Silent Tango

As the global village continues to shrink and cultures collide, it is essential for all of us to become more sensitive, more aware, and more observant to the myriad motions, gestures, and body language that surround us each day. And as many of us cross over cultural borders, it would be fitting for us to respect, learn, and understand more about the effective, yet powerful "silent language" of gestures. Gestures and body language communicate as effectively as words- maybe even more effectively...

I took the following pictures sometime back in October 2008 while taking a train ride. These are the pictures that show the encounter between a boy and a girl who didn’t know each other- total strangers… Both didn't manage to strike a conversation with each other throughout the train ride, but the guy was definitely interested in the girl... and the girl was simply playing along...

Hey, pretty...

Dum-de-dum-de-dum....

Invasion of personal space...

I sent one of these pictures to a friend of mine who came up with the following response:

Textbook body language says she is interested. Look at how her legs swing towards the guy. It would have been swinging away, if she did not want the attention. Also, look how close he has stepped into her personal space. He's practically touching her legs already.

It's amazing
How you can speak
Right to my heart
Without saying a word...

Try as I may
I could never explain
What I hear when
You don't say a thing

I was starting to get a bit tired of their little charade by then: "Say something to her, stupid! Don't just stand there!"

The train stopped a few times for the passengers to get off. Sad to say, the boy had to leave at one of the train stops and the girl was left all alone with no one else to flirt with after that. Boy and girl never had the chance to talk to each other. Stupid, right? Must tell their parents about this...

Two strangers who met in a train… were strangers once again… their unspoken hopes and hidden emotions… forever buried and never to be known…

Two souls who briefly encountered each other in a train- not a single word uttered between them, except for the obvious tell-tale signs of a silent duel of hearts and an unexpected emotional tug-of-war between two lonely people just to while away the time with during a boring train-ride.

Maybe they should've tried this little scribble-on-paper game in the train instead, those cheeky but shy people...