102 I Can Read You Like a Book R
Extremities
Hands
Most of what I’ll tell you about hands will be in the section on
holistic expressions because a majority of meaningful hand
gestures involve other body
parts. The fig-leaf posture
is one example (at right).
Watch men of different cul-
tures in diverse situations do
it. The one thing they have
in common if they feel the
least bit threatened is an in-
voluntary compulsion to, in
a phrase that J.R.R.
Tolkein’s Golem would use,
“protect the precious.”
Fidgeting hands, pick-
ing at cuticles, and an
autoerogenous finger rub-
bing are all potentially signs
of stress and/or attempts at stress relief. But again, without con-
text,what you may be observing is nothing more than an annoying
personal habit.
Grooming of the hands sends messages, too, but they may be
mixed. In interrogation, I might ask a source, “What do you do?”
