Fondle that wineglass

Welcome back to the Babel of Body Language, where the women have Ph.D.s and the men go to remedial classes.

But before understanding what all that exposed cleavage is about, a lesson in evolution: women were biologically engineered to be the child-bearers and nest-defenders. And much like the X-Men, women developed mutant skills that allowed them not only to sense their immediate surroundings for danger signs, but also to sense small, almost imperceptible changes in the behavior of children, other women and wayward males. (Note to men: Never lie to your significant others in person, remember to always do it via text.) Men, on the other hand, were built to be hunters and were usually out of their caves at the break of dawn to hunt dinosaur pigs. But really, all they were doing was inventing beer.

So it isn’t so much that women have super senses, but it’s just that men have the sensitivity of a garden slug compared to women. She expects that a man can read her verbal, vocal and body language signals and anticipate her needs just as well as another woman would. Unfortunately, men cannot tell when a women projects "I’m on my period, it’s a bad hair day, and if you don’t buy me that pair of shoes that I was eyeing in the mall two weeks ago, I will claw out your eyes until you get the message." But don’t blame us for flunking body language. It wasn’t our fault our ancestors were making beer.

My fellow Martians often do not realize that women’s body language signals are more deliberate and cunning than a people’s initiative. Thus, to help my fellow illiterates, this next set of body gestures borders on the blatant. If you still fail to pick them up, please check if you have a pulse. Or the right set of equipment.

A-wrist-ed development, a.k.a. exposed wrists. When a woman is interested in a man, she will gradually expose the smooth, soft underside skin of her wrists to him and will increase the rate she flashes her wrists as her interest grows. If men are slightly disappointed with this type of body language signal, they should instead count their blessings and be glad that at least she is flashing something at you. Apparently, the wrist is an erogenous hotspot of the female anatomy because it is one of the most delicate skin areas. This wrist flash is similar to a cat rolling over and exposing its belly: it signals a willingness to be vulnerable in the hands of the man she is presenting her wrist to. Very few cats put themselves into this position unless they have a good reason to trust those they expose themselves to (much to the dismay of all the cats who have exposed themselves to me).

If the woman wants to cause temporary brain seizure in the man, she will expose her neck. And if the woman would like revenge for hundreds of years of male patriarchy, she will caress her neck with her fingers.

Click-O-Meter: One click every time she exposes her naked wrist to you. Plus 15 clicks if she rolls over and exposes her belly. Plus 20 clicks if she lets you caress her neck without you going into a coma. Minus 75 clicks if she channels Halle Berry from that God-awful Catwoman movie and gets feline all over your face.

We don’t have to take our clothes off to have a good time (Yes, I’m an ’80s baby, okay?), a.k.a. adjusting her clothes. When a woman adjusts her clothes either by straightening or loosening them, these movements are meant to call attention to her body. If she wants the man to lose temporary motor control, she will expose some bare skin in the process. This is because the exposure of her clear, smooth skin instinctually signals to the male brain that she is in good health and a potential candidate to help him increase voter population. When skin exposure occurs, the man will gladly stab the fork into his eye and pour his drink onto his lap trying (ha!) "not to look." But if the man does not look then he, like some tofu-munching 28-inch-waist bodybuilders, is missing the point. He is supposed to look "discreetly" but also try to keep that waterfall of drool streaming from his lower lip at a minimum.

Click-O-Meter: Plus five clicks if she undoes the top button of her blouse. Plus seven clicks if she gets up from her seat to pull down her skirt. Plus 10 clicks if she removes her belt. Minus 15 clicks if she wraps the belt around your neck and tightens it to stop the waterfall from your mouth. And if you totally look away while she adjusts any part of her clothes, please drop me an e-mail so I can send over my legions of bodybuilding fans to turn you into puree.

Kili-kili power, a.k.a. pit exposure. During a conversation with a man, a woman may rub her neck or her head with one hand. When she lifts up her lower arm to bring her hand to her neck, she raises one of her breasts, which causes the man to temporarily lose the ability to process thoughts. If a woman wants to turn his brain into Jell-O, she will expose her armpit (which, you pray to God, is shaved and "nude"). This will send a jet spray of concentrated pheromones out to him that will enter through his nostrils and proceed to eat away at his brain. The woman can forget getting any intelligible statements from the man after this move (not that she was getting much intelligent conversation from him after she adjusted her clothes).

Click-O-Meter: Plus five clicks if she raises one hand. Another five clicks if she raises another hand. Minus three clicks if she raised both hands to give you high fives. Zero clicks if she raises her arms and you can’t figure out if the smell emanating from her armpit is attractive. Minus five clicks is she is lifting her arm to elbow you in the face.

You’ve Got the Touch! a.k.a. fondling objects. Just as a man is about to regain control of his bladder functions, a woman may start to gently stroke a smooth, round (and preferably wet) object (such as the rim of her wineglass) to indirectly but strongly tease and stimulate him. If she wants to make him squirm like a budget official in a senate hearing, she will caress the stem of her wineglass up and down with her index finger and her thumb. Aside from molesting wineglasses, a woman may also fondle cigarettes, her own fingers, or even a dangling earring as an unconscious indication of what could be on her mind. If a man picks up this signal correctly, he might know what she wants. And it’s probably not beer. Regardless of what object the woman is caressing, save from a steak knife, playing with an object while making eye contact with a man is a powerful non-verbal flirting signal. After observing a woman stroking an object, the man will most often spontaneously combust.

Click-O-Meter: Plus three clicks if she fondles the wineglass. Plus three more clicks if she lets you fondle the wineglass instead. Minus five clicks if she breaks the wineglass on the bar table, and stabs you in the gut with the pointed stem of the glass because you think you can fondle something else. Minus 70 clicks if you fondle yourself.

So, what have we learned from the body language learning series, aside from the ability of men to spontaneously combust? It is that women are biological weapons of mass distraction. A few succinct body movements from women are more effective at rendering men catatonic than showbiz talk shows on a Sunday afternoon.

However, a man must be vigilant because given his relative body language illiteracy, how can he tell whether, when a woman is adjusting her clothes, she is flirting with him or just trying to get rid of a surot that has burrowed itself into her underwear?

The secret to finding out whether or not her wrists are talking to you is if she is ovulating, because it is during periods of ovulation that a woman turns more flirtatious. But this begs the question, how can you tell if a woman is ovulating? Well, one of the indications that a woman is ovulating is if she is bloating. But this is not something that a man can physically examine without having the woman carve a hole through his chest with her fingernails. Unfortunately, there is no discreet manner to ask a woman if she is bloating. But maybe you can disguise your ovulation question by asking her another seemingly unrelated question. If you know how that question should be phrased, please e-mail me before any fingernails dig into my chest. And a word of warning: Do not ask her "Tumataba ka ba?" or else she will make you feel what it is like to experience PMS for the rest of your natural life.

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Next week: "Shake Body Dancer" — Part 3 of our Body Language series. For comments, suggestions or if you want to expose your pits, e-mail ledesma.rj@gmail.com or visit www.rjledesma.com. Click on to the following: "KamiNapo Muna," the tribute to the Apo Hiking Society album (there’s nothing quite like hearing Kamikazee belt out Doo Bidoo); the Philippine launch of the new generation Mercedes-Benz E-Class (we can always drool, and it’s free) and congratulations to Erick Cua for the newly whitewashed and refurbished Temple Bar in Greenbelt 3 (we can always drool. At the interiors I mean, not at the wrist-exposing women at the bar).