6 Intimate Details You Can Tell Just By Looking At Someone
How much would you pay to be able to read another person's mind? As superpowers go, it's a hell of a lot more of a game changer than, say, flight. Your career, your relationships -- everything would change.
But experts say you can gather a whole bunch of intimate details about a person just by looking at them. No, it's not 100 percent accurate, and it's not magic. It's just science.
Is She Interested In You? Look at Her Feet.
Remember back in high school when you were talking to that cute girl you really liked, but you couldn't tell if she liked you back, and your fear of rejection prevented you from expressing your feelings in any way apart from night after night of tearful masturbation? Remember when you did the same thing last week? Wouldn't asking someone out be so much easier if you knew how they'd answer before you asked them?
Science to the rescue!
How? Tell Me!
Experts will tell you it's all in the body language, but you know better. People -- and especially women -- are really, really good at feigning disinterest. Anything short of the woman outright grabbing your junk will be lost on most guys.
But watch her feet.
Apparently, people aren't as conscious of their foot movements as they are of other parts of their body, and so their feet can unconsciously send messages about themselves. They did a study at the University of Manchester on this, studying subjects' foot movements in various social situations.
Specifically, they found if a woman moves her feet apart to adopt a more open-legged stance, it generally means that she's into you. However, if she finds you utterly repulsive, she will likely cross her legs or keep them tucked underneath her body. We'll, uh, let you figure out the symbolic meaning of those gestures.
And while we're on the subject ...
You Can Tell if a Woman Has Had an Orgasm by How She Walks
Of course, all of our male readers are already virtual experts on the subject of female sexuality. But for the rare, sheltered fan who isn't, we need to explain something about the female orgasm. When it comes to climaxing, ladies can do it two ways: from the inside or from the outside. The inside orgasm comes from the G-spot, and is super easy to achieve if her partner's penis is shaped like a letter "J." Most women, however, climax from the outside, or clitoral stimulation.
If for some reason you are curious to know whether, say, the lady who delivers your mail has regular vaginal orgasms, there's an easy way to tell.
How? Tell Me!
By the way she walks. Not joking.
A group of sexologists (which is apparently a thing) from the Universite Catholique de Louvain in Belgium studied the connection between the way a woman walks and her vaginal orgasm history. What else did you think sexologists studied?
They gathered a group of women -- half had never had vaginal orgasms, half had. And then, we shit you not, the scientists had to guess which group each lady fell into by the way she sashayed her stuff across the room.
And here was the kicker: It worked. The sexologists could determine whether or not the woman in question could have a vaginal orgasm with freaking 81.25 percent accuracy.
Now, we caution you against trying this if you're not a trained sexologist yourself -- we're not responsible for any injuries or incorrect conclusions drawn. But the experts say women who were climaxing from the inside had longer stride lengths, greater pelvic rotation and an "absence of both flaccid and locked muscles." In other words, they had a little shake in their hips, a little pep in their stride and didn't look like they were clenching a tennis ball with their thigh muscles. A loose but confident walk. Now you know, and you'll never, never un-know.
We're so sorry.
You Can Tell Their Political Views by Their Eyes
Granted, most of the time you know somebody's political leanings because they will goddamn tell you. But not everybody broadcasts their beliefs via shouted slogans and bumper stickers.
Fortunately, it turns out that there are subtle clues that indicate if a person is liberal or conservative -- you just have to know what to look for.
How? Tell Me!
And by "look" we literally mean "look," because eye contact is actually a great indicator of political beliefs.
Researchers have found that during conversations, left-leaning people were more likely to follow the other person's "eye cues" than conservatives. Let's say you are having a conversation with someone and you suddenly take your gaze off them to look at something slightly to the right, say a cute person or a passing zebra. Liberals are more likely to follow your gaze and look as well, even if what you are looking at has no bearing on the conversation. If you look away again, they will follow your gaze again, and so on and so on, like two little puppies distracted by shiny passing balloons.
Conservatives are almost never going to follow your gaze, but will continue looking straight at you, like robots. Those conducting the study speculated that conservatives held their gaze because, no lie, they don't like being told what to do.
You Can Tell Someone's Sexuality by Their Hands and Hair (Usually)
Contrary to what 1980s sex comedies taught you, coming out of the closet as gay doesn't automatically give one a raging case of flamboyant. Nor does it guarantee that you're going to wear an ascot at all times or punctuate every sentence with "girlfriend" or a sassy "mmmm hmmm." So, if you're a person who really needs to know the sexuality of the strangers you run into, figuring it out usually isn't as easy as a quick once-over. But you can get a pretty good idea.
How? Tell Me!
Look at their hands and hair.
