Thursday, October 8, 2009
Misunderstanding Non-Verbal Comm.
Non verbal messages can be extremely tricky because of the lack of explanation involved in the process. When someone is staring at you, you may feel like they are sending you a sexual message through their stare but they may just as well be looking at your funny hairstyle. The messages are send without saying anything and therefore they are interpreted. I have been in a situation when I have completely misunderstood the context of the non-verbal message. I have been dating my boyfriend Dominique for 5 years now and it isnt uncommon that we misunderstand each other at some point. He plays football for San Jose State and there are times when we try to communicate during the game and while he is on the field. During a football game sometime last season, I looked for Dom on the field and I started showing him our hand signal and he looked confused back at me. I was showing him the peace sign from a few rows back and he looked at me in confusion. After the game I went to meet up with him and asked him why he didnt wave or give me a signal back during the game. He explained to me that he thought I was putting up the number "2" sign and not "peace". It was such a silly misunderstanding but in the end I had to realize that you must be clear with your messages and show direct meaning especially with non-verbal ones because they are easily misunderstood.
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My mom would do the same with my brother and me during our athletic games. She was our coach that sat in the stands and if she saw something amiss with our swing or jump shot she would let us know with some sort of hand signal. Sometimes she wouldn't want anyone to see and what we thought she was showing us would not be what she meant because she would do it so fast. So we would go about the game and continue to make the same mistakes. At the end she would get mad that we didn't make the correct adjustments and not understand how we didn't know the cue. Simple misunderstandings can be the downfall of the day.
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