The Body Language Expert & Motivational Speaker

The other day I talked about the magic of online dating. But the space and anonymity of online dating can be dangerous. It may give license to fib or falsify every thing from their online photo to their profile and current marriage status. It may also free them to be less inhibited and do other things that you normally would not do with the sections and politeness required in face to face interactions. Email and texting are fast and people who use those medians a lot or have been using it to date for any extensive time are use to the speed and the immediate gratification, a friend in my discussion group has been online dating for seven years. He is a tall attractive intelligent guy who owns his own business. I am sure women see him a great catch.  We have watched him go through many two and three week relationships. He calls them his fly high crash and burn relationships. He really does think that the next one will work, but he says matter of factly that there are so many women out there that it is a numbers game you just have to get through them.  

When you are use to that world you may be pushy or overly forward. The reporter who interviewed me said she was dating someone online who was a relationship expert. He started to send her lists of very personal questions. She said she felt interviewed and told him that these are things that would be revolved overtimes naturally and romantically as the relationship progressed. He never emailed her again. And He was a relationship expert. She said that many people online have their list and keep dating thinking they can find that magic person that fits their list. I agreed that there is a problem with list making. I threw away my rather long list a long time ago and started working on me. Perhaps list makers think the problems in their past relationships were the other person, they just did have the perfect person and they never stop to consider they may need to improve the person that was in all the failed relationships, themselves.

They my be  pushy or overly forward in their communication as the relationship moves forward and those late online chats can be intoxicating if you think you have met your soul mate. And yes people are having entire relationships on the intenet or texting. They are even breaking up via email! So be careful out there.

Women and men learn to communicate in particular ways because those ways are associated with their gender and nurtured and rewarded. Zoologists, biologists and anthropologists say that unlike certain animal species, in which the males and females are easily distinguished we look pretty much alike.  The first question a stranger will ask someone holding a baby is, “Is it a boy or a girl?”AND LADIES, WE GET INSULTED THAT THEY CAN’T TELL DON’T WE.  So we learn behaviors in childhood that help us be identified as masculine or feminine. What we learn may be different in Auburn, Alabama than in Bangkok, Thailand. AND, what you learn growing up may not fit the cultural needs or gender roles of today. What has your cultural heritage taught you about gender differences?

This week I was interviewed as a body language expert about the effect of the lack of nonverbal communication on online dating relationships. The interviewer was excited that I had dated online so I could tell her my first hand experience as well as my professional opinion…

One of the best things is also one of the worst things about the internet. That is the barrier it creates between the two people as they begin the flirting and dating process. The barrier creates both anonymity and physical space between them that is not in any way a natural way to meet and interact with a potential partner.

It allows the online daters to do and say things they would not normally do face to face. Sometimes that can be a great thing. Someone who is normally rather shy can be more courageous and reveal themselves more easily and actually “approach” someone they would not normally feel comfortable asking out or dating. Two people can email each other sweet self disclosing emails saying things that they wouldn’t feel comfortable saying face to face, but still be communicating from their hearts. The space allows hearts to flutter open and tenderness to come out. That can be magical. You may be able to find a love you have waited for. For centuries lovers wrote letters to one another that created some of most beautiful poetry. Online dating can be filled with poetry.

Men and Women are different and that is a wonderful thing. It makes our lives more interesting, and the world a more balanced place. It important to note that the differences are not so much gender linked as gender class linked. What we often are seeing is not really a difference between men and woman, but a difference in status, a difference in the power people have. Not every man adheres to the statements we make about men. Think of Russel Crowe and Pierce Brosnen, Ashton Kuchter, Matt Damon, Arnold Swartzanager and Richard Simmons and not every woman fits the statements we make about women - think Condalesa Rice, Kate Hudsen, Kirstie Alley, Cindy Crawford, Britney Spears and well anybody else on the planet. We are different.

I love my Thursday night Meeting of the Minds discussion Group

We talk about the wildest things we talk about politics, current events, and Kissing. We can move through a heated discussion on Torture and human rights and how we should vote to discussing what are the deal breakers when you are dating. What continues to fascinate me after two years of being with these wonderful folks is how we can continue to sit across the table and argue and disagree and still laugh with one another. I am currently working on a train the trainer program I will be recording in Chicago this month. It is based on my book, “The Conflict Cure.” As I have been working on the training program and rereading my book I have been realizing how often I avoid conflict. Yes, funny but true. I teach what I most need to learn. I know one of the reasons I do everything I can to make an angry person feel good is that I want to ease their pain. Any tense body language feels so uncomfortable to me. I am perhaps too sensitive to peoples pain. I realize that is a problem. It certainly can effect your relationships. Does avoiding conflict effect your romantic relationships?  Tell me about it so I can blog about it.  I will be blogging about verbal and nonverbal ways of dealing with conflict the next two weeks. In the mean time you may want to check out my books on conflict by linking to the products page on my website.

