TO TOUCH OR NOT TO TOUCH

Body language, in addition to sending and receiving messages, if understood and used adroitly can also serve to break through defences. A businessman who was trying a bit too hard to wind up a very profitable deal found that he had misread the signs.'It was a deal,' he told me, 'that would have been profitable not only to me but to Tom as well. Tom was in Salt Lake City from Bountiful, which isn't far away geographically, but is miles away culturally. It's a damned small town, and Tom was sure that everyone in the big city was out to take him. I think that deep down he was convinced that the deal was right for both of us, but he just couldn't trust my approach. I was the big city businessman, way up there, wheeling and dealing, and he was the small-time boy about to get rooked.

' I tried to cut through his image of the big city businessman by putting my arm around his shoulder. And that darn touch blew everything.' What my businessman friend had done was violate Tom's barrier of defences with a non-verbal gesture for which the groundwork had not been laid. In body language he was trying to say, 'Trust me. Let's make contact.' But he only succeeded in committing a nonverbal assault. In ignoring Tom's defences, the overeager businessman ruined the deal. Often the swiftest and most obvious type of body language is touch. The touch of a hand, or an arm around someone's shoulder, can spell a more vivid and direct message than dozens of words. But such a touch must come at the right moment and in the right context. Sooner or later every boy learns that touching a girl at the wrong moment may turn her off abruptly. There are people who are 'touchers', compulsive touchers, who seem completely impervious to all messages they may get from friends or companions. They are people who will touch and fondle others when they are bombarded with body-language requests not to.