72 WHAT EVERY BODY IS SAYING
BOX 16: GETTING A TOEHOLD ON ROMANCEI was in Los Angeles this year giving nonverbal communication training to
a client who works in the television industry. He was kind enough to take
me to dinner at a popular Mexican restaurant near his house. While there,
he wanted to continue learning about body language and pointed to a
couple seated at a nearby table. He asked, “Based on what you see, do
you think they’re getting along with each other?” As we observed the two
diners, we noted that at first they were leaning in to each other, but as the
dinner and conversation progressed, they both leaned back in their chairs
away from each other, not really saying much. My client thought things
were going sour between them. I said, “Don’t just look above the table,
look under the table as well.” This was easy to do, as there was no table
cloth or other obstacle blocking the underside of the table. “Notice how
their feet are very close to each other,” I pointed out. If they weren’t get-
ting along, their feet would not be that close together. The limbic brain
simply would not allow it. Now that I had him focused on the couple’s feet,
we noticed that every once in a while their feet touched or brushed
against each other and neither person’s legs retracted. “That behavior is
important,” I noted. “It shows they still feel connected.” When the couple
got up to leave, the man put his arm around the woman’s waist and they
walked out without saying another word. The nonverbals said it all, even
though they were not in a talking mood.
If you have ever wondered why there is so much leg touching and
flirting under tables or in swimming pools, it is probably related to two
phenomena. First, when our body parts are out of sight, such as under a
table or under water (or under the covers), they seem out of mind—or at
least out of the realm of observation. We have all seen people act in a
public pool as if they were in private. Second, our feet contain a tremen-
dous number of sensory receptors, the pathways of which terminate in an
area of the brain that is close to the place in which sensations of the
genitalia are registered (Givens, 2005, 92–93). People play footsies under