The Silent Language of Love

“It was love at first sight”
Many couples, young and old alike, will say this when they are asked about their first meeting. But what is it that attracts us so much during this first contact with the other person? If you ask those in love, you will often get answers such as:
“I liked the way she looked at me.”
“He just had something about him.”
“It just seemed right.”
What exactly clicked and why, what happens between boys and girls in a Western society is something many people are interested in. Who would not want to know what he/she could do to gain somebody’s love or attention?

Is it what we say?
Most of the time it is not the words that are spoken that make our hearts beat faster. For nearly all of us talking about our deeper feelings is often very hard, even more so at a very first meeting. But do not worry! Through our posture, facial expression, eyes we show more of our feelings and intentions than we realise. Words can even get in the way of the connection we already are making with our body language. This is why a noisy disco where you can hardly hear each other can be a perfect place for a first meeting. Our bodies do the talking for us!

It’s the Сombination
The first thing we notice from others is the way they look, walk, stand, move and talk. Books on body-language use words such as posture, distance, time, facial expression, eye contact, breathing and intonation to say the same thing. It is not one thing on its own but the combination that plays such an important role in the attraction to each other. You have to be congruent in the expression of yourself. Your Romeo or Juliet will notice you more when the whole of you speaks the language of love.

THE DANCE OF SEDUCTION:

Watch that belly!
A body slumped like a pudding is not attractive to anyone. Unconsciously a man will pull his tummy in and straighten his back when he wants to make an impression. A woman will do something similar. She will tighten her muscles and pull her shoulders backwards. To show your interest further and begin the dance of seduction, you might put your hands on your hips or put your thumbs behind your belt if you are a man. If you are a woman you may change the way you stand or lean with your hand against one hip. At this point in time there is still distance between each other. This distance usually stays for a while before we get closer and then we adjust our body-language to the new distance.

The Look of Love
If you are “making eyes” at someone, hold that look for a bit longer than you normally would but not too much longer. Look at the other, then look down or away and then look back again. This lets him or her know you are interested. When the other looks back at you, look a bit longer than the first time. If he or she is still keeping in contact, bingo! you are on your way. In the meantime we might adjust our clothes or our hair, or play with a glass or something in our hands. In this early connection, a look that lingers too long or a deliberate stare has the opposite effect, do not gawk! The exchange of looks between two lasts as long as is needed until one of the two takes the next step of the seduction dance.

With a Little Help of a Friend
A girl will often be in the company of a girlfriend when she meets someone to whom she is attracted or who is attracted to her. She may say to her friend: “He’s looking at me!” The girlfriend will then also look at the guy, first because she is curious and second to make sure her friend is not imagining things. If she likes him as well, things can get complicated but let us say she is just helping her friend. If she then looks at the guy in a friendly manner, it becomes easier for him to move a bit closer toward them. As he does that, he will have to say something. However, what he says is not the most important thing.
A lot of young men worry about a good ‘opening sentence’. More important than what he says, however, is how he says it. If you can be self-assured, with a calm voice and an open, friendly expression on your face, great. If that is difficult because you are shy or something, do the best you can as long as you make an effort to look friendly. When you speak, look her in the eye with a smile and do not forget to look briefly at the girlfriend as well. When she answers while giggling and looking at her girlfriend, quickly look down, then look at her body and back in her eyes again. Look from one eye into the other fast. She doesn’t exactly know why, but she knows for sure: ‘He is cute and he thinks I’m cute as well!’

Getting Closer
For a girl who wants to take the initiative, the next step of the seduction dance after that first look will be as diverse as there are girls. The situation will also have an influence as will the opinion of her girlfriend. Girls, you have the advantage that you have practised this since you were a small girl so follow your intuition and you will be right! As for the guys, most likely you will continue to talk while you turn your feet and shoulders more and more in her direction. Slowly he closes the distance, moving near her personal space. Nearly automatically you will begin to breathe at the same frequency as the girl and copy her way of speaking. Just hope she does not speak a language you do not know!
The girl will begin to take on a similar body-position and starts to focus her attention more toward the guy. Sorry girlfriend, but you know that soon you will be one too many! We are seeing true “love at first sight” in action here. As he continues to make small talk, he slowly turns towards her more and more. So much so that the girl and he nearly form a closed circle. At this point the girlfriend may leave or begin a conversation with someone else. This is the signal for the guy to get even closer to the girl – maybe as much as right into her personal space. If you do it relatively slowly you will be able to read her body-language and perhaps know intuitively what to do. If not, try reading this page a few times and practising a bit.

