Brief Reading #1 - Public Touch Behavior in Romantic Relationships Between Men and Women

Nonverbal behavior displays many different emotions, feelings, and messages to those who observe and are in direct contact with them. Romantic touching and displays of nonverbal effection fall into this category. Relationships between a man and a women that involve romance display powerful moments of effection and sensations based on the level of intimacy between the couple.

Many times, this communication of touching, while in public or in privacy, fall under the invisible communication system. As stated in the article, couples experience a variety of "touching" based on the stage and intimacy of their relationship. While in the first stage of developing and learning about each other in the relationship, a simple brush against the hand or playing "footsie" conveys a sensation of flirting between the two.

Although this is considered flirting, the decoding process of this type of communication lays with each individual involved. How do they truly feel about playing with the other person's feet? Did they like having their hand touched? What does this mean? Do they like me? or Ew, don't do that! This interesting and private personal questioning happens with all humans in some sense. Invisible communication involves touching and feeling in the process where, although touch may be intended to say "I like you a lot," it may have been decoding by the other person as "Don't ever do that again!"

Reflecting more on the article, it does bring up the interesting fact about the stages of romantic relationships and how touching and feeling changes as the relationship develops. Flirtatious touching seems to fit well in with the first stage (or honeymoon stage) of getting to know a person, while in the final stage where intimate touching and affection between two people happen while married and within a deeper sense, lose their flirtatious touching as found in the first stage.

The article also mentions the differences between the two sexes and how men interpret touch differently than women. As a male, I will confess that this is a true statement. By nature, women tend to often touch and feel other people more (in a non-sexual manner), such as brushing each others' hair, holding hands or linking arms with the same sex, or hugging. This is simply how women enjoy socializing with each other and also with men as well (in a more friendly or intimate way).

I, for example, have a few good friends who are girls and enjoy holding on to my arm or playing with my hair just to be silly. I do not decode their message as a sexual gesture, but as being playful - but not flirtatious. Again, this links back to the concept of the relationship between two people. Being comfortable with another person to the limit where touch changes based on the relationship can convey different messages and interpreted within our domains of indivible communication standards.

Going back to my example, I normally do not match this behavior of playing with my friends' hair or hanging on to their arms. Instead, in an effort to be funny or display my comfortable-ness with the other person, I lay my head on their shoulder (sometimes), give occasional hugs (which are welcomed), or stand closer to that person while chatting.

It all boils down to how comfortable each individual is with displaying affection (whether playful or sexual), in public and in private. Within those two different settings, affectionate display can convey different and mixed messages if violations of expectancies occur where one may expect specific touch from another person, but receive it in another way may send a different (and unwelcomed) message. It is all in a manner of how we invisibly interpret nonverbal communication.

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