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butterfliesinthenightsky · 3 years

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hi sweetheart !! may i please req an ateez and bts personality ship ?? my description was SUPER long (I GOT CARRIED AWAY </3) so you can cut my request at the personality part when posting my ship! tysm in advance <3

I’m an ‘03 liner that’s 5’9.5 (basically 5’10) with dark skin, jet black hair (currently in long twists rn!!), and i’m on the curvier side (esp hips and my thighs) !! some of my favorite features are my plump lips (and i have a beauty mark near the inside of my bottom lip!), my long legs (they’re 40.5 inches long and look so good in dresses and skirts <33), my kempt and pretty fingernails, and my eyelashes !!! i’m a virgo (and surprisingly i get along with all the signs, i cant think of a sole zodiac sign i DONT mix well with but i love cancers and virgos <33) ! i’m also an ambivert all the way! i often come off as cold/shy/quiet when meeting new people (one of my closest friends avoided me for a month before meeting me because i looked so intimidating LMAO), but once you get close to me i turn into a goofy (heavy on the goofy im never not laughing) bundle of warmth and love: i will never stop texting them the <3 emoji every morning or buying my friends/s/o their favorite starbucks order when they need a little cheer-me-up. also, lots of people say i’m mature and carry myself well, but around my friends i’m one of the most goofiest people ever (probably bc my face will literally be 😐 one sec and then 🥰 the next second when someone makes me laugh <3)

tysm in advance!!! Have an amazing day/afternoon/evening!

@anpanseok DARLING! I hope you love your ship <3 I'm actually really proud of this one, you'll have to let me know what you think! <3

In ATEEZ, I ship you with one and only demon San!

(I thought you'd like that gif ;) )

Okay, when you were describing all of the things that you would want in the relationship, I thought of San due to how clingy and affectionate he is with the other members of ATEEZ. He is a Cancer, which is good because that is one of the star signs that are compatible with yours. I don't believe that the age difference of four years would be that much of an issue, especially since San acts younger than he is most of the time anyway. I feel like most men are intimidated when their female significant other is tall themselves, but he is tall himself and I feel like the fact that you are taller is kind of one of his favorite things about you? One of his other favorite things about you are your curves, he always puts his hand on your thighs during movie night at the boys' dorm or in the back pocket of your jeans when you two are walking into KQ Entertainment together. When you wear dresses when all of you go out to fancy dinners together, he has to hold himself back because he ADORES you when you wear dresses! You said you're am ambivert, I feel like he relates to that in some form of way, like I feel like there are certain situations where he feels a bit more introverted about. Sometimes Hongjoong has to scold him because he texts you so much, but he can't stay mad at you when you pop into the building with their favorite Starbucks drinks and hand-made lunch boxes for them. Just as you always support his creative endeavors, he always returns it for you tenfold and when you are talking about issues you care deeply about, he gives you his full attention and stares at you lovingly. Not just San, but all of the boys, come to you whenever they are dealing with stress and they just want someone to talk to because you are so amazing at giving advice and supporting them. There was a time when a sasaeng approached you, San, Wooyoung and Jongho when you were doing some late night grocery shopping when another ATINY stopped her, causing an argument and nasty words to be exchanged. Let's just say, you shut that sasaeng down REAL quick when you heard some of the things she said. One day you woke up and found a present that San made for you, a mixtape of all of your favorite songs from all your favorite genres of music, along with a little keychain that had tokens of all of the states you had visited. He wholeheartedly loves you and he makes every effort to support all of your dreams. When he has days off from work, the two of you make a blanket fort in your living room and watch old episodes of Forensic Files and Law & Order: SVU, whilst surrounded by fluffy blankets and a couple of his favorite plushies. His life an idol doesn't afford him much down time, unfortunately, but he always makes time for you and you always have the craziest adventures with not only each other, but all of the other boys as well. Squishy San will want all of the cuddles, have you SEEN how affectionate he is with the other members?! Also, him in all black outfits.... YES, PLEASE AND THANK YOU. One day he was visiting your apartment and he surprised you with matching beaded pearl bracelets and he never takes it off, not even for performances. The boys don't really think nothing of walking into the bathroom to brush their teeth whilst one of the others is showering, that just comes with their busy schedules and their dorm life. Let's just say this: Mingi wasn't able to look you in the eyes for two weeks because he did just that, not realize that you had snuck in and stayed the night, and were currently going to the bathroom whilst San was in the shower. Your camera roll is not only filled with silly pictures of San that you've captured, but of the most magazine worthy, model pictures you have ever been lucky enough to take. He accepts you for all of your flaws, and helps you to try to work on them, however that may be and you do the same for him.

In summary: You both are simps for each other and I AM HERE FOR IT.

In BTS, I ship you with Namjoon!