That First Touch
Guys please, do not begin to touch with your hands! Far too obvious. You will be a lot more appreciated if you learn to be more subtle. Touch her as “by accident”. With an elbow as you adjust your body-position closer to her, with your foot, or with the back of your hand as you reach to give her a glass or something. Touching a girl with your hands too early does not show much respect. You also may be in danger of receiving such a strong reaction from her that all your progress is lost. Remember, a guy has to prevent failure and always has to have a way out.
So with each touch, notice her reaction and if she pulls back, you can lean backwards again and end the contact without feeling like a total fool. If she approves the touch she will not pull back and that is the signal that you can make the next step of the seduction dance. This step is another small and subtle one. For instance, when the guy and the girl sit together he can “accidentally” touch her knees with his knees. Or, if at a bar, he can stretch his arm over the bar toward her. This way he can almost touch her with his hand. When they sit on a couch, he could put his arm on it, also without touching her. Guys, if she doesn’t move away, touch her clothes with your fingertips and gradually increase the pressure, so she can feel your touch. With all touching a general rule can be followed. If she does not pull away, you can move closer and increase the touching. It is also a good idea to keep on talking and you might say some nice things to each other as well!

The Magic of the First Kiss
If our girl still doesn’t resist him, looks at him with shining eyes and lets him know by her whole body-language that it is ok to continue, he can begin to draw her into his arms. Slowly he does it! Meanwhile look deeper into the eyes of each other. By now, both your pupils will be wide open and quickly go from the left to the right eye. Your breathing speeds up and the conversation slows down. You do not talk too much just because you are nervous and excited and do not pay much attention to what you both are saying. Many such moments have been spoiled by prattling on. Now at this point both girl and guy are sure that they will kiss each other, and so it is very exciting. Slowly their faces will come closer and they will shut their eyes before their lips touch.
Here we will leave our excited couple in love. They need a bit of privacy!
The dance of seduction and its different steps are a good example of the fact that it is not one single signal but the combination of all the body signals that make up the body-language and contribute to that first contact. Of course the details can be different. The girlfriend could have been absent, the first contact could have taken place in a park or at a sports club. Whatever the situation though, the body-language and the importance of it remains the same everywhere and in all situations.

Long-time Lovers
“We are not in that love-at-first-sight stage anymore, we now are loving each other in another way”. This is what a couple that has been together for years answers when asked about their love. They don’t walk hand in hand anymore but arm in arm. They don’t always sit on the couch together any more but also have their own favourite chair. Still, they say that they haven’t grown apart, on the contrary; they have drawn closer to one another.
Others confirm that: “Those two? They belong together!” We saw that new lovers mirror each others’ body-language. With the couple that has been together for years, it has become something that is second nature. They often walk the same way, look at people and things the same way. Watch this when you see people who have been together for a long time.

