It’s your third date and you’ve decided it’s time to take things to the next level and cook dinner in your home for your new romantic interest. You’ve cleaned up your place, been to the market, made a go-to favorite dish—in short, you’ve made an effort as you’re starting to have high hopes for this one.
Your date arrives at your place, and something is feeling a bit off to you. You think it’s nothing, probably just your own nerves. You want the evening to go really well, after all. You get drinks rolling, thinking that will loosen things up. But your date is frowning more and more heavily, and you begin to feel they may be angry or annoyed. You ask them how they are doing and if they’re OK, and they say they’re fine. But then they sink down onto your sofa looking increasingly upset. Your insides start to churn as you think, What is wrong here? Is it me? Is it my place? Did they tell me they were vegan and I’ve forgotten? Should I throw out the steak? They are so mad at me!
LET’S LOOK AT a key body language signal that would give you the impression they are mad at you: They are frowning and looking more annoyed by the minute. Let’s SCAN the situation, suspend judgment for a minute and be more descriptive.
Frowning closes the eyes, so the frowner does not get overwhelmed with visual data or stimuli; and frowning also protects the eyes and the face. While frowns vary somewhat from culture to culture, most people recognize the frown as a negative facial expression, which is likely why it is making you believe that your romantic interest is feeling negative toward you. However, although it can be one sign of anger, a frown on its own is not enough to let us know someone really is angry.
BODY LANGUAGE MYTHBUSTER
Frown Lines Are an Angry Look
Take an Internet tour of the world of cosmetic surgery and you will find plenty of ways to take away your angry frown lines, for instance, with products like Botox. While that may do the trick, knitted eyebrows alone do not equate to anger. The signal for anger is more complex. In addition to knitted or lowered eyebrows, anger also features a tight top lip, a raised upper eyelid and tightened eyelids. The head may be tipped down to protect the neck with the chin, and the nostrils may be flared. So although softening the lines on the forehead with a neurotoxin that blocks the signals to those muscles can reduce one of the indicators of anger, if someone is truly angry, most of the time that won’t be enough to hide it.
When someone is angry, their eyebrows will tilt in toward the center of the face or both will be flat and lowered. The eyes will have a glare to them. In some instances, the eyes will narrow, but in others, even with the eyebrows down or flat, the eyes will be wide open. The micro-expressions of anger we see around the mouth include narrowing of the lips as if the angry person is trying to hold their mouth shut, perhaps so as not to let a word out, or perhaps in frustration or disapproval.
But in our story, you are focusing only on the frown. And because a frown on its own does not necessarily mean anger, let’s look at alternative interpretations. A frown can also signal disgust, sadness, nervousness, tension, confusion, deep thinking or concentration. Needless to say, however, it does loom large as a sign, as at first blush, it can have the effect of eclipsing all other signals on the face that may tell you more about what is actually going on.
This is good news, in that your assumption that your date is mad at you is looking a little less likely at this point. There just is not enough data to say they are angry, and if by chance they are angry, there is no reason at this point to truly think they are angry at you.
So let’s look at the other body language signals for more clues. They sink down onto your sofa. This shows a feeling of powerlessness. Giving in to the power of gravity can make someone look like they have the weight of the world on their shoulders. We are all working against gravitational force when we are upright and standing tall. To sink or slump down shows we’re passive in our response to the force of gravity, and by giving in to it, we have lost the power of even standing upright. It could indicate defeat, exhaustion, depression or simply relaxation.
Time to take in the context. It’s your third date with this person but the first time they have been to your home. Is there something about your place that is troubling them? Perhaps they had made some assumptions about you and your lifestyle, based on their impressions of you on your first two dates and on what information you shared with them. Upon closer inspection, it could be that your lifestyle, what you represented of it, is not what they thought or envisioned, and their body language is showing their confusion around this. As we pointed out, frowning can signal confusion.
PROFILE PICS
We asked SASKIA NELSON, the talent behind the multi-award-winning and internationally acclaimed Hey Saturday, the UK’s first and coolest dating photography business, her best advice for posting online dating profile pictures—how to show something true about yourself through your photo (like your interests) while not misleading viewers.
It’s challenging to tell your story via photos without misleading people. If you like sports cars, Ferraris for example, it would definitely be very misleading to show a photo of yourself standing next to a Ferrari if it isn’t yours. However, you could have a photo of yourself at a car show or rally to show that cars are an interest of yours. Or you could be photographed with a book about cars. If you think creatively, you can find clever ways to hint at your interests, without making the photos look too planned and posed, which isn’t good for dating photos. Dating photos should be natural, relaxed, happy shots—as though you’ve been caught out and about by friends.
I think people will look at someone’s photo and often make snap judgments (probably subconsciously some of the time) about a person and their lifestyle based on what’s in the photo. Every photo gives away clues about the person’s character. If it’s taken inside their house, for example, then they’ll be looking at the furniture, checking out how tidy it is and so on, and for dating we always try to be aspirational at the beginning. We make the effort for the first few months of dating someone, showcasing only the good things about us (e.g., we wear makeup and our best clothes, are always in a good mood and have a tidy house). So with dating photos, people should be aspirational but authentic in this way.