Another tall boy for you, I got you! You both are Virgos, but I looked it up worried that two Virgos would clash, and it said that they would be very intuitive with each other and would understand each other! The age gap is quite large, I don't know how okay you are with that? I know everyone has different preferences. He approached you first when he saw you at the mom & pop coffee shop/cafe around the corner from your apartment, and he thought you were the most beautiful person he had ever seen. Another man who I don't think would be bothered by your curves (men can be shallow dicks), I think that is his favorite thing (same as San) about you. Not even in a sexual way, I feel like his hands would always end up on your butt without him even noticing. Most of the time, one of the other boys will point it out when all of you are hanging out together, and he will be proud that he has a significant other like you, but he almost might become a shy mess about it I feel like. I feel like he can get jealous, just because you are closest to Jungkook in the group and you often pull pranks on the other members together. There is never a shortage of laughs when all of you are together, pure crackhead energy if I've ever seen it, just non stop jokes and banter between all of you. You were able to get time off from work and were actually able to join them (their managers were surprisingly chill about you tagging along? CONFUSION?) on their tour around Europe and you had so many memories. You actually brought along a Polaroid camera that you found in a little store one day when the two of you were shopping, and you ended up having to buy an extra suitcase on the trip because you took LITERAL hundreds of pictures of all of your adventures and the tour shenanigans. He has childish tendencies, I feel like he would love to play Roblox with you? I feel like he would take a very mathematical approach to building things, that's just the vibe I get from him. He often stares at you when you're doing your makeup in the morning, he finds it fascinating and he even asked you to do his makeup for some of his shows. His makeup artists weren't angry, luckily, all of their staffs absolutely adore you two together. He is all up for adventures, I feel like he would chicken out at the idea of skydiving, though lol. You keep stealing his sweaters, which he low-key highkey is SO happy about because he loves the way that you look in them. The size difference is only three or four inches (I've seen people say he's 6 feet, but then others say he's 6 foot 2, WHICH IS IT?!), so it's pretty easy to sneak kisses from him whenever you want them when you're together. If he sees you struggling to stay awake whilst studying, he'll softly close your book and drag you over to your bed for a couple hours so you can take a quick nap to regain the energy. I don't really know his temperament that well, he has to be rather even-tempered to deal with those hooligans he calls the rest of BTS, so I feel like you wouldn't have that many fights. You both are always striving to help each other to be the best versions of each other you can be. You joined the boys on vacation at a lake house and one night you were having dinner and he blushed after you said something cheeky to him, causing you to say to him, "You look like a cute tomato when you blush, my cutie pie." in front of the other members. Needless to say, he turned even more red and the boys teased him mercilessly for the rest of the night. Don't know how the cooking would go (this boy is a DISASTER in the kitchen), but you would have fun learning new dishes. He would brag about getting a dish right, and you quickly praise him but also say, " and that's why you a big ass head.", causing him to die laughing. He is the very definition of a hard worker, and I feel like he would love being praised and doing the same for his significant other, so I'm glad that you said that you liked the words of affirmation love language, because GET READY. He's definitely been buffing up (I SCREAM WHENEVER I SEE PICTURES OF HIM NOWADAYS), so

his hugs would always be the best things, so warm and comforting. Don't know how you feel about children? We've all seen that VLive where this idiot literally bought baby shoes because he thought they were cute, so I think he would definitely want children down the road in your relationship if you were both comfortable with it. Best father and husband award goes to him.

In conclusion: SIMP. SIMP. SIMP. SIMP. SIMPPPPPPPPPPPP.

#kpop ships #kpop submission #ateez #bts #choi san #kim namjoon #submission

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nighttimepixels · 4 years

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Night!! You like Llamagoddess, right?? Well, I was curious - what three or four skeletons would you put together in an Aggre-style setup? If you like that?

Oh dude, @llamagoddessofficial rocks. Seriously, if you like skeleton x reader content, you’re missing out if you’re not following her! (Go follow her and shower her in praise, 12/10 sweetheart and high-quality storyteller)

I’m guessing you mean like... what skeletons would I throw together in an xReader stirfry to see what delightful shenanigans result?

Llama’s got the corner on that sweet sweet UT, UF, & HT Sans (Sans, Red, & Skull, for her!) + MF Sans (Hit) content (seriously, are you reading Aggre? You should be) - so I’ll choose differently so I don’t step on her toes there!

That said, here’s a few of the guys that I think would be fun:

US, UF, and HF Sans (Caelum, Red, and Hickory, for me)

Honestly I love a strong & upbeat but secretly-struggling-with-depression US Sans; coupled with Red’s brashness but deep down softness, and Hickory’s... everything, the dynamic is rife with potential

It would’ve been Caelum’s fault; he accidentally messed with his brother’s machine and caused this mess trying to fix it (he came pretty far too, but...)

Hickory would almost certainly go a bit feral at some point or other after the ‘wrench’ was thrown in (Science!Sans, pulled in as well and convinced he could fix all this, and gets obsessed w/ Reader), ends up kidnapping Reader

There’d be a race between Red & Caelum to see just how they deal w/ Science!Sans - kindly, or permanently....

UT, US, and SF Pap (Papyrus, Cider, and Rus for me)

Cider’s fault in this one; the machine’s probably straight exploded... but plot twist not because of him, because of the MafiaFell!Pap that got dragged in too

Papyrus has got some secret baggage with knowing more than he lets on about the machine, and how to fix it even - but he doesn’t let on until halfway through

Rus is reluctant to help but also not; mixed feelings about going back. When he finds out about MF!Pap things go to hell, and there’s a whole arc re: methods chosen, and MF!Pap actually gets Rus secretly on his side for a good while before things happen that force Rus to choose a side, and he betrays MF!Pap and lets Reader escape

UF and SF Pap, and US Sans (Vex, Rus, and Caelum for me)

Vex’s fault in this one; after getting in a fight with Red he triggers the machine rather than breaking it. He refuses to admit wrongdoing, blames Red, Red goes ‘missing’ in response - making fixing the machine nigh impossible, with only Rus with a vaguely beneficial amount of knowledge that could help (though Caelum’s quick on the pickup)

Caelum very nearly convinces Reader to come back with him, honestly - neither of them have been able to break through to Vex or Rus for long enough - Vex is so up Rus’ case that it’s hard to get them to get along. Eventually there’s a breakthrough though when Caelum finally snaps and calls them out on it - just in time for Reader to go missing

Turns out HF!Pap (aka Birch) came through as well, and had actually kidnapped Red in the first place (getting him to work on a new machine), as well as now Reader - and he’s a lot more clever than the other guys would’ve guessed. It’s nigh impossible to get them back - but in the end, it’s Red & Reader working together to convince Birch that gives the guys an opening enough to keep Birch from succeeding in using the machine (to merge worlds, rather than kidnap Reader - it’d free his people, he reasons, and then there’s no problem with her staying with him, right?)

