Gestures

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It was 360 days ago today that I sat in Fr. John Kavanaugh’s Philosophy of the Human Person class. Since that day I have been mulling over the subject of his lecture, always knowing that at the right moment I would write about it. That time has apparently come, so here goes!

I sat in the middle of the middle of the room – my favorite place to sit in nearly every class – listening to Fr. Kavanaugh start his lecture with a story of a boy and a girl. A natural storyteller and a wise man of 70 years or so, he drew us in to the tale of a pair of former students of his.

Unbeknownst to the other, both came to see Father to talk and get some advice within days of each other.

“Now this young man and woman had been seeing each other for a few months – and don’t think I don’t know what that entailed. I’ve worked on a college campus long enough and was young once, too. I know exactly how they were “seeing each other” and that’s just fine,” he explains as we all chuckle in our desks.

“Anyway, these two did everything together. They were friends outside of just seeing each other and they did what friends do: they went to lunch and dinner; they went to concerts and bars. Everything. This went on for months until the young man realized that he wasn’t doing this with any of his other friends that were girls and he didn’t want to. So, he came to me and told me what was going on, how he felt, and asked my advice.”

The young man didn’t want to be just friends anymore. He wanted to be her boyfriend, but also didn’t want to lose her as his friend by trying to change their dynamic. So, he kept his feelings to himself – against father’s advice – until one day, he couldn’t, anymore.

This was my favorite part of the story.

One day the two “friends” were walking and talking after class, the young man reaches over and grabs the young woman’s hand to hold.

She freezes, “What are you doing?”

“Holding your hand,” he replies.

“Why? You never hold my hand. We never act like this.”

She is freaking out because the dynamic of their relationship just changed, but why and how?

This is when she goes to Father to talk, asking what it means and what she should do. He tells her to take a look at why that one gesture was more intimate than anything else in the months they’d been “seeing each other,” and it’s also the point where the story and the lecture come together.

Gestures mean something. They can be misunderstood because no words accompany them to give an explanation. In the same vein, though, they can also give away our human intentionality. We speak all the time with only our bodies; from crossing our arms in anger or defense to holding one another’s hand or spontaneously  kissing someone – our emotions and intentions are revealed much more obviously than saying, “I’m mad” or “I like you.”

This is why the young woman was so freaked out by the man whom she’d been seeing, hanging out and doing everything that entails with grabbing her hand just to hold it on their way back from class.

It meant something.

This is something I’d known my entire life. A hand holding mine had never just been a hand. A kiss had never been just a kiss. And someone flipping me the bird had always conveyed more than words ever could. Yet, it wasn’t something I’d ever spent too much time examining – until this lecture. It was then that I realized I’d always guarded my own gestures for this very reason. A kiss meant, “I really like you.” Holding your hand meant, “I’m happy and comfortable with you and want to be close to you.” Flipping you the bird meant, “You’ve seriously ticked me off.”

And then came my wild year. My happiest year to date. The one where I sowed my wild oats…and then some. I was in the midst of that wonderful year when I sat, listening to Father talk about gestures and meaning and human intentionality, about how we can’t help but reveal how we are feeling in some way. And it’s true.

Even when I had the mindset of Avril Lavigne’s “What the Hell?" or Martin Solveig's “Hello,” 

I was still giving myself away through my actions and inside hoping that someone would come along like the young man in Father’s story who would give himself away by reaching out and holding my hand…or just grabbing me and kissing me soundly on the mouth to get me to see, “Hey, silly girl, I like you!”

After this lecture, I began paying even more attention to body language, gestures and interpersonal interaction. It’s been an interesting study and, although, I may have read more into some of these things than was there in some cases; I still found that the general statement held true.

Now as I’ve mentioned in my last post, my mindset has changed, my intentions are purer and my goals more wholesome. I’m no longer thinking “What the Hell?” (Okay, sometimes when I have a lot of pent up energy – flirtatious or otherwise – and am feeling a little reckless, but it’s fewer and farther between). Those profound and life-altering moments set me straight and now I’m back to a kiss being more than just a kiss, holding hands is more than a friendly, flirtatious way to stroll down the street and a look giving away the fact that I really like you.

So pay attention. You’ll know how I feel about you. I never have had much of a poker face.