88 I Can Read You Like a Book R
For some people, ears are an erogenous zone, so you should
look at how the person touches her ear. Is it a delicate touch?
Rough rubbing? A little scratch? Self-stroking the ear is one of
many adapters that involve touching the skin to provide comfort.
Nose
Knowing as much as I think I do about physiology, I was still
amazed at how many vessels are in the nose while at a recent
exhibit featuring human bodies. The exhibit relies on a technique
called plastination, which sucks moisture from cadavers and then
coats and fills them with plastic. This preserves the bodies and
allows them to be placed into static positions so that viewers can
examine musculature, nerves, the circulatory system, and so on. It
allows for a unique view of organs and other body parts that have
been sliced likeonions. The nose on display consisted of so many
plastic-filled blood vessels that it appeared to be one solid mass. This
showed vividly how many blood vessels populate the nose. It’s the
most sensitive part of the body, due in large part to its vascularity.
A person under stress will commonly touch her nose, whether
it’s a light scratch or a rub. Just touching the nose doesn’t signal
stress, however. Sometimes touching the nose means a person is
disgusted with something. The whole gesture will be different
from a stress gesture, however. It could be a wipe with the back of
a hand (when there’s no reason to wipe), or a finger joint laid against
the nose, as if to block something stinky from making its way inside.