US and SF Sans, and UF Pap (Caelum, Sable, and Vex for me)

Listen I’m a sucker for US & SF Sans dynamic, okay? It’s great, and through in some Vex, and hot damn that’s a spicy meatball-

Wrench in the works is once again MafiaFell!Pap - only this time he’s working on both Vex and Reader; Vex tracks Reader one night and they meet that way. They’re ‘similar’ enough that Vex is swayed (in the ‘both of them are crossing their fingers behind their backs’ sort of way) - it isn’t until Vex realizes just how brutal MF!Pap’s true plan is that Vex reveals everything

Big wholesome-teamwork-at-last and blowout fight moment when the guys join together to beat MF!Pap’s veritable army after he successfully drags them all through the portal to his own world - the guys were an accident, but MF!Pap is nothing if not quick on his feet... how on earth will they get out of this one~?

UF, SF, and HF Sans (Red, Sable, and Hickory for me)

This one might seem like an odd dynamic but it’s fascinating to me okay - Red and Hickory are dangerously similar in so many ways, but despite all the fights Red realizes just how much he has in common w/ Sable too... reminding him of uncomfortable truths, in this au where he’s semi-estranged from his brother on the surface for Complicated Reasons

Hickory and Sable end up as a surprisingly killer (literally woops) duo - same hat re: certain emotional traumas :c

ScienceFell!Sans is the wrench in the works here - a mirror to all the flaws for all the guys in different ways (Red abandoning his previous path, where he could’ve achieved so much as a researcher/scientist; Hickory, the same, plus added ‘a whole version of me’, because Hickory was still on the science path when he got his injury; and for Sable, both half a reminder of his brother, and half a vision of what his father always wanted him to be, but he was never cracked up to be) - and ScienceFell!Sans is a damn smooth operator on top of being a literal genius - he manipulates it to where Reader loses her job... but he’s able to get her a job as his assistant... uh oh

US, SF, and HF Pap (Cider, Rus, and Birch for me)

Three lads that can’t gd be honest with their feelings to the umpteenth degree, oh gods. For real though, an interesting dynamic - they’d actually fight way less, so a lot of their conflict would be exploring socio-cultural differences, personal self-esteem/worth issues, and their secret selfishness in wanting Reader to themselves while also ‘knowing’ they’re no good-

Wrench in the works here is MafiaFell!Pap again- in this one though he actually works himself into the ‘main’ group, even more effective by getting them a bigger apartment (but not too suspiciously ostentatious...), ‘finds employment’, etc.... but the whole time is plotting to take Reader back with him

They’re all betrayed, so different layers of pain here, and he almost succeeds because of it - the other guys lose so much faith in themselves (after all, what one ‘version’ of them is able to do...) they almost lose Reader - but thanks to MF!Pap being around more there’s more Reader’s cottoned on to, so is able to evade for long enough to break free the separately jailed/etc guys and snap them out of it, cue big fight, esp once they get Birch free 👀

... all that said, just go read Aggre for your sweet sweet fix of this variety, Llama knocked it out of the park with that fic <3

#night answers #imagine the skelebros #this is just me throwing darts at a board okay #llama's a wonderful writer for real though #and also hilarious and sweet too #what's not to love #(.... now that i'm thinking about it HAVE i talked about my takes on HF bros?? HF girls yes but... huh)#(.... HF bros are Hickory for HF Sans and Birch for HF Pap)#(woops)#hope this was okay to answer llama??? did i step on toes after all?????#lemme know if so oh gods #Anonymous #.... damn i wrote too much again in response to an ask #i swear like five people only read my long answers #... oh well hopefully those 5 people like this TvT

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braised-and-confused · 7 years

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Another blog posted this and I thought it would be fun to repost, but bold the parts that I experienced myself.

Because narcissism. Enjoy?

——————————————————-

Common experiences of lesbians who don’t know they’re lesbians yet

Out of curiosity, I recently googled “Am I lesbian quiz”. Half the “Are You a Lesbian” quizzes just asked outright, “Are you attracted to women?” as though that isn’t the very answer a questioning lesbian is trying to figure out. The other half marked me as heterosexual for things like owning more nail varnish than dogs. I hope this list will give you more nuanced ideas to think about as you explore your identity.

These experiences are all really common among - but not universal or exclusive to - people who later realize they’re lesbians and find a comfortable home in the lesbian label and community.

It’s mostly stuff that I and other lesbians I know have wished we knew when we were first coming to grips with our lesbian identities, because the fact is it takes a long time to discover how common a lot of these experiences are among lesbians, and not knowing what to look for when trying to figure out if you’re a lesbian can be hard.