We've previously mentioned one indicator of likely homosexuality -- the digit ratio theory. It suggests that the proportion of the length of your ring finger to your index finger is influenced by the amount of testosterone you were exposed to in the womb. Which is why men and women usually have totally different finger ratios; most men have longer ring fingers than pointer fingers, and most women's pointers and ring fingers are pretty close to the same length.
So there are some studies that suggest a reversal of the typical male/female finger lengths is one good indicator of sexuality. In other words, if a guy's index fingers and ring fingers are pretty much the same size, he might be gay. Or if a lady's ring finger is a lot longer than her pointer, she might be gay. Though, good luck taking those measurements without pretending to be a gypsy fortune teller.
Here's an easier one: see which hand they write with. Studies have suggested that homosexuals of both genders are 50 percent more likely to be left-handed than heterosexuals.
Lastly, look at their hair. Specifically, look at the direction in which their hair spirals. A study of the hair whorls of 50 gay men showed that 23 percent had a counterclockwise whorl, as opposed to the much more common clockwise whorl. Among the total population, only around eight percent have counterclockwise whorls. Though, once again, we'd love to hear what cover story you come up with to explain to the dude why you're running your fingers through his hair and studying how it lays. Maybe tell him you found a tick or something.
You Can Tell How Much They Can Drink by Their Eye Color
There comes a time in every man's life when it will be necessary to drink another guy under the table. Maybe you're trying to win a bet, or prove your manliness, or maybe you're in a terrible rom-com and the only thing that stands between you and the woman you love is the varsity liquor drinking team that challenged you to a duel. We don't know ... we don't write the rules.
So naturally you'll pick out some blond-haired, blue-eyed pretty boy who looks like two Bud Lights would have him over a toilet. An hour later, you are praying for death. And to think this all could have been avoided if you had known how to pick out a lightweight drinker.
How? Tell Me!
Picking the blue-eyed guy was a bad move. It turns out, eye color is an amazing indicator of how much alcohol a person can drink before it affects them.
A study of thousands of white men (all of them prisoners) found that for some reason, those with light eye colors like blue, green, gray or hazel, can handle more alcohol than men with dark eyes. And a totally different study of almost 2,000 women found that the same held true for them.
Even more interesting is the fact that this result was predicted before the study. Because apparently brown-eyed folks are more sensitive to medication and other stimuli, and that sensitivity is what prompts them to stop when they've had enough. Blue-eyed people, on the other hand, require more alcohol to get buzzed, so they develop a greater tolerance for the stuff. And according to the study, the blue-eyed people are also more likely to be alcohol abusers.
As for what eye color has to do with alcohol tolerance, scientists are still on the fence. One theory is that the amount of melanin in the eyes is directly related to the amount of melanin insulating neurons in the central nervous system, and that more melanin somehow translates to quicker nerve transmissions. In any case, you might want to think again before challenging someone with baby blues to a drinking contest.
You Can Spot a Rich Person by How Distracted They Are During Conversations
Maybe you're one of those hippy types who couldn't care less about the socioeconomic status of everyone around you. We're really happy for you if that's the case. But for most of us, knowing where we stand among our peers actually helps us avoid embarrassing gaffes or rage-inducing insults. For example, if you're rolling in the benjamins daily and nightly, it would be nice if you didn't brag about a caviar breakfast to someone who's been looking for work for six months. No one wants to be that guy.
Which is why it would be nice if you could tell how rich a guy is just by looking at him. Guess what? You can! By looking at what kind of car he drives!
Ha, no, just kidding. The truth is actually sillier than that.
How? Tell Me!
In 2009, two University of California psychologists performed a study on the relationship between nonverbal cues and socioeconomic status. To do this, they placed participants in pairs and videotaped them talking as they got to know each other. What they discovered was that the richer person in the pair was more likely to display "disengagement" behaviors, like fidgeting or doodling or playing with a damned pencil while someone was trying to talk to them. The poorer of the two engaged in not being a jerk behaviors, like nodding, and smiling and actually listening to the other person.
Not only could the researchers pick out which conversationalist had the higher socioeconomic background, an entirely separate group of observers could watch the tapes and pick the richies as well. The theory goes that people of a higher socioeconomic status are less dependent on others, due to their wealth and higher education. As such, they aren't as invested in conversing with others, as they have no need for it.
If the other person is acting that way and you know for a fact that they're broke, well, maybe they just hate you. Sometimes the simplest answer is the correct one.
You can follow Simon on Twitter, read his blog, or email him at sb_comedy@live.co.uk. You can find Kathy on Tumblr, Twitter, and Facebook.
And learn the secrets to having an awesome (read: slovenly drunk) personality when you pick up our book.
And learn how the Web is making you a social outcast in 6 New Personality Disorders Caused by the Internet. But find out how science is working to rectify your other problems in 5 Personality Flaws That Science Will Cure in Our Lifetime.
And stop by Linkstorm to discover how to figure out if that "18-year-old hot blond" you're IMing is into you.
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