What Are These Subtle Cues That Ye Speak Of?

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So, Wrong Planet is full of people who have done a whole load of work on understanding their social limitations by reading books, talking to therapists, taking classes etc.

Time and again I see posts on here containing phrases like "I just never realised how much body language I was missing out on!", or "There are so many subtle cues that I never even knew I should be looking for".

As quite an expressive person myself, and someone who feels (possibly wrongly) that I see a whole load of body language every day and that surely there can't be room for more, I wondered what these additional cues are that so many of you found out about so late in the day?

I just talked to my partner about this and commented that I feel I see everything, I just don't necessarily know how to respond to it. And then he asked me "Do you notice if people's pupils are dilated/contracted or if they have tension around their mouth?". I mean what? I'm aware from books that pupils are a really good indicator, but I've never considered it practical to stand and stare at someone long enough to watch their irises do their thing. Is this what you've been taught is normal protocol? What other more subtle cues have you found out about?

I'd love to know more about all the body language that's too subtle to be in the usual books and lists. Please share some of the little extra tricks you've learned.

i have little interest in peoples behavior but i have noticed that some people start rubbing the backs of their necks concurrent with their gradual loss of their grip on their temperateness.

when people finally lose their temper, they tend not to scrub the backs of their necks any more, so i suspect that when people rub the backs of their necks, they are becoming disgruntled.


i also know that some people smile when they are very angry. i got a person very angry once (unbeknownst to me) and he started smiling in an exaggerated way, and i thought he was mentally flawed to be smiling while he was saying what he was saying, and when i smirked about that ,he punched me in the head.

you never can tell what people are thinking from the designs of their facial expressions.

people can smile when they are murderously angry, and yet they can grimmace in a forlorn way and cry during situations that they report to be exceptionally happy (like crying at a wedding or something).

sorry i can not stud your jacket with badges of knowledge. i am not sure how important it is to learn these "subtle cues". i never had a spare rats bottom to contribute to my research into normative behavior.

I don't know what I'm missing. I only know there is something because other people react.

I think its more of us giving out the wrong cues, since we are not fully self aware.

a large part also, i have read, it something called 'microexpressions'
waves of small muscle contractions all over the face that are uncontrollable and very telling of actual meaning and feelings.
i myself have never seen them, let alone be able to interpret, even when actively looking for them in trainings, but they are supposed to be there.

however, what i found to be a bigger problem is my translation of non-verbal signals, many gestures meaning friendship and comfort seem agressive or even hostile to me...

What drives me nuts, is that nt's are no more aware of them than we are.

They do it without thinking, so there totally unaware of what were incapable of seeing.

It really should be seen as the 6th sense. Relative to taste, or smell it's far more important.

Even in something as simple as learning, it's shown that empathy, and body language directs behavior. I never understood why as a child I wasn't able to simple follow, and do as the teacher did instinctively. Turns out a large part of human learning is based on these principles.

It's really wild when you start understanding how much of our civilization is built on body languages. Virtually all politicals, business marketing etc, exist on this level.

I never understood why I'm so impervious to advertising, political posturing etc. I thought I was smart turns out I'm just oblivious.

What I thought was information exchange(talking), is actually some sort of empathic sharred consciousness.

This 'rubbing the back of the neck' thing I've found myself doing while waiting for someone/something to take their sweet time but I can see how I picked that up somewhere; it's more voluntary and requires a thought to do it, and I'll do other things like pace, squirm and yank on my shirt, even tearing the collar if experiencing a meltdown but I want the offender to have very little to gauge my level of anxiety, displeasure or anger lest they gather more fuel for their button-pushing

I do not know the normal protocol. I remember past observations and then assume based on that. sometimes i over think and go in a completely wrong direction also. However when I am in an entirely new type of situation, mostly I am blank as to how to react. So i try to act as it comes to my mind. Then later sit and analyse the situation over and over again with different possible reactions. I have never discussed how people interpret expressions. I assumed so much "thought process" goes into interpreting people for everyone. turns out it doesn't.