‘Attraction’ to men

Deciding which guys to be attracted to – not to date, but to be attracted to – based on how well they match a mental list of attractive qualities

Only developing attraction to a guy after a female friend expresses attraction to him

Getting jealous of a specific female friend’s relationships with guys and assuming you must be attracted to the guys she’s with (even if you never really noticed them before she was interested in them)

Picking a guy at random to be attracted to

Choosing to be attracted to a guy at all, not just choosing to act on it but flipping your attraction on like a switch – that’s a common lesbian thing

Having such high standards that literally no guy meets them – and feeling no spark of attraction to any guy who doesn’t meet them

Only/mostly being into guys who are gnc in some way

Only/mostly being attracted to unattainable, disinterested, or fictional guys or guys you never or rarely interact with

Being deeply uncomfortable and losing all interest in these unattainable guys if they ever indicate they might reciprocate

Reading your anxiety/discomfort/nervousness/combativeness around men as attraction to them

Reading a desire to be attractive to men as attraction to them

Having a lot of your ‘guy’ crushes later turn out to be trans women

Relationships with men

Dreading what feels like an inevitable domestic future with a man

Or looking forward to an idealized version of it that resembles literally no m/f relationship you’ve ever seen in your life, never being able to picture any man you’ve actually met in that image

Being repulsed by the dynamics of most/all real life m/f relationships you’ve seen and/or regularly feeling like “maybe it works for them but I never want my relationship to be like that”

Thinking you’re commitmentphobic because no relationship, no matter how great the guy, feels quite right and you drag your feet when it comes time to escalate it

Going along with escalation because it seems like the ‘appropriate time’ or bc the guy wants it so bad, even if you personally aren’t quite ready to say I love you or have labels or move in together etc.

Or jumping ahead and trying to rush to the ‘comfortably settled’ part of relationships with guys, trying to make a relationship a done deal without investing time into emotional closeness

Feeling like you have to have relationships with guys and/or let them get serious in order to prove something, maybe something nebulous you can’t identify

Only having online relationships with guys; preferring not to look at the guys you’re interacting with online; choosing not to meet up with a guy even if you seem very into him and he reciprocates and meeting up is totally realistic

Getting a boyfriend mostly so other people know you have a boyfriend and not really being interested in him romantically/sexually

Wishing your boyfriend was more like your female friends

Wishing your boyfriend was less interested in romance and/or sex with you and that you could just hang out as pals (lol)

Thinking you’re really in love with a guy but being able to get over him in such record time that you pretend to be more affected than you are so your friends don’t think you’re heartless

After a breakup, missing having a boyfriend more than you miss the specific guy you were with

Worrying that you’re broken inside and unable to really love anyone

Sex with men

Having sex not out of desire for the physical pleasure or emotional closeness but because you like feeling wanted

OR: preferring to ‘be a tease’ to feel wanted but feeling like following through is a chore

Only being comfortable with sex with men if there’s an extreme power imbalance and your desires aren’t centred

Using sex with men as a form of self-harm

Feeling numb or dissociating or crying during/after sex with men (even if you don’t understand that reaction and think you’re fine and crying etc for no reason)

Being bored with sex with men/not understanding what the big deal is that makes other women want it

Doing it anyway out of obligation or a desire to be a good sport/do something nice for him

Never/rarely having sexual fantasies about specific men, preferring to leave them as undetailed as possible or not thinking about men at all while fantasizing

Having to make a concerted effort to fantasize about the guy you’re “attracted” to

Early interest in women

Not recognizing past/current crushes on women until you’ve come to grips with your attraction to women

Being unusually competitive, shy, or eager to impress specific women when you’re not that way with anyone else (OH MY LORD THIS ONE YES)

Wanting to kiss your female best friend on the mouth for literally any reason (”to practice for boys” included)

Getting butterflies or feeling like you can’t get close enough when cuddling with a close female friend

Looking at a close female friend and feeling something in your chest clench up and being overwhelmed with love for her - love you may read as platonic

Having had strong and abiding feelings of admiration for a specific female teacher, actor, etc., growing up that were deep and reverent

Having had an unusually close relationship with a female friend growing up that was different and special in a way you couldn’t articulate

Thinking relationships would be simpler “if only I were attracted to women/my best friend who would be perfect for me if she/I weren’t a girl”

When a female friend is treated badly by a man, having your protective thoughts turn in the direction of “if I was him/a man I’d never do that to her/my girlfriend”

Being utterly fascinated by any lesbians you know/see in media and thinking they’re all ultra cool people

Having your favourite character in every show be that one gay-coded or butch-looking woman (like Shego from Kim Possible or Starbuck from Battlestar Galactica)

Feeling weirdly guilty and uncomfortable in locker rooms etc., when your female friends are less clothed than they normally would be around men and being more careful not to look than they are

The 'straight’ version of you

Thinking that all straight girls feel at least some attraction to women

Thinking that your interest in seeing attractive women/scantily clad women/boobs is an artificial reaction caused by the objectification of women in media (LMAO yeahhhh…)

Being really into how women look “aesthetically”/“just as artistic interest”

Thinking it’s objective and uncontested that almost all women are way more attractive than most men

Being a really intense LGBT+ “ally” and getting weirdly emotional about homophobia but assuming you’re just a Really Good Ally and v empathetic

Having like half your friend group from school turn out to be LGBT+ (WHY AM I GETTING DRAGGED LIKE THIS)

Getting emotional or having a strong reaction you don’t understand to f/f love stories etc.

