Evaluating Listening Skills and Non-verbal behavior

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{
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    The slouched back-lean. The occasional glance at the watch. The periodic checking of the phone. The couple sat just opposite me, facing each other at the dining table. Their exchange of superficial probing questions gave away the fact that it was perhaps their first date - but the signs I listed earlier at the top of the paragraph betrayed another fact - that they probably were not quite as into each other as they'd have first expected. 

Why do I say this? I wasn't the one who said it. They told it to me. Neither of them got up from their seats, delivered a half-witted apology to the other, strolled up to me and said "we aren't working out", of course. Their non-verbal communicative aspects, such as body language, told me that. Communication scientists have published many papers stating how the non-verbal aspects of communication actually make up a larger part of communication than the verbal aspect itself - a fact which, upon first hearing, baffled me (I mean, isn't communication after all about talking? How can the non-spoken outweigh the spoken in a form of interaction whereby the verbal is a dominant aspect?!?!?!). The things we do subconsciously, the clothes we wear and even how close we stand to someone might betray parts of us that we would rather have hidden. 

Back to the couple in question - the slouched posture of the male specimen could have indicated that perhaps he felt un-involved in the conversation, and has thus subconsciously reflected his lack of involvement physically by drawing his body away from his female counterpart, and back into the seat of his chair - which brings me to my next point: the female counterpart. Her occasional glance at the watch could have given away the fact that she was either in a hurry (in which they wouldn't quite be having an awkward conversation about how they weather has been recently, would they?) or that she was biding her time, waiting for the disastrous first date to blow over. Their periodic glance at their mobile devices also communicated to me that they might not have quite been sufficiently engaged with each other, and had to find a secondary source of engagement .

Now that you have a good mental image of what I saw, allow me to pull apart several aspects of what happened - why did it turn out to be this way? (No, I'm not going to examine the probable causes of an awry first date and how to avoid them; that would be covered in another blog post) The constant checking of personal mobile devices might have enlarged the proverbial ice walls around their hearts to each other, but I believe it is a symptom of a much larger issue - that our culture nowadays is simply so interconnected and fast-paced that we could no longer live in the moment. We want engagement, and we want it instantly. In an age where we are constantly bombarded with information and engagement via social media and interactive applications, we cannot help but recoil and cringe at the thought of a moment spent without such interaction. Our fingers twitch, we reach into our pockets - and in a moment's notice, we get that instant gratification - all at the whim of our mind's craving for constant engagement. This outcry manifested in the scene that unfolded -albeit briefly - in their occasional glances at the phone.  May we learn from this example and examine ourselves from time to time, investing our attention in those we care about instead.






That being said, I'm going back to Facebook right after I post this. I'm craving engagement right about now.

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    return 0;

}