Body Language & Superboy

Tonight’s theme based up today’s events could be nothing other than “Crush” by David Archuleta. Pay no attention to the pop up thingie in the box, I have no idea who posted it, but it was the only one I could find that had a stationary background.



Today during the Super Bowl, since the Eagles weren’t playing and the Patriots weren’t playing, I went grocery shopping. Since neither of these teams was playing, we took the year off from entertaining. I figured it would be quite literally the perfect time since no one would be on the road, and the stores would be nearly empty. I was right on both counts.

Now for the purpose of the song, I am as you know a reader of body language. The only problem with knowing how to read body language is you can’t unlearn it. You can’t turn it off in your brain so you pick up on the little signals and expressions that people make. I don’t usually tell people I don’t know very well that I read body language because it makes them uncomfortable. They start firing off anxiety tells like they’re standing in a fire and their face tosses in the ever occasional look of fear as if I can read their mind. No, I don’t know if you cheated on that test in fifth grade. All I can tell is what you’re currently displaying. I don’t know that your bank teller has great thighs or that even though you said you let the dog out last night you didn’t. I’m not omnipotent. Thanks goodness too, I’d hate knowing all the time what someone is thinking. I can generally guess if it’s based upon immediate events, I’m not an idiot, but if it’s not all I can do is read the tells they display.

I went into the pharmacy looking for Valentine’s Day decorations. I decorate my house for every holiday, it makes me happy. My Gram has always decorated for every holiday and through the years I have acquired enough decorations that each holiday merits its’ very own Rubbermaid tub. Some have more than others, but Valentine’s Day has its own medium sized little tub. Tonight since the stores were quiet I decided to go have a peek and see what they had that I could add to the main bathroom. Perhaps a small wreath, or maybe some sort of hanging basket.

I entered and was greeted by a young man walking directly and with purpose at me as I came through the doors. He wore a white lab coat, khaki pants, a dark blue button down shirt, and was obviously one of the young assistants in the pharmacy. He looked about 22 years old. Black hair, brown eyes, light complexion, medium build and weighing roughly 165 pounds. Sadly my eyes look over someone and these are the details that I tend to formulate within my mind in the first 5 seconds of seeing them. To most others he would be “that young guy” to me I have already created a make up of his general profile for later usage. The brain does as it wills, and though I don’t need this information anymore it still gets stored.

I walked over to the Valentine’s Day isle and he detoured to meet me. I raised one eyebrow at him. “Hi! Can I help you find something?” he said smiling as he put his hands on his hips. I grinned. His eyes flicked from mine to my sneakers and back.

“Are you closing?” I asked, unsure since he was walking with a great deal of purpose toward me as I entered, perhaps he was going to lock up.

“No, if we were closing you couldn’t have gotten in.” He offered in response with a wide grin as he bent his shoulders back a bit. At this point I’m trying not to bust out laughing. He hasn’t actually verbalized anything yet but his body is screaming what’s on his mind in every small movement he makes. I grin again biting my tongue in the very literal sense to keep from busting out in laughter and nod. “So looking for anything in particular?” he says and he now reaches one arm up toward me and rests it on the top shelf. He uses the other to move his lab coat aside like a cape in a movie the kid has seen too many times.

At this point I can’t keep the surprise off my face and my eyes open wide. It’s been a long time since anyone has been this straight forward in their approach though he hasn’t actually said a word yet that would lead a normal person to believe anything other than he’s being helpful. I open my mouth to respond and instead hold up a small Valentine’s Day wreath between us. The universal sign of “This is as far as you go buddy.” He sadly doesn’t pick up on this signal though and presses on.

“I’m Brad. So you aren’t watching the Super Bowl huh?” I shake my head looking at the wreath in my hand. It’s actually kind of nice I think I’ll buy this. When I return my eyes to Brad it’s because his feet have moved forward another foot toward me. Oh boy, time to quash this now I think to myself. I open my mouth to say something and he immediately cuts in with, “Didn’t catch your name.” I blink slowly and deliberately my eyes somewhat wide.

“Married.” I say with a smile. He repeats the word to himself silently as his lips move, his eyes display confusion for a second and he finally catches on. “Married for likely more years than you’ve been alive,” I say nodding. “But I thank you for the help in finding this.” I smile again. He hasn’t moved yet. He still holds his half Superman, half cat stretch pose. I step back and to the side looking at some other decorations. I can hear him take a large breath and see him about to try one more time. I look over, smile, lift my left hand with engagement and wedding ring and shake my head thinking to myself, “You don’t even have real muscles yet; Matt would break you into quarters with no effort.” He frowns and tells me it was nice to meet me I grin and say thank you. I continue to browse for a few more minutes, pick up some new nail polish drawing pens and check out.

When I arrive home Matt has just gotten out of the shower. I relate the entire tale to him while trying to stop laughing long enough to finish telling it. When finished he gives me the half catch stretch half Superman pose and I ask him if they teach that in gym class or something. He laughs and I tell him that I’m sorry but I’m married and my husband would break him into sections small enough to fit in my rotisserie. So he’d better run along while I cook supper. He laughs and retreats to the office.

He peeks back out and grins at me and says, “Hey!” I peek down the hall, “Thanks for telling me.” I read his face, he’s serious, he’s smiling but he’s not really smiling, and his eyes are intent, he means the words he says.