Having had people think you were gay when you had no suspicion you were gay

Exploring attraction to women

Feeling like you could live with a woman in a romantic way, even if you can’t imagine doing anything sexual with a woman

Feeling like you could enjoy sexual interaction with a woman, even if you can’t imagine having romantic feelings for a woman

Thinking you couldn’t be a lesbian because you’re not attractive enough, cool enough, or otherwise in the same league as most of the women you know

Interacting with het sex/romance in media by imagining yourself in the man’s position or just never/rarely imagining yourself in the woman’s position

Really focusing on the women in het porn

Being really into the idea of kissing/being sexual with a woman 'to turn guys on’

Being really annoyed when guys actually do express interest in watching or joining in when you do that

Only feeling/expressing attraction to or sexual interest in women when you’re inebriated or otherwise impaired

Gender Feelings

Having a lot of conflicting gender feelings that are only possible to resolve once you understand you are/can be a lesbian

Thinking that being gnc and feeling a disconnect from traditional womanhood mean that you can’t be a woman even if that’s what feels closest to right - many lesbians are gnc and many lesbians feel disconnected from traditional womanhood since it’s so bound up in heteropatriarchy

Knowing you’re attracted to women and not being able to parse that (esp + any gender nonconformance) as gay, taking a long time to figure out if you’re a straight man or a lesbian

Being dysphoric about the parts of you that make straight men think your body is owed to them, having to figure out what that dysphoria means for/to you

Knowing you’re attracted to women, but feeling weirdly guilty and uncomfortable trying to interact with them as a straight man, and only later realizing you’re actually a trans lesbian

Knowing you’re gay, but experiencing a lot of the symptoms of comp het when you try to interact with men romantically/sexually, and only later realizing you’re a trans lesbian and not a gay man

Being nonbinary and taking a long time to sort through being able to respect/understand your nonbinary identity and your lesbianness at the same time

Considering lesbianism

Wanting to be a lesbian but feeling like if you don’t already know you are one you can’t be

Feeling guilty about wanting to be a lesbian, feeling like you’re just attention-seeking or trying to be trendy

Suppressing your lesbian dreams because you think exploring that desire would mean you’re a bad/homophobic person using lesbianness selfishly

Wishing you were a lesbian to escape the discomfort of dating men

Fantasizing about how much fun it would be to be a lesbian and just be with women/a specific woman, but thinking that can’t be for you

Worrying that some of your past attraction to men was actually real so you can’t be a lesbian

Worrying that trauma-induced complications in how you experience sex (e.g., a habit of self-harming via sex w men or a fear of any sex at all) mean you’re not a Real Lesbian

—————————————

Every item on this list is common among Real Lesbians. It’s all Normal Lesbian Stuff. If you’re worried that you can’t be a lesbian even though it’s the life you really want for yourself, I hope this gives you permission to explore that. You are allowed to be a lesbian.

And if you’re not sure yet – if you took the time to read this entire thing because you’re curious about your identity, if you identified with a bunch of items on this list – you may or may not be a lesbian, but friend, you almost certainly aren’t cishet. Welcome.

(I’d love to hear other things lesbians wish you’d known were A Thing when you were first exploring your identity!)

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timothyakoonce · 7 years

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Transcript of The Guide to Figuring People Out

Transcript of The Guide to Figuring People Out written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Transcript provided by Verbatim Transcription Services

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Transcript

John Jantsch: [00:00:00] What if there was a guide to figuring people out. Well, apparently there is and you can learn about it when you listen to me interview Vanessa Van Edwards, the author of ‘Captivate-The Science of Succeeding with People’. Check it out.

[00:00:16] [music]

John Jantsch: [00:00:29] This episode of the Duct Tape marketing podcast is brought to you by Active Campaign. This is really my new go to CRM ESP marketing automation, really low cost, any sized business can get into it. Starting at like 19 bucks a month, you can keep track of your clients, you can see who is visiting your website, you can follow up based on behavior- Check out Active Campaign, there will be a link in the show notes but it’s ducttape.me/dtmactive. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch and my guest today is Vanessa Van Edwards. She is a behavioral investigator, author, public speaking and body language trainer but she has fun telling people that. She is also the author of a book called ‘Captivate- The Science of Succeeding with People’ and hangs out at scienceofpeople.com. So Vanessa, thanks for joining me.

Vanessa Van Edwards: [00:01:28] Thanks for having me.

John Jantsch: [00:01:30] So, your book delivers on the premise of being able to figure out what makes people tick. That’s almost a little scary, isn’t it?

Vanessa Van Edwards: [00:01:40] A little bit, it’s kind of like a secret super power and it’s especially for people- I was one of those people where people skills just did not come naturally for me and so I was like, if there was a computer programming book, but for people, what would that book be like and that was how I sort of came up with the idea.

John Jantsch: [00:01:58] What’s interesting is that my first thought is, “Oh, okay, I’m going to read this book so that I can figure out what people are doing and thinking and read their body language,” and immediately it became apparent to me that, “Wait a minute, I’m doing some of those things you are talking about,” [laughter] and it’s really—pretty starts with self-awareness, doesn’t it?

Vanessa Van Edwards: [00:02:17] Yeah, I think that you are your own best expert, right. You have been living with yourself for more years than anyone else and so it’s very helpful when you can have personal aha moments. For example, we talk about speed reading, speed reading is something that– Speed reading people not speed reading books and that’s always something I’ve been fascinated with because, in first impressions, you have this three to seven seconds window where you basically have to decide, do I like this person, do I trust this person and do I want to work with this person. So I was like if you had to speed read someone for all these things very quickly, what would you do. It’s so much helpful if you know how people speed read you to be able to see it and recognize it in others.

