s the danger of ordering iced tea on a date, I suppose.

The article had also mentioned that when your date finds you attractive they blink more often. But how do you tell if someone you never met is blinking more than they normally do? She didn’t seem to be engaging in any excessive blinking, and I had no blink baseline to compare it with. By the end of the evening, I sadly had to admit that all of my observing revealed nothing.

We made our way out of the restaurant and, standing in the parking lot next to her blue Taurus, I figured it was time for a more direct approach. “I had a really nice time,” I told her, “and was wondering if you’d like to go out again sometime?”

“Sure,” she replied. “Give me a call this week.”

“I’ll talk to you soon,” I said. “Have a safe trip home, Lori.”

As I was driving home, I began dissecting the date…looking for all those little non-verbal behaviors that perhaps I had missed during the night. Did she touch my arm while she was speaking to me? How good was the eye contact? Did she spend more time smiling or more time with her arms folded across her chest?

And, as I sat at a red light, I realized that I had been so focused on trying to notice all these little signs, that I had let the more obvious things completely slip my mind.

Her name wasn’t Lori. It was Gina.