I consider myself an expert in the field of Non-Verbal Communication. My husband is an engineer, which is to say he has a PhD in Non-Verbal Communication. He was on the Dean’s list when I met him. He flourished under the tutelage of a blue collar step-father, a man of few words: “Who left the milk out?” and “I’m going out.”
I am psychic. I can read my mind. I think everyone else should be able to, too. Especially if we’ve spent more than an hour trauma bonding. Or if we’ve been married for…(counting)….
Skye and I have been married for 15 years. I didn’t say 15 glorious years or “God, has it been that many?” or 15 f**king years. Anyone who has been married knows you’re lying if you categorically describe all 15 years as glorious or f**king. Any number higher than three and they see right through the glorious f**king. Okay one.
The part about not knowing how many years is believable. It’s all a blur, especially if you have children. The first five years felt like ten because we’d done so much in that amount of time. Moved, had a colicky baby, moved, moved again, had another baby that almost didn’t make it. Now that the boys are 10 and 14 they don’t require so much of our attention and we have this time to catch up on all that stuff we missed, called our relationship.
We’re learning subtle things that we had never known about each other before, namely about our non-verbal communication. Apparently, non-verbal communication is not the same among genders. And it is something that is only obvious from woman to woman or man to man. Learning the opposite gender’s non-verbal language is harder than learning Chinese.
Last week we met with our (male) accountant. At the end of the meeting, the two of them discussed the next time we should get together. He throws a date out. Skye agrees verbally. When I hear him say “yes” I say “yes” because it’s really up to these two. My calendar is wide open.
Then Skye leans back in his chair and looks up at the ceiling. I think he’s stretching his neck. It has been a long day. The accountant says, “That’s not a good date for you, Skye?”
My non-verbal communication is Huh? How does he get that that’s not a good date for Skye just from a stretch? I say it with my eyebrows.
Skye does not say “no”. He doesn’t even shake his head no. Instead he says, “We’re having some visitors from Germany that week.” I’m waiting for the rest of the sentence, but the accountant nods and offers another opening in his schedule.
How this accountant could read the non-verbal communication over the auditory YES that came first is beyond me but it opened up a long discussion on the ride home.
This is what we’ve learned about “When I Do This I’m Saying This.” Take notes.
When I scrunch up my lips and bring them to the side, it means No, I don’t want to go to church with you tomorrow for the boy scout thing, can you take Vincent by yourself? I’ll stay home with James. But I want you to definitely take Vincent because he can check out the choir and see if he’d like to join. He thinks it’s all girls. But it’s the choir teacher from school that he loves. And you know how you’d like him to join a choir.
Skye inhales deeply after I tell him that I had no intentions of going 15 minutes before it’s time to go. He inhales deeply. I inquire about the deep inhale because it was excessively loud. Is he pissed? Is he thinking of moving our 401K into a money market account? Is the coffee too strong? What does it mean?
He says, “It means I have a lot of snot in my nose.”
When he stares at me after I ask him which car he wants to take it does not mean he’s still irked that he has to take Vincent to the church. It means, The check engine light in the Odyssey didn’t go off when I added coolant yesterday. I wonder if that means the transmission is about to go? We should have sold that thing five years ago. I knew it! But Amy folded her arms every time I brought it up. I hope it is the transmission. I’ll be able to talk her into a new car and she’ll get my Fit and I’ll get a car that’s more comfortable.”
I am familiar with this stare that follows conversations about the Odyssey, so I look away. It means, We are not selling it. Just in case looking away wasn’t loud and clear enough and because I like to get the last word in, I fart.
Farting is the only form of non-verbal communication between genders that never gets lost in translation, the way “ok” is understood to mean “ok” no matter what foreign land in which you find yourself trying to find common ground.
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Very funny with some grt interpretations for farts and Co….
soooo funny! ty for the laugh
I don’t know that we use farts as communication… it’s really more like punctuation.
Some are very emphatic.
Others are more… comma-ish.
I think you’re right on, there, Ami.
About the “OK” thing.
The non-verbal American hand sign for “OK” can easily be confused for a similar hand sign used in many other parts of the world to mean “asshole”.
So, now I’m completely confused … what exactly was your point about farting?
Farting is the icing on the cake of the point you made.
oh wow. this is so right on! My hubby and I have been married ten years and I swear our communication is no better than when we started dating! Thanks for the translation. I’ll keep it in mind the next time we’re talking and he leans against the counter with “that look,” the look he swears doesn’t exist.
“My husband is an engineer, which is to say he has a PhD in Non-Verbal Communication.” That line cracked me up. I’m a very talkative guy, so the silent types bewilder me. I can’t imagine what fun they get out of life, always hiding their thoughts and feelings and never talking about themselves.
Very funny! I want more!
Thank you! Many of the mysteries I have struggled with have now been revealed. I agree with Tawni, the science of fart communication is far more complex than I realized.
Please translate the following:
burp, sigh, fart, smile… He tells me, “it’s just air”
Burp (from men): He was really thinking about how he was going to ask you about getting out of plans to have dinner with your parents so that he could hang out with the guys, watch football and wash down Buffalo style hot wings with pitchers of beer.
Burp (from women): It’s a four letter word that, depending on the situation, indicates that she is either extremely pleased or getting sick.
Sigh (from women): Do not be alarmed. It is just asthma. Get it checked. Or, she can’t take it another minute and is thinking about killing herself.
Sigh (from men): He is saying, “Here we go again. Oh, great. She’s just ramping up. I can’t listen to this again. Could she possibly add any more tangents?? How could it possible take an hour to describe something that happened in five minutes?”
Fart (from women): Is her way of saying “plttttthhhhhhhhhhhh!” When a woman farts, it is her way of making a derogatory comment about her spouse in front of the children.
Fart (from men): It’s just a fart. It doesn’t mean anything. They don’t even know they did it.
Smile (from men): He’s not listening to you. He’s pretending to listen to distract you while he steals food from your plate. (It has happened. I broke up with that guy. Never trust a smiler while sharing a meal.)
Smile (from women): She’s thinking about something funny that happened earlier in the day. It may or may not have anything to do with that weird habit of yours. There it is again. You just did it again! There! That! She’s smiling because she’s perfecting it in her mind for when she sees her girlfriends again. When women smile it’s never good. They’re up to something.
I can’t tell you how long my husband and I have been married without doing some quick math. I also forget our anniversary every year. Someone gave us silver frame with our wedding date engraved on it, and I have actually had to reference the frame. Because dates don’t really mean much to me, I sometimes forget they can mean more to other people. I think you and I have discussed our dependence on multiple organizers, calendars and lists already, yes?
I loved reading about the non-verbal communication you and your husband share.
The sighing part made me smile because I recently learned that this is a symptom of asthma. After a lifetime of being diagnosed with mild asthma, my doctor finally talked me into an inhaler, so I did research.
My (former actor) husband is an emotionally forthcoming, therapized, great communicator and in a probably really annoying for him role reversal, he is the one who constantly wants to talk about our feelings and I clam up when upset. So I had this poor, sweet fellow asking me, with my every big sigh, what was wrong? I would stop, try to decide if something *was* wrong because I felt fine, tell him this, he would doubt, I would promise, etc. My long-winded point: it was just my lungs needing oxygen most of the time. Now I just say, “Asthma.” He stops worrying. Done.
I had no idea farts were such a complex form of non-verbal communication. *makes note to self*
I’m on my way to Oklahoma to meet both of you. We could write a book together on NVC.
Funny as usual. I completely agree with you. Understand too. I would also like to add men of few words are sooooooooooooo very painful. Give me a talkative guy anyday.
Laya