Body language
I can't let this "taking up space"-issue rest just yet. I've noticed that my body language varies with who I talk to.
When I talk to most people I have no problems taking up space, like folding my hands behind my neck letting my elbows stick out, leaning comfortably towards the back of my chair, letting my feet rest comfortably on the floor and not desperately trying to keep my knees together (the latter probably works better if outfit doesn't include a miniskirt - so there is clearly a need for a outfit-by-knee-position interaction term in this analysis if the response variable is the reaction of the people you talk to. Not that I ever did such an experiment with a large enough sample size of independent observations to do any reasonable statistics. And hey, I'm so not into using case studies as methodology).
There are a couple of other people that make me feel completely different. In their presence I shrink both mentally and physically. My spine bends, my shoulders sink forwards and I cross my arms protectively in front of my chest or hide my hands between my knees which are decently kept together, toes on the floor, heels not.
Why is that?
One of the people that have this affect on me is a person I've known for a long time. At some point I heard that this person had said something pretty negative about me. I never asked about the details and at the time I just dismissed it as bs. But. After that, I tend to shrink instead of oozing confidence in this person's presence. I even catch myself doing it, I'd try to adjust but gradually sink back in submissive position. Even thought this person is fun to talk to and seemingly happy to see me. I could obviously just avoid this person entirely but somehow I like to test whether I'm able to change my behavioural patterns. It's infuriating that I clearly haven't yet succeeded.
Did you ever experience that yourselves?
yep, different body language to different people. Funny enough (hm?) your description of the 'scared' behaviour would look a little like mine talking to my PI, which I feel ashamed for since clearly I should straight my back etc...
ReplyDeleteI have decided to really try and ooozzzee myself with all these people who I know I retort to the "crossed arms and looking down on the ground" with. I see it as a practice opportunity. And who knows? Maybe it will work (I kind of hope so since now it feels very ackward and not fun at all)
I get that way with close-talkers, boob-starers and other non-respecters of personal space. I tend to think of it as a signal to them to back off - not that it usually seems to work!
ReplyDeletepractise, practise. go out there and kick ass! I will too!
ReplyDeletecae; don't get me started on the personal space issue! Well that could be a post by itself actually.
ReplyDeleteI used to have a similar problem with a person saying negative things about me. I have learned to take absolutely NO bs from this person and it has improved matters enormously. It may have helped that our opinions about each other where rather symmetric from the outset, though.
ReplyDelete