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The Book of Tells (Peter Collett)[unlocked]

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THE BOOK OF TELLS<br />

Courtship <strong>Tells</strong><br />

Up until a few years ago a woman who took out a<br />

cigarette at a social gathering could reasonably expect<br />

a man to <strong>of</strong>fer her a light. <strong>The</strong> ritual <strong>of</strong> lighting a woman's<br />

cigarette still provides men and women with an opportunity<br />

to exchange courtship signals - the man can<br />

position his body and the lighter to convey his interest,<br />

and he is able to check her out at close quarters while<br />

she's busy lighting her cigarette. For her part, the woman can<br />

reciprocate by lightly touching his hand, ostensibly to steady<br />

herself but really so that she can make physical contact. She<br />

can also show her interest in the man by disengaging slowly<br />

and looking him in the eye for longer than normal when she<br />

thanks him. <strong>The</strong> beauty <strong>of</strong> this ritual is that it enables people<br />

to exchange suggestive signals very rapidly and with all the<br />

ambiguity that courtship requires.<br />

Generally speaking, the courtship signals that men and<br />

women exchange are based on the secondary sexual<br />

characteristics that distinguish them. Individuals who want<br />

to attract members <strong>of</strong> the opposite sex do so by<br />

emphasizing and exaggerating these differences, while<br />

people who wish to discourage attention do so by downplaying<br />

and disguising them. It's the same with courtship<br />

and smoking. A woman who wants to emphasize her<br />

femininity usually does so by accentuating the smoking<br />

style <strong>of</strong> women - by adopting a straight-leg hold, displaying<br />

the wrist, using the ends <strong>of</strong> the fingers, and smoking<br />

slowly. Men react unconsciously to these signals - they<br />

know there's something sexy about the woman whos<br />

using them, but they can't explain why they find her so<br />

attractive.<br />

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