Body language is completely unique to every single individual person and the science of body language is almost if not completely unreliable and if I have to listen to one more person claim they can “read” me by my body language I’m gonna flip.
MULTIPLE people in my life have told me they can “tell” I’m “self conscious” because I look at my feet when I walk and they say it like they want me to open up about some social insecurities, like I have some wall they’re about to break down and we’ll have a moment
And I tell them the same truth every single time:
As a kid we had two MASSIVE Holly trees in the backyard and my dad and my uncle, both well meaning but perhaps poor planners, said “yes a great place for a swing set is directly beneath those.”
So they built it there and the issue is that entire section of yard was a Minefield of dried Holly leaves with one final mission before they became dirt which was to Stab themselves into a child’s foot
And being that my siblings and I had some feral rage aversion to wearing shoes, we took to running to the swings on our tiptoes, staring at the ground for the leaves
And to this DAY I still look at the ground when I walk out of habit formed by a decade of that
And NO body language guide and NO BBC Sherlock wannabe would EVER source that
“I can tell you’re lying because you’re playing with your hair.”
I’m playing with my hair because I have ADHD and can’t stay still.
“I can tell you’re lying because you’re looking up and to the side.”
I’m looking up and to the side because I have ADHD and can’t hear you if I’m looking directly at you.
“I can tell…”
shut up shut up shut up shut up
Also note that this is EXACTLY part of what causes neurodivergent people to be targeted by cops more often (particularly neurodivergent people of color).
A huge part of body language in police work is based in assumptions about body language that neurodivergent people do not actually typically follow. They read our normal movements as “signs” that we’re guilty and they roll with it without questioning whether or not they’re just biased with their own pre-existing expectations of what not-guilty people act like. They base their “signs that someone’s guilty” explicitly off of normal habits and behaviors of disabled and neurodivergent people.
That’s dangerous and it’s especially dangerous for disabled & neurodivergent POC and people with more obvious atypical tics & behaviors.
And, related to the above, all the behaviors said to be “tells” of liars are in fact signs of ANXIETY.
You know, such as many neurodivergent people feel in social interactions, but also abuse victims, for example.
We’re not nervous because we’re lying. We’re nervous because we know damn well that whether or not we’re telling the truth we may still get yelled at or blamed for shit we didn’t do.