The Book of Tells (Peter Collett)[unlocked]

THE BOOK OF TELLS
therefore finds the 'back hold' uncomfortable. If she's
shorter, it's usually because she likes to be in charge -
even at the cost of some physical discomfort to her and her
husband. There was a good example of this at the inauguration
of George W. Bush in 2001. After the
ceremony was over, Bill and Hillary Clinton started leaving.
The two of them were walking along hand in hand,
with Bill looking composed and very much in control, and
Hillary looking supportive. However, if you'd looked at
them more closely, you would have noticed that Hillary
had the 'front hold', while Bill had the 'back hold' - an
arrangement which could not be explained in terms of
their height. It showed that Hillary was in charge, not Bill.
Human courtship, like that of other animals, consists of
a series of stages, starting with the first meeting and progressing
through to intercourse and the establishment of
some kind of relationship. 43 The transition from one
courtship stage to the next is inextricably bound up with
tells which take the form of invitations to move to the next
stage of intimacy. A woman might orient her body towards
a man to show him that she's approachable, or a man
might brush the hair from a woman's face to show that he
wants to kiss her. The way that individuals respond to these
overtures decides whether the courtship is going to proceed
to the next phase, or whether it's going to get stuck
or unwind altogether. What's critical in this whole process,
of course, is the way that people read each other's tells. It's
not enough for the participants to notice each other's tells
- they also need to decode them correctly. People make
two errors when they interpret courtship tells. One is to err
on the side of caution, to 'mentally minimize' the tell by
assuming that the other person's gestures of affection don't
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