Hi, I'm Joe Navaro and welcome back. Today I'm going to be talking about a subject that I get an inordinate amount of questions on and that is on body language, nonverbals and dating around the world. One of the things that we find that often happens when we become interested in others and it could be in a public setting or even in in uh let's say at school or uh among colleagues at at work is that there is extra grooming. Efforts are made to dress a little better, fix your hair. Guys will tend to stand a little uh stiffer and maybe fix their their collar or fix themselves. Women will touch their hair and so forth. So around the world uh we see u grooming increases uh when we're interested in uh in others. The other thing that naturally happens is when people are interested in each other, they tend to remain within that visual orbit. Let's say they're at a bar or so forth. They seem to triangulate, circle about, remain uh close in proximity. Um almost uh uh drawn to each other. And even when they accidentally run into each other in the hallway or maybe uh in the coffee or break room and so forth, their timing is often aligned so that they can remain uh in their orbit. And many times it's truly subconscious. The other thing that tends to happen also is that our faces tend to relax. We naturally find that the being in the presence of this individual causes this effect where the muscles literally relax in the face. And we may feel a little jittery, but there is facial relaxation. And this is one of those behaviors that we called reward behaviors where uh you often see it with the mother and the child. The baby smiles, the mother smiles. And so there's these um back and forth reward behaviors. This happens in dating uh situations. You know, many times we are reluctant to make direct eye contact. So a lot of times the eye contact that we initially make with someone we're interested in maybe slightly a scance, but what's interesting is is how many times it takes place. So we may be conversing with somebody but we'll look over a scance uh certainly more than once. How many times? Uh nobody really knows. It can be many many times. But what's happening is is that we know that staring at someone can turn it can be a turnoff. So I think we've uh adapted this behavior around the world to sort of just uh look at scant at first and see if we see uh those um reward behavior such as a smile or the relaxation of the face. unbeknownst to you. Um, one of the things that happens when we are uh near the presence, we don't have to be directly in front of them, but near the presence of someone that we really like is your pupils will dilate. And the benefit of that is that it lets in more light. The muscles of the eyes relax, more light comes in. And in fact, when your eyes dilate, they get larger and you become more appealing. At some point, these individuals will in fact lock eyes. And this will take place for several seconds. And uh this is interesting because most of us become very uncomfortable when somebody stares at us. This is almost uh universal. we perceive somebody staring at us as a threat. But when it comes to gaze, it's it's different. And what I look for is um that what is the reaction of the person uh who is uh staring at you or looking at you. I've had students in class say, "Well, you know, how do you know when somebody's interested in me?" And you know, I say, well, I if you stare at them and their face relaxes or they smile or you see them engage uh with you in a friendly way, then most likely they are interested in you because we humans really don't like to be stared at. Um, in fact, in the United States, after two or three seconds of somebody staring at you, if if we're really not comfortable, we we turn away or we start to make faces of psychological discomfort. At some point, there'll be some mirroring that will begin to take place. Maybe the person will arch their eyebrows and smile and uh and you can mirror that right back. Isoprais same behavior what we call mirroring really is a powerful tool to communicate that I'm comfortable with you mirroring can take place uh when we're uh walking with someone and we decide to walk at the same pace with them so that we remain in their orbit or when they smile we smile or when they sit we sit. uh look at mirroring as the behaviors of liking and behaviors of of comfort. What I'm always uh puzzled at is how people don't get it. You know, somebody is maybe telling another person they're interested them and and so forth and you see no reciprocity. You see no mirroring in their behavior. Uh maybe they remain stiff. Uh maybe their faces uh become very tight. But certainly they're not mirroring the way they're sitting, their posture uh and and so forth. And uh you know, you can always go back to mirroring is uh one of the best examples uh that tells us that um we're getting along. I always teach synchrony is harmony. And so when we don't see synchrony, when we don't see mirroring, uh there is some sort of psychological discomfort. At at some point, you know, people will come together. We go from orbiting each other, we go from running into each other occasionally to standing ever closer. And what we don't always notice is how powerful that attraction is. I've seen people for instance who are in a business setting and they're very attracted to each other and their feet will remain in place uh but their bodies are leaning forward. They're so eager to uh to be in each uh other's orbit. We emit pherommones and we are absorbing each other's pherommones when we're in close proximity. We want to smell each other uh smell. our body chemistry is very much a part of this uh area of uh love signals or the vocabulary of uh of romance. What's interesting is and I think there's a lot of uh empirical examples of this that we actually prefer in the dating arena around the world. We actually prefer the natural scent of the individual more so than the artificial perfumes and cologn and so forth. Once we're within uh very close proximity, and I'm talking uh less than a meter, less than 3 ft, then several things begin to to happen. The the voices uh begin to change. Obviously, we don't want the whole world to to hear what we're talking about. Uh, how frequently we look at at each other changes. Our chemistry changes because our heart rate um often increases. And uh we may feel the uh the temperature, our own temperature increasing as we uh get in close proximity. And of course there's always the opportunity to touch hands and and so forth. So um by becoming closer uh in distance to the other person, we're also communicating that we are in essence trusting them. Uh remember when we look at spatial needs, public distance is uh out several meters. Uh then we have the uh the social distance. Then we have the uh interpersonal distance and then we have the intimate distance right around three feet. And we're starting to get into that area where um we only let the people that we trust uh in that in that space. So uh in essence we are bargaining uh with ourselves that okay I want this person close but u I still have my uh natural uh reservation. So it's a it's a delicate time and and that's why oftent times you see a lot