By Frank van Marwijk

How’s Your Personal Distance? – Watch this Space
Westerners visiting St. Petersburg usually experience culture shock when they first come to Russia and are jostled on the bus, crammed onto the metro, and leaned into when overlooking store counters.
They watch ordinary exchanges of conversation on the street and in shops that seem, by Western standards, to be angry shouting matches. People constantly appear to be trying to cut in front of them in lines. And getting store clerks to respond to Western signals that they want service is nearly impossible. The standard newcomers’ conclusion is that Russians are indescribably rude.
But next time you hear two sales clerks “arguing” look closely at their faces. Watch as they part from the “argument” and see if they are smiling. Usually they will be.
Most of what sounds and looks to foreigners like an argument between two Russians is only an ordinary exchange in an emphatic mode. What we read as anger is in fact often only the raised volume and close distance of a personal conversation.
But foreigners’ mistaken perceptions are one of the chief reasons why so many of them seem so jumpy when they first arrive. In Western eyes people are yelling at and shoving them, flirting with them, perhaps even molesting them by “intimate” touching – all signs of “space-invasion”.
For many foreigners such behavior in their home cultures would be the precursor to being pick-pocketed, challenged to a fight, or being seduced. A few days of such “molestation” by dozens of Russian strangers can scramble the nerves of all but the most traveled foreign visitor.
But then, inevitably, as one begins to meet Russians at home, or at a business meetings, where hospitality, formality, and elaborate courtesy are far more developed than in the West, one finally sees that Russians in fact have manners bordering on the baroque.
The solution to the mystery? Personal distance. Personal distance, or interpersonal space, is what anthropologists and sociologists might define as the distance consistently separating members of non-contact species. But people, unlike animals, determine personal distance culturally, not genetically, and so acceptable distance varies widely from country to country.
An American, such as myself, in a queue at the bank to change money will stand directly behind the person in front, at a culturally acceptable distance of between 1.5–4 feet (0.5–1.3 meters). I would also be at pains to avoid looking at the transaction taking place ahead, lest I be thought nosy, or worse, a thief.
A Russian entering the scene will assume that I am waiting for somebody or am undecided about which line to get in, and will unashamedly sidle in to the right of what seems to be the only person in line, at a distance of about 1–2 inches.
If I don’t immediately follow his example, others will come and do so, and I’ll be standing, slightly to one side, of a line of a dozen people, still not getting my money changed. But personal distance is not just about proximity. It can be about emotions too.
The Russian “neutral” expression is a blank, unsmiling face, which appears forbiddingly angry to Americans. Americans in turn, often appear to be vulgarly laughing at strangers when they automatically smile at people on the subway.
Eye contact also varies between the cultures. Russians often seem to be staring rudely by Western standards of eye contact, which allows for little or no eye contact between strangers. When, in 1993 I brought to Russia a group of American students, without exception they wove elaborate paranoid fantasies about harmless Russian strangers “staring at me with this evil expression.”
Conversely, they all had a terrible time getting sales clerks to respond at counters when using the standard American method of simply staring at the clerk till she says “Can I help you?” Fact is, around here you can stare for a week and not get service until you politely say “Devooshka?” (“Girl?”).
Understanding personal space in a different culture from your own is a matter of reading the signs right.
A problem for visiting Americans is that Russian personal distance lies within an American’s intimate distance, just as an American’s personal distance lies within northern Europeans’ intimate space. The result is that Russians seem pushy or over-amorous to northern Europeans, and Europeans seem cold, and unfriendly to Russians. Americans, existing somewhere in the middle, manage to equally offend both parties, for opposite reasons.
And this affects sexual, as well as other relationships, between the nationalities as well. To American men, all Russian women appear to be flirting outrageously. It is that level of unintentional flattery that makes Russian women so sexy to Western men. On the other hand, many Western men, by using their own national norms for greater distance, little touching, and low eye contact, strike many Russian women as far more “respectful” and “polite” than Russian men. This, as much or more than economic factors, contributes to the growing trend for US-Russian romance.
The key here is awareness. Westerners living in Russia need to temporarily adapt their spatial relationships to the Russian style for day to day survival. Conversely, Russians working regularly with short term tourists (who won’t have time to adapt themselves) need to respect the spatial conventions of the nationalities they service, or risk annoying their customers.
Once you understand the rules on space, it’s easy to fit in.

By Tara Maginnis

Question for Discussion or Composition
1. What are the universals about body language mentioned in the texts? What are more culture-specific points of behaviour?
2. Have you had personal experiences which confirm or disprove these generalizations?
3. Is it useful to “study” reading body language consciously or better to just depend on your intuition?
4. Can you think of any films or books which address these themes: the Dance of Seduction or Cultural Differences in personal space? What were they and what did they say?
5. Do you think it is interesting for men and women to “study” seduction from each other’s point of view?
6. Could you describe the “Dance of Seduction” from the girlfriend’s perspective? What if she is also attracted to the young man?
7. How can we learn to see our own culture from an “outsider’s” perspective?
8. What occupations especially require a knowledge of and sensitivity to cultural differences?