John Jantsch: [00:03:00] Yeah. So how much of it though is— we all see a group of people and think, “Oh, I’m attracted to that person,” and maybe it’s purely out of, I think that person is attractive. So how much of the first impression is that?

Vanessa Van Edwards: [00:03:15] So attraction is an interesting topic that you bring up. When I think about attraction, I think that it’s usually only used for physical attraction right, we think like, “Oh! That person is beautiful, that person is handsome,” but I actually think attraction is much more than that. I think that we can have business crushes, I think we can have social crushes and that’s when something hooks you or grabs you, and a lot of it actually has to do with similarity as opposed to physicality.

What I mean by that is there is a really interesting study about the similarity-attraction effect which basically talks about how we love people who are similar to us, so much so that this is not just values, we are even most attracted to people that have the most similar psychological issues to us. So this kind of—I’m going to take it to the extreme so we can use it in more and more simple situations but this is one of the studies that they did that they had people take personality disorder tests. So everything from narcissism to borderline personality to mere depression. They had them take all these tests and they kind of placed them in a spectrum. Most people fall on a spectrum for all of these different personality disorders and they found that when they asked people to rate their headshots on attractiveness, people chose someone who is most similar to their own disorder. So in other words, we like our own kind of crazy [laughter].

John Jantsch: [00:04:45] But that’s without knowledge of what that disorder was, it was just purely something about the structure of the face gave it away?

Vanessa Van Edwards: [00:04:53] Yes, the structure of the face, the structure of the face, the micro expression of the face, the micro expression, the body language. It was just a very simple headshot and they think there is something about, when we know someone, we are both comfortable with them because it feels familiar and we feel less scared that we will be judged. So for example, all of us and this is a big statement that I think I’m going to make but all of us usually have something that we are afraid people are going to find out. So in most social interactions, we are in a way carrying a secret with us and that secret could be something as small as I’m extremely shy, that could be something very simple or it could be something as big as I take pills or whatever it is, something like that and so when we feel that someone might have the same secret, it makes us feel less afraid.

John Jantsch: [00:05:44] Why do you know every time I go on stage I’m afraid that people are going to understand that I’m a complete fraud so… [laughter] Isn’t that really a common fear? I’m joking. Well, Halfway joking but that’ a real common fear, I think that with speakers it’s that they feel like, I’m put up here and I’m supposed to be important and the expert in this and that but there is a side of me that wonders even if I know what am talking about.

Vanessa Van Edwards: [00:06:07] Yes, classic imposter syndrome and the interesting thing about imposter syndrome, and I have the same thing is that I believe that fear is this really interesting emotion that I call it a cross thruster. I think that fear is this emotion that crossdresses or dresses up as other emotions. For example, if you are afraid that the audience is going to think that you are a fraud that fear doesn’t actually come out as nervousness. It may come out as cockiness or inappropriate humor or overly personal. It comes out as other things and so a lot of the time we were talking about unique people or difficult people or misunderstandings. I always ask, how their fear is dressing up, that helps you solve a lot of their problems.

John Jantsch: [00:07:00] So, you have broken this book very conveniently I think, into a couple of sections with fives, the first five minutes, the first five hours, the first five days and it really kind of compartmentalize a lot of this but let’s start with the first five minutes because everybody knows that first impression. We all want to be instantly likable. So what are some of the best practices if you want to become instantly likable because I know everybody wants this and probably it’s different for everyone.

Vanessa Van Edwards: [00:07:32] Yeah, so I think that the biggest one that we don’t hear about is—because I think that the first impression is talked about quite a lot. One that took me a longer to figure out because I didn’t hear this as much was that, when you think about social interactions you actually have to think about it like playing on a sports team or playing a game in that if you do not optimize to your natural abilities, you will have to work way harder than everyone else and so I accidently discovered this because in my 20’s—I’m so glad I’m out of my 20’s, I’m so glad. When I was in my 20’s it was like, loud bars, concerts, night clubs and I would go to this birthday parties and these events and just be miserable. It was like, forget interesting conversations, it was like just try to not hide in a corner and that was sort of me and what I realized was that was not how I best interact with people. Everyone has a different flavor of charisma and most books teach about one flavor of charisma. They teach only the bubbly extrovert.

John Jantsch: [00:07:32] Yeah, do these things.

Vanessa Van Edwards: [00:07:36] Yeah, but if you are not a bubbly extrovert, it is so much harder to do that. So my brand of charisma is one on one conversations and so I optimize now my social interactions before you even show up, to where I thrive. So what I would challenge everyone to think about is, before you even show up and make the first impression is, what is your sport, where do you thrive? Is it small parties, the dinner parties? Is it teaching? Is it conferences and workshops? What is the best way you interact? Because that is going to be much easier to optimize than trying to do it in a place where you survive.

John Jantsch: [00:09:13] So one of the things—I reference my father all the time, he was my mentor for sales because he was just the old kind of bag carrying say door to door, not door to door necessarily but town to town [laughs] sales person and one of the things I remember him telling me was that quite often he would go calling somebody and he would kind of model their behavior. If they were very slouchy on their chair he would get that way, if they were very direct and leaning forward, he would do that and there was a feeling that this kind of modeling made him more likable because it made him more like them. Is there any truth in that?