of nervousness uh in that initial uh closeness or approximation. It's because your part of your brain is saying let this person close. The other part of the brain is saying I don't know anything about this person. And so um that dichotomy is uh is going on. Um at this point um then you begin to see things that uh are actually quite powerful. We've already talked about pupil dilation that will certainly remain. You'll see more uh relaxation of the face. You'll see more uh smiling. You'll see more laughter. You often see this in dating situations where each partner is sort of laughing at anything that is uh that that is said. But very powerfully, you'll begin to see more head tilt where literally we're exposing the neck. in dating and courtship and uh around the world. This is huge uh because we only expose our necks around individuals that we feel comfortable with and we can relax around and we can trust. And this is a subliminal message that's being sent that says I'm really comfortable uh uh with you. So, we look for that as an indicator that things are are going well. If you're sitting at a table, one of the things you'll see is object touching that mirrors each other. So maybe one person reaches for the glass of wine, the other one reaches for the glass of wine, and they're touching the the glass of wine at the same time, or they're playing around with the salt shaker and so forth, and there's a lot of object uh touching. And this is one way of settling down because both are nervous. And by touching objects, stroking objects and and so forth, um this sends signals to the brain that um releases uh additional oxytocin, additional chemicals that help to uh take us from a nervous state to a less uh nervous state or what is called the parasympathetic uh system. You know, I'm often told that when we first met or when we started first dating that I felt butterflies in my stomach or you know, you get this queasy feeling or there's this feelings of elation that surround the the stomach or even literally the heart. Let me shed some light on that. We have to go to uh neuro anatomy. your veagal nerves and there's two of them. They're parallel. They descend down bilaterally come down, go through your throat. So you might feel a little tension there. They intervate the heart. They intervate the lungs. They intervate the stomach and all the way down to your intestines. What most people don't understand is that that vagus nerve, which is the largest in the body, is sending information from the brain down and from the stomach and other areas up, constantly sending messages. Your stomach is full of neurons. Um, the same neurons by the way that you have in your brain. uh those neurons communicate uh in in both directions uh saying hey that you know this is really um uh causing me to be nervous and so forth and don't be surprised when your heart rate increases that's also governed uh in part by the vagus u uh nerve and don't be surprised if you're breathing more rapidly and if you have those butterfly feelings that is all part of what now is referred to as the poly vagal um complex where everything is interconnected and you truly have those feelings in your stomach. Uh don't disregard those. Those are giving you powerful messages uh that what you're feeling at that moment is truly uh special. Biologically other things will be happening. Um blood will come to the surface of the skin. Uh you may feel warmer. Your lips will become fuller. You don't need the blood in your muscles, your large muscles to run or light or fight. And so the vascular system opens up and you may uh feel your your lips uh feel fuller. They in fact will be fuller. They'll certainly uh be warmer. And uh and if if you've ever uh had to not had to kiss someone, but if you've ever been kissed when you're stressed, uh you notice that the lips feel cold. And that's because uh there's very little blood that's going into um into the lips. So one of the positive signs is this uh vascular uh vaso dilation. There may be flushing of the skin, flushing of the skin around the ears, the neck and obviously the the lips. There may be some uh playful teasing where uh there's a lot of lowered chin joined with looking at scans. There may be some shoulder shrugs. David Given talks about how we use the shoulders which on most people is a very large area compared to other parts of the body that get our attention and are uh very attractive if not seductive in fact. And that's why we see them often in in fashion magazines. So the movement of the the shoulders, the touching of the shoulders and so forth, that's part and parcel of it. You'll see more hair touching both men and women who have long hair. Uh there'll be more hair touching and so forth. Couple of things are happening there. The first is that any movement initiates the orientation reflex. So that gets our attention. And then of course touching of the hair um is a pacifier and it also causes attraction. And so you'll see an in increase of that. You'll see an increase in in grooming. Uh even guys wearing t-shirts, you'll see them pulling up their t-shirts, fixing their t-shirts and and so forth. Uh that's all part of the uh of the process. There may be an increase in blink rate that sometimes happens. There may be attempts to adjust sitting to gradually uh get closer together. There may be orientation of the hands so that the hands come together and accidentally touch or you know as in years past you know you would see people at the theater and somebody would put their arm around the other person or while they're driving in a car just accidentally at first touch hands uh and uh and then later uh holding hands in full. And the description that people often say that this the first touch was magical has to do with the fact that the brain has been unnoticed that you're letting somebody close and now finally there's that uh the touch and that manifestation is is truly chemical. the the uh the hormones flow through the body and register as something really powerful and uh and dynamic because there has been that hesitation because you've let somebody into that magical space called uh your intimate uh zones around the world. We we see so much similarities in uh in in these behaviors. Um and uh and it's a reminder that here one of the most important things in our lives, mate selection is really based on non-verbal communications. It's based on how we visually are impacted by an individual. It's based on how we feel when we're around them. that's based on the chemistry of uh how they smell, their pherommones, how they feel, um and uh and so forth. And lastly, there's uh you know what we do with our voices that um how we engage each other, especially in this closer space. When we're down to that 18 in or less, now our voices change. we tend to lower our voices and we tend to um even change how we talk to each other so that uh in essence we become more impressive in uh in this area of uh of intimacy. So, there's my answer to all the questions that I've gotten uh in the last six months about dating and uh and so forth and the the language of uh of romance. Don't forget, subscribe, ring the bell, and I look forward to uh to seeing you here soon. [Music]