By Genevieve, innerconfidence.com contributor
Social cue: a verbal or nonverbal hint that guides conversation and other social interactions.
I want to go in depth regarding the importance of recognizing social cues and understanding why an engaging and successful interaction with a girl completely depends upon them. The importance of this topic can’t be overstated!
Social cues are an example of behaving the way others anticipate us to, and living up to expectations of how we’re supposed to interact with each other. When we behave in a way that makes other people feel comfortable, we do it by igniting the right kind of emotions within others and not setting off any alarms or behaving unfavorably. By doing this, we can ensure they don’t become defensive and as a result, we can become closer to them. Not only that, but we can also persuade and encourage certain behaviors from others towards us in ways we’re looking for, by acting on and manipulating both incoming and outgoing social cues.
Keep in mind that social cues can be positive or negative. Examples of social cues include facial expressions, vocal tone, mood, direction of gaze, body posture, movement, hand gestures, types of eye contact, paralinguistic cues, passive-aggressive behaviors such as walking away or telling someone you will call them back and then failing to do so, proximity, orientation, and physical appearance (dress). Knowing how to carry yourself takes a great deal of focus on not only your own behavior and habits, but just as importantly, reading into other persons’ behaviors, body language and choice of wording in order to ideally adjust your behavior in response to theirs.
Why it’s important to pay attention to signals and cues girls put out there:
- In my research for this piece, I came across numerous articles stating how studies have shown that lonely people tend to misread social cues – if this isn’t a sign to be socially savvy, I don’t know what is.
- Social cues give you insight into what makes her happy, sad, uncomfortable, turned on, turned off, upset, excited, back off… or: I’m into you, I’m not sure whether or not I like you, I’m bored, I wanna party, I want to have sex, etc.
- Not only does having a healthy social life rely on social cues, but when addressed properly, understanding them well and adjusting your behavior in response properly will lead to more successful social interactions, guaranteed.
When you don’t notice and/or improperly act on social cues, you miss all kinds of social windows and openings. These can include an opportunity for a kiss, a hand touch, or a hug. In fact, you could miss out on talking to her in the first place entirely if you’re not reading her social cues and signals effectively. Not only that, but when a guy just can’t take a hint… how annoying is that?! I recently went on vacation to Eastern Europe where I met a man sitting next to me at a lunch, who was probably the most socially ignorant person I’ve ever met. He talked to me about intense gamer code theories for almost an hour, completely oblivious to the glaring signals of disinterest I was putting out: zero eye contact, on my phone, no idea if and when he’d ask me a question and when I did figure out it was time to answer, I’d tell him I had no clue what he said … to which he’d continue on another tangent. He was the worst, and if I ever come across another one of his type I won’t stand for it! Painful.
Because of these kind of extremely bad encounters we come across, women tend to put barriers up and as a result, I’ve become pretty impatient in regards to any conversation I get myself into with a guy trying to hit on me. Think of it like this: once you’ve started talking to her, the ticker is counting down, and you’ve only got a certain amount of time to grab her interest.
By not paying close attention to cues, keep in mind you’re losing time as the ticker is counting down! Not only that, but this kind of habitual behavior shows me and other people that you are not socially savvy, not of high value and typically tells me that it’s time to start talking to someone else – no way to live your life, turning other people away because you are unconscious to their signals. By ignoring their cues, you’ve effectively not provoked any attraction or spark within her, but you’ve actually killed any chances of immediate attraction. For lack of a better term, you’re now in the negative – not even starting out in a neutral zone anymore!
If you’re reading this blog post, you’ve likely heard the term “escalation” from the Inner Confidence coaches before. Proper escalation absolutely requires being 100% in tune with her social cues – allowing you to push your relationship out of the friend zone. If she likes you and is giving you any windows, she wants you to escalate. It’s your job to pick up on this.
When you can’t recognize simple social cues like these, you end up griping, regretful and frustrated. Guess what – she’s is just as annoyed as you are oftentimes!
As soon as a girl begins to give you love – you’ll want to look for other cues, such as a lot of smiling, eye contact, her moving her hair and exposing her neck. What do most guys do in response to this? Not notice in time, losing an opportunity or chickening out entirely, in my experience. Don’t be afraid to touch her and additionally, don’t forget to play with eye contact. How well you make eye contact with me tells me a lot about you, about how confident you are. Don’t be afraid to smile, either… Just don’t make it a cheesy or animated grin.
Don’t forget about the social cues you’re giving, either. Some tips on giving A+ energy: stand up straight with good posture, introduce yourself in social situations, make confident eye contact, smile at the right moments (with practice it will come), look everyone in the eye, pay some attention when and when not to laugh, and what and what not to say.
When I meet a guy who “gets it” and is actually on point, this is a huge attractor for me, personally. It shows me that you’re smart, and up to speed. There’s nothing sexier than when I meet someone who is with-it, has a take-charge attitude and is affectionate in just the right way (article about that subject coming soon). This is what men who are successful with women are made of, and these three traits in particular tend to result in: attraction from me to you! Once you’re with someone like this, your standards won’t go ever go back down so it really is on the guys to step up to the competition to get my attention or better yet, attraction from me… and social cues play a very relevant role in achieving this.