Vanessa Van Edwards: [00:09:52] Yeah, very much. That’s a very intuitive sales tactic in the sense that we have what are called neurons. So if we sense that someone—we automatically try to mirror the person we are with and the more we are like them in terms of body language or voice tone, the more we feel like feel like this person gets me. What’s interesting about this is—I experienced it in a different way, I was at a hotel and I was checking out really early in the morning. I think my flight was like 6 am, something terrible. So I am barely awake rolling my bags in the lobby and the [indecipherable 00:10:28] that’s to check me out or the desk person was like, “Good morning!” [laughter] and I just looked at her and realized it was a really interesting moment of– she has been taught that a good sales person, like that one brand of charisma, the bubbly extrovert, should always be friendly and chirpily and smiley but the context and my emotional level did not match. I was clearly exhausted and barely awake. She would have much been better off in a lower more whisper like voice saying, “Good morning! How is it going this morning? Can I help you check out more quickly?” That would have matched me better and so I think that mirroring and matching is important for the person but also contextually, like time of day, where you are, don’t take every piece of sales advice by yourself.

John Jantsch: [00:11:16] So where does the fact people get really good at this or they may be more intuitive in this and then it actually turns into manipulation or kind of faking who you really are. Where does that come into this conversation?

Vanessa Van Edwards: [00:11:31] Oh! Such a good question. I despise the phrase ‘fake it till you make it’. I think it just sends the wrong message. Research shows that we can sense inauthenticity in a second and so I think that showing up to an event and pretending to be something you are not until it happens just doesn’t work. So first of all I think, never try to be something that you are not, which we have heard before but the more practical aspect of that is that you avoid that very fine line between behavior hacking, which is what I do and manipulation, and there is a very fine line there because I think always using your power for good not evil. So if my number one goal in interacting with someone in a networking event or a conference is to figure out as much as I possibly can figure about them so I can better serve them, that to me feels like a very authentic and good motivation. If someone says to me I want to use your speed reading techniques and your personality science to convince someone into paying double, even when they can’t afford it, no [laughter]. That I think is using power for evil and not good. So I think it’s actually your intention going into it as opposed to what skills you use.

John Jantsch: [00:12:43] How important are some of the common things people talk about, eye contact, handshakes, looking down at your shoes, crossing your legs, all those kind of body languages things that people do, they probably don’t realize they are doing. Do we need—is there a handshake that we have to practice if we—if we don’t do it well. Are those elements something that you just have to sort of swallow in and do?

Vanessa Van Edwards: [00:13:10] Yeah, so I decided in this book, to not go with the basics that we have all heard before, so I don’t really talk about that very much. However, I think that what you ask is really important in the sense of, okay you suck it up and do the handshake and the eye contact. The problem with body language specifically is that not all eye contact is created equal, not all handshakes are created equal. So for example, if you look at handshake science, for instance, a lot of NBAs have been taught. Always make the handshake, always go in for the handshake at that bond. That is true, however, if you go in for a handshake that is either—that you flip someone up or down so that it’s not a vertical handshake, and what I mean by that is that if you hold out your hand like kind of in the air right now—I’m doing it right now, you can’t see me but if you hold out to shake, your thumb should be up towards the ceiling and the pinkie should be down to the floor, totally vertical. If you have someone who tilts their hands so that their palm is facing the floor and their back of the hand is facing the ceiling, that is actually a very dominant handshake and it could come across as quite domineering, very controlling and so if you are making a handshake when you are making a handshake where you are accidentally sending the wrong body language signals, which is called encoding, then it’s actually worse, you are sending off the wrong signals.

So I always say the things that sound simple, it’s usually not as simple as you think and you want to do it in a way that is encoding it in the right way. So for a handshake, always make sure you are keeping it very vertical. You are not flipping up or flipping down, and you are also making sure that you are squeezing—the tension, you are squeezing like a peach and the best way I can think to describe a handshake is, you know that you are going too hard or too soft when you squeeze someone and they squeeze back just like the peach. Like when you pick up a peach at the grocery store and you squeeze to see if it is ripe, it is soft at first and as soon as you feel a little of hardness you stop squeezing, it’s the exact same thing with a handshake. So that way you are kind of gauging to not over shake someone’s hands if their level of firmness is different than yours.

John Jantsch: [00:15:16] This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by Thrive Leads. This is a tool that we use on the Duct Tape marketing website to thoroughly—for content upgrades, for slide-in boxes, actually we also use the visual editor for all the pages and landing pages that we design. So go check it out at ducttapemarketing.com. We will have special links in the show notes for today and check it out.

So do you find yourself—I’m a little side path here [laughter]. So do you find yourself constantly analyzing handshakes, eye contact, the way people stand and—by the way I’m standing very tall right now with my hands on my hips by the way.

Vanessa Van Edwards: [00:16:00] I can hear it. I can hear [laughter]. I like it. Yes and no. However, I did sign up for that. What I mean by that is when I was younger I always joked that I’m recovering awkward person. I was so obsessed with trying to read people but had no skills to read people that I was constantly questioning myself. So when I finally learned the skills to read micro expressions and handshakes and pick up the decoding and encoding signals it was actually a relief for me. I find that as a non-natural people person, that for me feels like information. It makes me calmer and makes you feel like I’m in control. So that works for me but I do think that it gets a lot more natural after a while. So yes, but I think that I want it that way. If that makes sense.