“I’m always honest with ya honey, good or bad, you know that.” He nods, and smiles for real this time.

“I know, and thanks!” and poof he’s gone back into the office again.

Would he have ever known that Superboy tried to pick me up in the pharmacy? No, but I would have, and not telling him seemed odd to me, like I was trying to hide it. I try to be honest with people; I forget I do not live in a world surrounded by people that see things like I do. I forget that when I say something they don’t see the tiny signals of sincerity in my eyes. The critical factor being how honest can you truly be with each person? People can on the whole only tolerate so much honesty. The rest must be left either unsaid or only implied. I’ve learned this over the years. The less I know someone the less I actually say. When a simple “yes.” will do I will leave it at that and say no more.

I am the problem solver for many of our friends. I am the sounding board and magician for many things. I very slowly learn how much truth they really want to know. Each person has a threshold of information they’re willing to accept, true or not. Carefully chosen words are usually the key. When a friend tells you he and his wife have an open marriage and she’s been working awfully late and he can’t reach her on her phone you tend to add her recent behavior and comments on top of that and you draw the conclusion his brilliant idea that he pushed down her throat she’s decided to take to heart. The idiot thought it would be great to have her agree to that. He however had no intentions of acting on it, but wanted to brag about it to his friends. She took his words to heart, and now he’s asking me if I think she actually has. My response is simple, “It’s hard to say for sure.” This is true. “I’ve known her a long time, and I find it difficult to believe she’d ever cheat on you.” Also true, however this idiot told her any relationship she had outside their marriage wouldn’t be cheating. I don’t tell him that more than likely yes she is sleeping with someone else, and sure enough she was. That truth was one he didn’t want to hear, so I didn't tell him.

There are some people I am bluntly honest with. My friend Darleen is one, because she needs it, the stark blinding truth that hits you between the eyes. I love her, she deserves that. She forgets sometimes, likely often just how much I do care about her and how much potential she has to be one of the most amazing creatures on this Earth. She needs that to be brought to light, so I do. She’s not always ready for it, but in the end she adapts well enough to at least accept some of the truth she’s been told. Some day she’ll see what I see in her when I look into her soulful eyes. Someday ….

With my brother I’m always painfully honest. He’s my brother and no one else is going to tell him that he is or even can be a big jerk. He’s brilliant. At work they pay him to sit in an office and think. 90% of his day is sitting there doing whatever he wants so the 10% of the day they need him, he’ll be there to solve whatever major crisis has befallen. Being so brilliant though, he occasionally looses touch with reality. My job throughout his life is to remind him he’s human. He’s not perfect and despite being the golden boy at work if he doesn’t call my Gram on her birthday I’ll drive down there and slap him. I call him every day for the entire week prior to get him to send a gift or card, he never does. He means to, but he never acts on it, so the day of her birthday I call him again and threaten bodily harm which sets a fire under his rear. “You owe her that much Brian, it’s five minutes, call her, she’s 90, how many more times do you think you’ll even get to say Happy Birthday?” When I call her a few hours later I never tell her I told him to call as she tells me how happy she is he remembered. I agree with her that it’s wonderful he called. My brother is an idea man, but he’s tough to put those ideas into effect unless he has something pushing him along. Throughout life that’s always been my job. Combined we are a force to be reckoned with. We can turn an entire house into a major project and complete it in record time. Apart though I agonize over the details that he’s already figured out and formulated solutions for. He isn’t motivated to put the ideas into effect. If we were a single person we likely would have taken over the world by now. While I do love you to death my brother no I'm not going to take over the world with you. So you can go back to pondering something else. Oh and this is you first notification that Valentine's Day is coming, call Gram. This message will repeat for the next two weeks in some form or another.

So while I am ever truthful, knowing how much truth a person can handle, or deal with is the key. We all lie to some extent. Were human, we lie by omission, we lie directly. A friend doesn’t need to know that the new haircut she got is rather awful, and that despite the fact she doesn’t think gray hair doesn’t make her look older it surely does. When she asks me what I think I tell her that it’ll be so much cooler being shorter, and I think she’ll like it. While both items are true, and my body language confirms both these things, what I don’t say in response is just like lying really.

A friend comes over for a party, his words are the same sort of friendly things you’d normally hear, but as the night progresses and Matt goes to bed, his body language changes as he becomes inebriated. The next morning he’s embarrassed, and asks if he was an idiot the night before. “Did I say or do anything I should be apologizing for?” he asks me. I shake my head and tell him he said nothing inappropriate at all. He looks relieved and tells me that he would hate to loose Matt’s friendship and he was concerned. I don’t bother to include that his body language was beyond grossly inappropriate, and I know exactly what he was thinking as he made small innuendos throughout the night that no one else caught. I wasn’t just listening to his words though. Admittedly it’s almost an unfair advantage; most people wouldn’t pick up on the little things, so I have to let them slide.

All in all, while there are times I wish I didn’t pick up on the small things that people say or do, that confirm or oppose the words coming out of their mouths, in some cases I’m glad I can. It’s not as useful now, outside the job mind you. I don’t need to interrogate people anymore, but it gives me insight into things that others would miss. So that I suppose makes it worthwhile, and there are occasions that it makes life just that much more amusing, Superboy being case and point.