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How To Read Social Cues

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From knowing when your jokes are not funny anymore to when your advances are no longer wanted or welcome.

Tuning in to human cues are extremely critical to how well we get along with others and how far our interactions with others can potentially go. Human cues can either make or break an argument, a friendship, a marriage or even a life. Here are a few key cues to watch for--

Body Language 

This tells how interested or attracted a person is to you or what you have to say. Watch or pay attention to the followings:
  • Distance/proxemics - how close or far a person stand from you, indicates how comfrotable they feel towards you
  • Stance - intentional or habitual position of the person's body tells their attitude towards you 
  • Gesture - the non-verbal message sent or received 
  • Movement - often tells a person's state of mind

Eye Contact 

The eyes are the windows to the soul and can tell you a whole lot if you tune into them. Look into those windows and pay attention to these signs:
  • Shifty eyes - not really interested 
  • Constance eye contact - very interested 
  • Blank stare - not interested/confused 
  • Long hard stare - upset/demanding more 
  • Blinking - could be lying/flirting 
  • Rolling - don’t believe you/disbelief

Mouth Expression 

The mouth has a lot to say. Every time you open it something is either going in or coming out--but what comes out can never be retracted so put a handle on it. The expression on the lips is like the mirror of the mind and virtually reflects how one feels on the inside; so, watch for:

  • Smile - agreeable/pleased 
  • Pout - disagreeable and/or dissatisfaction 
  • Twitch - lying and/or anger

Voice Inflection

Last and probably the most important of all the social cues is the inflection of the voice, namely, tone and pitch. Voice inflection say so much more than what has actually being said. So listen up! And listen up intently for feelings translated in those words--learn to pick up on those inflections--don’t just hear, listen. Voice inflection helps us determine if a person is mad, sad, disappointed, embarrassed and so forth.
Some things to listen up for are--
  • Quiet/soft/loving/concerned voice 
  • Screaming/harsh/hard voice 
  • Yelling/confused voice 
  • Laughing/friendly voice
Try to match these inflections to the words and actions of the person.
Noted: when all is said and done there is more said than done. Social interactions depend largely on our ability to tap into social cues. A lot of people tend to miss those cues because they are too self-absorb to pay attention to anyone else but them self, so they miss the real or subtle messages sent. These social cues are universal throughout most of the world in spite of whatever language we speak and they tells us one of two things:
  • Carry-on 
  • Stop it! and stop it right away.
But don’t get it twisted, a person must send at least two to three of other cues that are simultaneously correlating before you can say definitively what message was being sent or what was meant.


This is AggieStrong signing out V!
Be Bless! Be Strong! Be Confident! Be You!
Aggie☺♥


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