It’s important to mention the fact that every person differs in their ability to recognize and decode this complex network of both verbal and nonverbal acts – so don’t feel ashamed if you’re not the best at making sense of it all and perfecting it just yet! Keep up the good work looking within, guys.
That’s all for today…
xoxo,
Viva
I thought you were interested in Counter Strike too……….some people geez.
That guy at the restaurant had to be the biggest social zero of all time. Completely clueless and he wreaked of B.O.
Good read as always. Although for the new guys it can be quite difficult reading the signals.
if the girl is wearing a skirt that’s more like a belt and has no panties on , that’s not a sign, that’s a demand for cock. this is why high T meatheads get laid, they don’t piss around looking for your bullshit signs. the lights are always green.
LMAO, good call Rafael.
Damn, this article is how the female Brian works! If I ever start keeping up all the freaking social signs around me I would drive myself nuts. Good luck to those who want to keep up with the signs. Not for me and BTW, no problem hitting it for me either.
How could you stand writing an article on someone’s lack of social skills after describing a blatant lack of respect on your part during an encounter with someone you call “socially oblivious”? It does not matter whether or not this man noticed– refusing to make eye contact and staring at your phone screen while another person is speaking is appallingly rude and is comparable to the behavior of a bored child at a dinner party. If you were not interested in what he was talking about, you could’ve easily introduced a new conversation topic– nevermind “waiting” for him to ask you a question. Did you even want to speak to him in the first place?
Thank you for that response ; the writer here seems to be the person without the social skills, and good social intelligence. The man maybe had ASD, but the writer did not think (pick up cues!) on this and decided to become extremely childish and immature and arrogant. (And yes I studied social psychology).
Of course, there are people out here who are socially inept.
Not everyone is born into socially savvy environments.
So forgive me when I say. When you were enjoying the company of your friends. Some were enjoying the discomfort of silence. And let’s face it if a person can’t catch on to social cues and becomes unaccepted as an adult, what makes anyone think they were accepted as a kid.
Having no one to use as a sounding board during critical periods of one’s life can render them socially inept. How does a man know that he is the only one in the room who’s blind if no one tells him? (The inside jokes that everyone gets but you.) You know. When you have zero real friends. That “Don’t expect women to tell you stuff. “ When you think he’s clearly not well rounded, and because I am a star. I am going to get offended walk away and leave that ignorant buffoon in unintelligible obscurity.
We tend to assume others have made a conscious choice to be socially ignorant.
Some don’t have friends to practice their social skills on. So for that poor bastard who was blown off just trying to impress you. I am sure he clearly had no clue he was stepping on your social toes or probably didn’t even know social cues were an issue let alone how complex or to what sensitive magnitude they have grown.
I am willing to bet when he meets women from other countries he comes over as a more charming and confident guy. Don’t read into this but to me, It seems western women are more critical and sensitive toward American men. The French guy that comes in, does all the wrong things, gets a free pass and winds up with his date. While you sit with your head on the floor.
All socially ignorant men are not broken. There are guys who can’t fix anything to save their lives, but this is not a social red flag for women? Why not, I ask, for if you were stranded who would you choose?
I feel that many women believe, if a man is not up on the social lingo, he is a psycho or some controlling idiot that she can’t get rid of.
I admit I am somewhat of a social idiot. Usually, when others interpret my feeling based on my facial expressions it’s a hoot.
I recently started to recognize the social cues and found they are other people’s interpretations. People read my face but the accuracy of their interpretations are blatantly wrong. So of course; absolutely, I trough up a lot of red flags, but in my defense, I have just become aware of it.
This makes me raise the question. If women want socially savvy men why make it some Illuminati type secret?
Since I am a man and have no clue about what good qualities are for choosing men. If I had to, there would be many other values I would choose over social skills. Teach oneself how to talk to women just don’t have as much weight for me than teaching oneself how to be successful.
Molly! Molly! Molly!
I thought this was going to be about helping identify and react properly to female social cues. But it’s not. Instead it’s just a professional writer’s equivalent to a facebook rant.
Dear Viva,
I must say i learnt alot from your write up and have saved it for positive reference and lectures also to those that will come in need of it in my future. However, i also believe there were some lapses on your part when it comes to emotional intelligence.
From the tonality of your write up with regards the encounter, you did not see the man as “a human being life brought my way that i can practically lend a hand to on his weakness” before judging him internally and treating him according to your judgement. We all need each other in this life Viva, and you never know his history or what he must have been or survived through in life before he met you that day.
Some people find solace in talking to avoid committing suicide at some point. Moreso, i really really really wonder why its hard for people to be real with others than talking behind them. Would it be out of order to warmly tell the man that you’re not really into discussion like that and would really appreciate if you talked about . How simple would that had been?
It’s sad though our world today keep tending towards “kill him/her” instead of empathy. Thanks though again for your article, it was still insightful.