Right after we are born, people start treating boys and girls differently.

Boy babies are put down sooner and not touched as much. Mothers hold their girl babies longer right after birth. They touch and caress girls more, give them more eye contact and smiles. Boy babies, even in their first baths after birth, are handled less gently and put in their own beds away from their mothers sooner. And we wonder why men and women are different. What have you noticed about touch differences between men and women?

Interesting article on personality type for the perfect mate. 

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200603/online-love/4

Why do Powerful women treat less powerful women badly…Many years ago I moved to be near my best friend who was terminally ill. It was a difficult time. Before the move I had been teaching body language and other communication classes at Florida State and running a very successful speaking business. I loved my college students and they loved me. I know it was so, because they would write down every word I said in class (and you wonder why professors get big egos). Many would stay after class, visit me in my office for hours and stop for a hug when they would see me on campus. I had wonderful relationships with my clients as well. I was respected and paid a great deal to speak, and participants would stay after a seminar or speech to shake my hand or visit. If I ran into clients or past participants in the small college town of Tallahassee, I was usually given the same warm friendly response.

Then I moved to the big city, so that I would have the flexibility to run to the hospital for my best friend when I needed to. That first year I chose not to take speaking engagements out of town while he was ill and instead took receptionist jobs through a temporary agency. The pay cut was significant. Instead of $500 an hour I made $7.50 for answering the telephone. Strangely enough, it didn’t bother me that much. What did bother me was how people treated me nonverbally. Inevitably I was at a desk at the entrance to the main entrance of the business. A few weeks before my first temp job I had been smiled at, listened to and hugged by the people I worked for. Sitting behind the receptionist desk, wearing the same clothes that I had worn as a speaker, I was shunned - by the women.

Article Continued…

Here is an addition to my yesterdays post “Why Men’s & Women’s Voices Are Different“

“Dominance and the evolution of sexual dimorphism in human voice pitch,” Volume 27, Issue 4, Pages 283-296 (July 2006). Abstract Text:

“The developmental and anatomical causes of human voice sexual dimorphisms are known, but the evolutionary causes are not. Some evidence suggests a role of intersexual selection via female mate choice, but other evidence implicates male dominance competition. In this study, we examine the relationships among voice pitch, dominance, and male mating success. Males were audio recorded while participating in an unscripted dating-game scenario. Recordings were subsequently manipulated in voice pitch using computer software and then rated by groups of males for dominance. Results indicate that (1) a masculine, low-pitch voice increases ratings of men’s physical and social dominance, augmenting the former more than the latter; and (2) men who believe they are physically dominant to their competitor lower their voice pitch when addressing him, whereas men who believe they are less dominant raise it. We also found a non significant trend for men who speak at a lower pitch to report more sexual partners in the past year. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that male intrasexual competition was a salient selection pressure on the voices of ancestral males and contributed to human voice sexual dimorphism.”

When taping a special for the History Channel I was asked to discuss the voices of Obama, Margaret Thatcher and other political figures.

July issue of the journal of Evolution and Human Behavior, could help explain why vocal pitch in men and women are so different.

“Men raise vocal pitch when addressing physically dominant males”, “A male dog will whine and beg in deference to a stronger dog, but will lower its voice into a guttural growl if it thinks it has a fighting chance. Men unconsciously do a similar thing, scientists say.”

“A new study finds that the lower the pitch of a man’s voice, the more physically dominant other men think he is. And men lower their voice pitch when addressing a man they believe to be less dominant than themselves, but raise it when speaking to someone they think is more dominant. The findings, detailed in the July issue of the journal of Evolution and Human Behavior, could help explain why vocal pitch in men and women are so different.”

“111 male university students took part in what they thought was a competition against another guy for a date with an attractive female student. The participants were asked to rate social and physical dominance of themselves and a competitor…Men who rated themselves as more physically dominant than the competitor used a lower vocal pitch when responding to him, whereas men who rated themselves as less physically dominant tended to raise it.”

Study leader, David Puts of the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania, and “his team think lower vocal pitch signals physical dominance more than it does social dominance, which in modern humans is typically achieved through skillful leadership and persuasion, not strength.”

“Social dominance has to do with things like intelligence and social skills, which aren’t necessarily related to body size or testosterone,” Puts explained. “Ancestrally, if pitch was related to dominance, it was first related to physical dominance before anything else.”

I will be posting more candidate reads on the blog. In the meantime type in your fav candidates name in the blog and see what’s there.