inquiring meerkat inquires

[lagilman]

I freely admit to judging people (especially men) by a) if they own their shit, and b) if they can be amused by their shit, especially if they do it in a graceful fashion (ex: RDJr vs Charlie Sheen). When I hold to that standard, I find I am rarely disappointed in a person.

What sort of 'tells' do you have, when observing someone new? How accurate is it?

Comments

[cypherindigo.livejournal.com]

How they treat the other people in the space.

Generally it works pretty well.

[lagilman]

More specifics, please. What space? What sort of treatment in particular do you look for?

("being nice to people" is too vague for this sort of question - that's not really a tell!)

[cypherindigo.livejournal.com]

If you meet at a coffee shop, how did they treat the people standing in line? Did they hold the door for the person coming out, or just barge in. Are they aware of the space around them, and show courtesy to the people sharing the space.

It is the next stup up from "how do they treat the waiter and bus boy when you are out to dinner.

"please and thank you" when not strictly necessary are really good indicators.

[sinboy.livejournal.com]

"Josh's rule" is to expect people to conform to past behavior patterns. Observe a person, observe their behavior, and find patterns. Expect them to follow those patterns. Note that this applies to yourself as well.

Changing patterns of behavior is hard, but it can be done.

Don't expect people to change unless you've watched them change before, and think they're following reasonable steps to change again.

[scarlettina.livejournal.com]

My tells are pretty much the same as yours, with the addition of cypherindigo's, but I'll be more specific: I look to see if someone is polite, respectful, curious, kind, considerate. If they try to assume good intentions first, before ascribing mean or malicious interpretations of behavior they do not like or understand. I also watch to see how they behave around pets: are they engaged, do they ignore, are they mean?

[lagilman]

ah, pets, yeah, that's a good one. Not so much the "do you like animals" but "do you treat them like living creatures."

[rosefox]

And not like your furry kings and queens.

[girasole.livejournal.com]

How they speak. Whether they speak in sentences. Whether they are alert to meaning and nuance. Whether their first couple of remarks are entirely full of cliche, entirely full of current slang, entirely full of how they are trying to show me how witty they are, or whether they actually own and use their native language.
This will tell me fairly accurately if it is worth pursuing the relationship.

I should add, of course, that being over 60, I don't have the patience to put up with much .

[mtlawson.livejournal.com]

I don't go out and meet people much --not that I'm a hermit, but that I don't go to bars and/or parties and whatnot-- but the people I do see in the course of life will be judged primarily on how they interact with others.

1. Are they yelling and screaming at the ref in a kids' instructional league game?


2. Did they hold the door open for other people behind them?


3. Did they ask if the person struggling with carrying stuff needed assistance?


4. Did they let their dog take a dump on the sidewalk/yard and pretend it didn't exist?


5. Do they refuse to discipline their kids when it is called for?

All of those things come into play. Typically, it boils down to people behaving like responsible adults.

[rosefox]

I go entirely by instinct because it's so accurate that I can get away with relying on it. I can describe for you the moments I first saw both Josh and Xtina because it took about the length of that moment to think "This is someone I want to know". On my first day of high school, I saw three girls sitting and talking and I went over to them and said "Hi, I'm Rose, can I sit here?" and I'm still friends with one of them. Two women I've seen at dancing instantly drew my eye, and the three of us are now very close friends. I don't think I've experienced love at first sight, but the "zing!" of that instant connection is unmistakable. It's one of the reasons I want to find some sort of poly speed-dating event; I don't think I'd even need the five minutes to say whether someone's friend material. (And it's one of the reasons I hate Going On Dates, because I'm signing up for an entire evening with someone when that's far more time than I need to size someone up and far more time than I want to spend with someone who doesn't click with me.)

Mind you, it's not always completely right, and sometimes I can mistake one type of zing for another. The strongest I've ever felt it was seriously romance novel level instant attraction; I looked at him, he looked at me, and it was understood that we were going to end up in bed as soon as humanly possible. (I think it took us two weeks, and that only because we had to negotiate with our respective partners.) We turned out to be spectacularly bad for each other romance-wise, and that relationship ended very unhappily. But damn, the chemistry was AMAZING. I haven't spoken to him in most of ten years and I bet if I saw him on the street we'd still have that instant spark. Pheromones or something.

Some people fly under my radar for a while and then I suddenly capital-N Notice them. That happened with my friend Kathleen, who I seriously thought was too cool for me until one day she gave me a compliment and I realized she actually wanted to be my friend; she's now one of the people I love most in all the world, though I still think she's too cool for me sometimes. And I must have met Graham two or three times and talked with him a bunch online before I figured out what was going on behind his Englishness and became completely besotted. But once I got past whatever preconception or self-effacing behavior was messing with the zing mechanism, it went zing just the same.

I could try to tease out different aspects of it, but I doubt I'd even be very good at doing that. It's just a thing I can do. My superpower. So that's not very useful to you, I guess!

[rovanda.livejournal.com]

I go by instinct because most of my tells are subconscious - sometimes I have to counteract my instincts, like when I react to someone looking physically like someone else but their actions show them to be different.

A lot of the time, though, the instinct seems to be based on body language - nuances of eye contact, stance, posture, etc. as well as tone of voice and word choices. I can often identify why I have a reaction to someone after the fact, but I can rarely do so at the time.

[otterdance.livejournal.com]

My instincts are pretty good at first impressions. I'm really sensative to body language.

But I also notice when people try to be amusing by running someone else (esp an absent friend) down. If they're doing it to one friend, they'll do it to the one laughing with them now, too.

[badgermirlacca.livejournal.com]

I look for how they treat other people; how they listen; if their conversation is about the subject or about themselves; how they treat animals; and if they do what they say they'll do, when they say they'll do it.

I look at how they look at other people. There's the difference between looking at someone and "observing" them, as if they're something inferior to be condescended to. (Not saying this well; sorry) Physically, it's pulling the head slightly back, sitting open and unengaged, cutting off the other person's sentences, acknowledging someone's remarks (when in a group) with a nod, as if giving permission to speak or dismissing their contribution--either way making it clear that they have the power, not someone else.

[cgbookcat1.livejournal.com]

I observe how they treat:

a) people with less power/service jobs

b) people from a very different heritage and background -- do they make an effort to overcome their innate prejudices and work at communicating?

c) pets

All three are really the same thing -- do they treat others with dignity?

And yes, humor is another great one, although this takes a longer time to pick up with some people.

[sorek.livejournal.com]

I look for honest perkiness, but "forced" perkiness is worse than sarcastic/bitter/ironic behavior. I tend towards the snark so I look for someone who genuinely likes people. I despise bad "tour guide/camp councilor/personal trainer" types.

[neko-san.livejournal.com]

Dunno if this counts as a quick tell, but if someone repeats something over and over, a la "you can always trust me", "i never lie", "i always keep my promises", "i never cheat", take just the opposite as true. If someone actually has one of those attributes, they don't need to announce it, it will be apparent from their actions. I think people are trying to convince themselves of whatever it is as much as they're trying to convince the other person; and people who insist on lying to themselves are just plain difficult to deal with.