How bad are you at body language ect?

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Really bad.
All of the body language cues I quasi understand were formulated through observation, analysis and applicable patterns. Its all been learned through the years and it only applies to those I'm around. I spot certain things here and there because I live with a feeler but even if I have the vaguest understanding of these things I rarely know how to react to them.

Smiling or frowning? Its all simple analytical understanding. I've learned usually a smile means happy, what are you happy about? Data collection if I am interested in the person. Frowning, same thing. Though I rarely take initiative because I rarely catch these unless more factors of the equation come into play.

Something like this,
When my roommate wants attention or is upset she'll sigh heavily, she'll lay on her bed and stare at the ceiling, she'll look normally rather blank next to how she usually looks, she'll get up and walk around. She also has an obscene amount of emotional discharge that seems to envelope the whole apartment when she's real angry or upset. I can feel it when its REALLY bad, what to do with it? hell I don't know.

When I was younger I would observe people trying to piece together the world as usual. I would often analyze and connect emotional reactions to situations and try to reenact them which usually ended up not so great. I just, matter of fact, began realizing I do this. I've been doing this for years. This is why I could so easily talk about empathy and feelings. It was all objective analysis, just when I was six I didn't know that was what i was doing at the time I just answered what I was asked. I could never tell the difference between being personal or objective.

Also, I hate clowns. Useless - so utterly useless.

I'm going to screw up this guys name. I knew of his work better as a cartoonist for Playboy in 66 or so. I was very surprised to find out he is considered to be a "beat poet". He does a poem about a clown, shouldn't be hard to find on the net. I did it, but don't have the link, nor do I remember the title exactly of the poem. The dudes name is Shel Silverstien. Probably reversed the i and the e in his last name. I disagree about clowns. Clown is such a generic term anyway. Their history is very long and the word changes as you go back in time. The phrase "tears of a clown" says a lot to me. Your remark actually surprised me a lot. I thought if anybody here understood them, you would be high on the list. All clowns do not wear makeup, it is only an option.

http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/sh ... oems/14822

SS also wrote childrens' books.And "adult" songs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shel_Silverstein

I think traditionally clowns weren't intended to be "funny" per se;much humor contains painful truths and clowns were no exception.They probably have lost their effectiveness in this era,and their visual "humor" is lost on some of us here.At this point,the old fashioned makeup/shoes/wig clowns are an artifact of another time.

Circus clowns with the make-up I detest.

For the fact that I find them annoying. Now if we're going to get theoretical about the term clown than my opinion would be different but not many people think beyond the basic "clown" look.

The idea behind them and them themselves are different. The clown itself, I dislike.

Hope I didn't come across as insulting in the above. I sure didn't mean it, if you took it that way.

PS thanks for the link methinks

I'm generally pretty poor at reading people from their body language. I'm also pretty poor at understanding the subtle meanings in what they say, so all in all I'm on for a hiding-to-nothing (going to get confused and confuse others either way).

Having said that, I did the Cohen-Baron eye reading test and got a 25, which is "normal". However, I suspect I would not have faired so well if I didn't have lots of time and it wasn't multiple choice. If I just had to say what the mood was, I don't think I'd have a hope.

I never work or think personally, no worries.

I am very bad with body language and I barely look at people's faces, so I don't even use those expressions to judge scept for my gf, who i misinterpret all the time anyways. She always has to reasure me that she is not mad, or why she got mad, because I usually don;t understand why she got upset or the fact that i did something faux pas, which I do all the time. From staring to laughing and touching. Hugging when the person wants space.

My gf got really frustrated with a vid game once and I inmediately dropped my book and gave her a BIG hug. She shrugged me off, upset, saying "can't you tell that I need space? You don't go about suffocating people when they are frustrated and need space." That is one of the things that I do constantly, to name an example. I frown my nose all day long, and sometimes look mad when I am thinking about nothing and feeling nothing at all.

Oh but, by the way, when I am gesturing it is like I really can "see" the object or even a theory or a poem of some kind right in front of me. People have always noted my uncanny memory, it's very visual and even in math I can see the problems and do them right in front of me, in the air kind of. It's weird but fun, and people get excited because they say they can practially touch the equations with me! It's gotten me some hot dates, but never sex (not yet anyhow )

I am very likely in the minority in that I am very good at understanding body language.

Tim

Personally I have no problems what so ever with understanding body language.

similar story here, but when I was in the public service (i.e civil service) I got feedback from several unsucessful interviews, all saying the same thing about eye contact and expressions.

A few times people/friends would ask me why I wasn't smiling - I thought I was!

So I came to think that while I was OK at reading body language, I was not good at displaying any.

Then .....

When I had a girlfriend (at about age 24 - I had dated but this was first "girlfriend"), she would comment that such and such is hitting on me! I never saw it! I still wonder how many missed opportunities I have had

I'm better at reading body language than transmitting it, if that makes sense. Some people (quite a lot actually) have commented on my inscrutable looks and lack of expressions and that it freaks them out that they don't know what I'm thinking.

Sometimes I am too good at reading body language. For instance, if somebody is pretending to be nice to me; I can usually tell. They then get cranky because I didn't respond in a friendly way to their fake friendliness.

I respond well to friendly overtures that are genuine and have become a little bit more expressive over the years but am probably still way behind NTs even years younger than me.

I used to get that sometimes as a kid, which always confused me. But I am happy...

I don't consider myself too bad at reading people, though I know I do have some issues with it, but I scored 24 - lower than I expected, especially after the "Most people surprise themselves by how well they do in this test" comment at the top!