 Neighbourhood blue jays Raucous & Stripe, whom I wrote about here.Whenever I'm in a restaurant or other public space, I study facial
expressions. It's an astonishing experience. You quickly learn why it
is that dogs and cats scan our faces constantly for clues to what we
mean, and largely ignore the incoherent gibberish of what we say. Not
only are faces able to express an amazing breadth and nuance of emotion
and intellectual information, they do so very quickly. Blink, and
you'll miss it.
Yesterday morning I arrived for my meeting thirty minutes early,
so I stopped in down the street at a sidewalk cafe, grabbed a tea and a
muffin, and sat down at a table outside where I could watch the people
going by. I started watching body language, especially when two people
would approach each other -- either intentionally (where observing the
different body and facial signals of the two people, and how they often
contradicted what was said orally, was so funny I could not help
laughing), or unintentionally (where one of the two strangers would
have to make way for the other, and a kind of unspoken power game was
played to determine which, also hilarious to observe).
When the caffeine from the tea kicked in, I moved my attention up
to faces. This can be tricky, because if a stranger catches you looking
briefly but purposefully at their face, some socially-programmed autonomous
behaviour takes over. First, they will (nine times out of ten) avert
their gaze so you cannot continue to do so, or at least so they can
justifiably claim not to be aware of you observing them. I would guess this to be
necessary behaviour for any species in a horrifically overcrowded
environment. In many animals a direct stare is an aggressive act, and
glancing away is a simple deferral ("I don't want to fight"). Animals
that do not know each other have a neutral approach etiquette: they
approach at an angle, looking sidelong at each other, and then circling
until, from olfactory and pheromonal clues, they convey (usually) a
simple curiosity to be social with each other. There is usually a tacit
signal of authority communicated ("Yes I see this is your home, and I'm
just a visitor -- hello"). If it's miscommunicated, or the animal is
improperly socialized, it could lead to a more obvious display of
dominance and acknowledgement of submission, or even a scuffle.
We humans have unlearned to pick up on these signals, and we don't
have the time or inclination to acknowledge and greet, even briefly,
every stranger we meet in our congested world. But our bodies and faces
don't unlearn behaviours as quickly as our brains do, so the result is
a comical and perplexing mix of modern social/cultural signals and
primeval instinctive ones. Two languages 'we' speak, with the part of
us that speaks each unable to decipher or comprehend the other. No
wonder our companion animals find us to hard to figure out.
Sometimes, when you're caught looking, the object of your attention will not
look away. You may get a glare (dilated pupils, raised eyebrows), whose
meaning is aggressive and clear: "Stop looking at me". This can be
directed at you, or, more slyly, just away from you, sending the
message that, not only is your stare unappreciated, it is not even
worthy of a direct response ("I'm too busy to stare you down, but you
catch my drift"). It can also be an ambiguous move ("I think I mean to
put down your stare, but correct me if I know you or if for some other
reason that behaviour is inappropriate"). You may get a more coy
response -- a quick glance down (for propriety's sake) and then a look
back at you, perhaps repeated several times. Then it's back to you, to
assess or explore whether that's a flirtation, or an expression of
shyness ("please don't be mad at me, but your stare makes me
uncomfortable"). Despite our modern ineptness at making these signals,
and the complication of social and cultural norms and alternate spoken
language signals, it doesn't take much observation to re-learn exactly
what nuance is intended. And all of this communication occurs in a
fraction of a second, faster than you could utter two words -- and it's
much more precise.
One of my favourite exercises is looking and smiling at people who
are within eyeshot but safely inaccessible -- e.g. people who are on a bus I am
walking beside, or who are in the subway car beside mine, moving in the opposite
direction. This 'safety valve' significantly changes the dynamic of the
communication. Now people will look back more directly, and convey
their response to your look more honestly. You are far more likely in this situation
to get a smile back (or a scowl) in response. And if you then wink at them
(still smiling, pleasantly), just as the vehicle moves away, you are
likely to get a look of surprise and, quite often, delight.
As I was people-watching and thinking about this, a sparrow hopped
up onto my table, about arms' length away from me and my muffin. He
looked at me, head cocked (like the blue jay, Raucous, pictured above), and then back at the muffin, and
then back at me. There was no misinterpreting his meaning, and I knew he knew my response before my hand moved and before I said "hello there". He knew this, I am sure, just from reading my facial expression.
I tore a piece off the muffin and put it on the ground beside my table
(somehow, I knew not to try to offer it directly).
The sparrow hopped down, took a first bite, and then, deliberately,
kicked the rest under the table, where it could be nibbled without fear
of being trampled by half-awake cafe patrons walking between the
tables. He came back half a dozen times for the rest, and twice en
route had to
practice a deft and spare little dance among the tables to avoid being
stepped on. When he'd finished, he'd already
confirmed that there were no other morsels available (only coffee
drinkers at the other tables) and flew off to his next (probably
already scouted) destination.
A moment later I looked up again and there was a young woman
standing at the curb looking at me. I did the glance-down,
glance-up thing, and she was still looking at me, with her head cocked
exactly the way the sparrow's was. And then with a kind of half-smile
she put her index finger, which was pointed upwards, to her pursed lips, and
opened her lips very slightly, and then turned and walked away. |
MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