Alternatively, the behavior of your new companion—sinking down into your couch—could indicate that your home is a welcome refuge or comfortable space for them. They feel instantly at ease and relaxed, and they can really be themselves. Perhaps your love interest needs a calm and safe space to weigh up something else that is troubling them. So sinking down into your couch could actually be a positive signal, showing you their high comfort level being with you in your home.
Ask what else you should consider. There is a definite conflict in their behavior. You were hoping for a fun and happy date that might take the relationship up a notch, and instead you experience signs of anger, sadness, confusion and powerlessness, leaving you wondering where you stand. Their body language is even in conflict, showing losing power by sinking down in the sofa while also actively displaying a frown. Also especially notable here is the contrast between words and actions. Remember, they said they were fine. As we saw in chapter 9, “What a Complete Psycho!,” often the contrast between verbal and nonverbal action alerts and confuses us. It is the actions others show, that spill out, that tend to speak to us louder than their words. Classic nonverbal communication studies by Mehrabian concluded, “When there are inconsistencies between attitudes communicated verbally and posturally, the postural component should dominate in determining the total attitude that is inferred.”1 In other words, most of the clues we get about the emotional intent behind people’s words actually come from the nonverbal cues we are getting, and when there is contrast or conflict, we tend to believe the nonverbal.
So trying to form a new judgment about what is going on inside their head is not that straightforward, even if you feel you can dismiss the assumption that they are angry at you. Upon reflection, anger does not now seem likely, particularly if you also consider that anger, like happiness, is an energetic state. When we are angry, our heart rate increases, and we may have a difficult time relaxing or staying still. Anger is a state that accompanies us into postures of aggression or fight, and so the opposite “sinking” feeling is inconsistent with this and would seem to tell a different story. They could be confused by us, or anxious or upset about something else that happened before they showed up for the date, and they just can’t let it go.
With so much ambiguity, rather than making any new judgment or assumption, perhaps the more useful and less risky tactic is to simply wait ten minutes or so, just long enough so that if they are experiencing some intense emotion brought on by other stimuli, like something emotionally heavy or disruptive that happened earlier, perhaps a news item or a YouTube clip or TV show they can’t let go of, this gives them some time and space for the heavy feelings to dissipate. Go and check on your dinner, set the table, take a minute to finish off that work e-mail; in other words, gently put the brakes on any intense interaction for this first part of your evening to see if your date’s demeanor shifts. If it continues, it could be that the emotion is turning into a mood, which is a lower level of emotional intensity sustained over a longer period, anywhere from a number of hours to a day. A heightened emotion sustained for hours may indicate an affective disorder, or the reaction to an extraordinary situation or stimulus.
Here’s what you can do nonverbally to even out the atmosphere, to try drawing them out of their emotion or any mood, without risking looking like you have no empathy. Use relaxed body language, meaning calm and steady movement, steady breathing, light eyebrows and eyes. Sit and breathe in through your nose and then gently out through your mouth. Try to count each breath, in and out, for a count of four or five seconds. You want to assert steady, light and calm actions to attempt to draw their state away from a downward spiral. Avoid body language that is diametrically opposed to what they are doing, which may make you look as if you lack empathy and understanding. But if you mirror their behavior too much, you both risk spiraling down together.
And if nothing changes after a little while, you could safely investigate further by asking questions that allow them space to respond mindfully, as opposed to asking if everything is OK and pushing them toward a binary yes or no answer. If you frame your concern within a casual approach, this may allow them to explore what is going on and answer you more truthfully and in greater detail. You might ask, “What are you thinking about right now?” It could be that they experience some heavy emotions periodically and are feeling relaxed and viewing the relationship as already strong enough to test whether you will be able to handle them. Gently test the water.
RESTING FACE
Our friend and colleague SCOTT ROUSE is a body language expert and analyst, as well as an interrogator and interviewer. Here is what he has to say about the face we can make without intending to.
It’s the face we all make when we’re not talking to anyone and we’re just sitting there, anywhere, by ourselves . . . waiting, drinking coffee, reading, whatever it is we’re doing where no one else is involved and we think no one else is looking at us. Let’s say you’re at a coffee shop, having a latte. Unbeknownst to you, in walk the people you’re going to have a job interview with later that morning. You’re frustrated by how slow the Wi-Fi connection is that day. One of the key decision makers on hiring recognizes you from your online professional profile. In a flash, here’s what runs through their mind: Hey, that’s who we’re going to meet with later. Looks angry! Be sure to keep my guard up. You haven’t even met them yet, and you’re already scoring very low on likability due to the thin slice of your body language they responded to.
When you’re in public, always try to have a relaxed, pleasant look on your face—a resting face. And don’t be too quick to judge others based on theirs.
QUICK SCAN
S: Suspending judgment on your initial reaction to just one body language feature, in this case a facial gesture related to an emotion but not wholly representing it, can help you realize you need to look for further indicators.
C: You are judged not only on nonverbal communication that is linked directly to your body but also by the environments you are seen to live in and that become symbolic of you, your attitudes and your personality. Your living context can be key to how others perceive you and you perceive them.
A: Ask what conflicts you see between what people say and how they behave. Be aware that most of our clues about the emotional intent behind people’s words come from the nonverbal cues we are getting, and when there is conflict with the verbal cues, we tend to believe the nonverbal.
N: A simple way to test a new judgment is to wait a few minutes and see what, if anything, changes. These changes or the sustainment over time of any signals of emotional state may help your judgments get you closer to the truth.