Last week at a restaurant I met my classmate, after 10 long years. As soon as I saw her, I rushed to her table to talk to her with loads of excitement and the joy of seeing someone with whom you shared good time in school reflected completely on my body language. I walked to her table with a broad smile and said
“Hey! It’s great to see you.“
She replied, ” Hey Vidya! “ Then the usual questions started on how were we doing, how is life, what’s our career choices and lot more…. By this I suppose, you might be guessing this conversation to be at least 15 to 30 minutes of time. Well…. I am honest here, it lasted only for 5minutes to the maximum. It was a mere 5 minutes talk with questions and answers from 2 sides. One asked and the other answered. My excitement level from 100% came down to 40% within 5 minutes.
I went back to my table and joined the rest of the group. I was a little disappointed after the meeting. I was reflecting why I felt a little bad about it and realized it had something to do with her gestures, body language and the expressions on her face. I realized that gestures do a lot more speaking than words do. Here are 3 such gestures which she missed on and you or I can’t afford to miss. Of course, we are the smarter breed you see ;).
1) Greeting gesture
The lady didn’t even make an effort to move her body. I say this because, generally when you speak to someone, the vibes you get from them helps you continue a conversation.
I or most of us, get up from the seat and talk to someone when they show interest in us. Leaning towards them, a handshake, showing them you too excited, or even a small gesture of bending forward to talk would have made a great difference
2)Introducing to others
For the 5 minutes, her entire group of 5 people were looking at us, a few observing and a few clueless. I tried breaking the awkwardness by smiling, but again it wasn’t very effective on them.
There it was much needed, the introduction. We have already talked in one of our posts on Why introduce everyone to everyone. Introducing people to each other helps in a great way to deal the awkwardness with the group and the individual also and makes conversation happy and happening.
3) See off
After the 5 minutes of dealing with varying levels of excitement, I decided it was time to let her enjoy with her friends and take her leave. I wished her a happy future and wished to see her again and walked back to my table.
Every conversation has the start, talk about the topic of conversation and the see off moment and it’s equally important to see off the other person in good terms. Which she did pretty decently, but her first 2 gestures made the major difference.
A few of you might consider me as a sceptical, cynical person or a critic. I have no complaints against her. Probably seeing me wasn’t much exciting for her or she was way too hungry and wanted to end the conversation soon or she didn’t know how to talk to people. Well, somewhere I do believe she didn’t know how to react well, She was at least 0.5% excited to see me, I can bet that. I have been at her place and I have also treated people the same way. I do realise and understand how little we consider other person’s feelings and how unnoticing we become at times.
We understand, people skills- it’s never easy, it’s a lot about genuine interest and practice. Here are 8 Elegant Techniques To Become genuinely interested in other people?
I was curious to know what made my excitement level come down easily and this incident just made me respect someone’s enthusiasm and excitement much more.
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hmmm… I am not a people’s person and I agree some people attract other people to talk to… they are approachable and nice… I like to point out one thing here, regarding this that person and you have not been in touch for a while so if the connection is not there now that you had before, it may take a while to bring back(: … if its people you know its good…but what you said applies for people your meeting newly or know just a bit(: and some people we are not so enthusiastic to meet up with and it shows up, happened to me several times… I had a class mate in college she sent marriage invitation to my home and I rang and wished her, she did not seem that receptive… so I left it… but people skill’s are good, sometimes one has got to fake up too…for creating good impressions with people who won’t accept you… it is ok to lie a bit sometimes and be just proper according to social norms and be yourself to people who matter…anyway I might be going out of context… goodday… nice thoughtful topics I see about life… you know I read somewhere that dogs are smater than cats because dogs are more social creatures you agree to that?
A very interesting perspective Maria. It is a very tricky thing, esp to understand what people really mean and what their real intention is. I have had these questions constantly on my mind and wondered how I would really know what the truth is. And then I felt that, it is alright not to know the truth, as long as I am able to create a happy memory both for myself and the person at the other end, I guess it is alright. I maybe wrong, but sometimes I think it is better to err at the fair side where we can leave the situation with the head held high and a moral high ground, that alone would be a great deal for me.
And about faking an image, I agree to an extent, maybe the society wants us to . And a person who doesn’t do that is often cast away. And then I again wonder in conflict if we should really give that much of an importance to the society. It is a weird place to be isn’t it :)..
As for the dogs cats theory, I would like to believe dogs are smarter cos I like them a little better, a cat person might disagree to this. I think you maybe right, or atleast they seem the happier creatures than cats..
Precisely said.
Good Observation, as you pointed out , there are few guestures, that can keep other person, open, free to interact, making bthe meeting enjoyable
Thank you vidya for opening my eyes too,by the way she lost good excited friend like you,next time when you see her you won’t be….
Suraj, thank you for appreciating. I think I would be excited to see her again and the major excitement would be to see if she is better at greeting someone ;)