John Jantsch: [00:16:48] Yes, absolutely. So a lot of business folks end up using these kinds of skills or needing these kinds of skills in sales situations but probably more often than not is that dreaded kind of networking event that they end up having more anxiety about. And you have in the book, I think it’s fascinating. I felt like I was reading a sports playbook and exactly on how to kind of attack a room or work a networking event and again not in a sort of fake way but just in kind of the most efficient optimized way but with a little bit of data behind it and you want to explain kind of your—I know it’s a whole chapter almost but you want to explain kind of that idea?

Vanessa Van Edwards: [00:17:36] I would love it. So this was an experiment that I did where– again nothing comes naturally to me. So assuming that it was a blank slate socially and I would walk into a networking event or party or conference and be like, what do I do first? Where do I stand? How do I talk to people? And just be like—and what would end up happening is I would be frozen at the door, kind of like covering the door, like hovering by the bathroom. And so what I did was I’d set up an experiment, so I ran a human behavior research lab and what we did is we asked the participants if we could film their networking events, their conferences, their big open rooms from every angle so we had a camera on each corner and that also track people as they move throughout the event. So when someone came to an event we did this with hundreds of people. They filled out a little pre-formed that said something like, “What’s your goal tonight? How do you feel about networking? And how many people do you already know here or do you think you’ll know?” And then we would track people as they move throughout the event. We would count how many handshakes they had and at the end of the event. We would ask them, “How many cards did you get? Did you complete your goals for this networking event?” and then we would look at their contacts on linked in basically trying to find what super networkers do differently to work a room. Literally physically to work a room.

We ended up finding there was a very similar pattern between these top networkers and we—when I say top networkers I don’t necessarily mean quantity connections, I mean quality connections so they were getting the most business cards and then following up with those people afterward. They tended to have longer and warmer interactions. What we found was is they avoid– I split up the room into the sides zone, the start zone and the social zone and if you want to avoid the side zone, hovering by the bathroom and hovering by the food is actually– that was a no go zone. People may have very little connection there. The start zone is another place you do not want to stand. Surprisingly you don’t want to hover right where people enter because they’re kind of getting their bearings and they are probably going to excuse themselves from talking to you faster. And instead, we found these social zones, these sweet spots, and one of them our favorites. There’s three of them one of them is standing right in front the bar. And that seems to be where all the super networkers stood to make new connections and kind of revive old ones. Right as someone turns their back to the bar they have a fresh drink in their hands and they’re looking at the room going, “Who am I going to talk to?” You are their savior, you’re the person who’s right there being like, “Hey, so how’s the wine? Right. Really easy opening line and it just works like magic.

John Jantsch: [00:20:22] So have you found– I know the first time that I started pretty routinely getting or seeing videos of me speaking I was aghast at a few of my habits [laughter] and I was like, oh! I got to stop doing that. Are there kind of some common body language things that a lot of people do for various reasons maybe but that you say, “Just don’t ever do those things”?

Vanessa Van Edwards: [00:20:48] Oh gosh! There are so many. Yeah. The biggest one that I’d seen was common, remember that we watched thousands of hours of these networking events and it was fascinating from a different level in terms of like office crushes and things like that. I joke that I can always tell who has an office crush on who and one of the reasons for this is because we pay a lot of attention to feet. Feet are like the hidden keys in body language and the reason for that is because most people are unaware of their foot behavior and also don’t think it matters because it’s so far from our line of sight.

If you’re talking to someone at networking event. You actually cannot see someone’s feet without specifically looking down at their feet. We can see their hand gestures out of the corner of her eye, we can see kind of their torso but feet, if you have the opportunity to look and or you’re in control of your own feet is something called distancing behavior. So distancing behavior is when someone literally takes a step back pivots their foot out or angles out or rocks back and opens up. What this means is basically that someone is a little bit less engaged and it happened for a variety reasons, like someone could angle out or step back because they have to check their parking or because they’re bored or because someone said something they didn’t like. You can almost sense or see the moment in a conversation where someone says something that they are offended by because they will lean back take a step back or pivot out. And so I’m always very, very aware of where is someone’s feet when we first start talking. Do they have one foot out? To me that usually means they’re not 100% in with me which is totally fine. I need to work that connection a little bit more or they’re really aligned with me, both their feet are facing towards me and then I lose them midway through the conversation and I might even say I’m like, “Hey let’s get a drink refill,” or “I’ll catch up with you later on, I’m going to grab something from the buffet.” That is a subtle signal to know what someone’s thinking and for yourself, if you want to show engagement, you want to make sure that you’re angling towards the person as much as possible.

John Jantsch: [00:22:55] So I don’t watch a ton of television but the other day I came across a show that I watched for about ten minutes called The Mentalist. And I noticed that you had it on your site. How much—well, so setting up the premise that is this person is a specialist and watching jurors, I think it is and their body language really with kind of helping law firms or lawyers figure out who’s with them who’s not against them what message is hitting. How much truth is there to that show?

Vanessa Van Edwards: [00:23:27] I wish I knew specifics. I would say that some of the human behavior truth they speak of especially when they reference a specific scientific topic. It is it is accurate. So they’ll say something like, “According to the similarity-attraction effect or according to the icky effect. “ That is usually when they’re hitting on a truth. Now how they use the truth [laughs] a little bit more of fiction but the reason why I think it’s interesting is because they will often bring up universal human behavior truths that have been cited in psychological peer-reviewed citations, that is. Which are great to sort of see how you would apply it in your life.

What’s a little bit more accurate one, if you want to know the actual science is the show ‘Lie to Me’ which is on Netflix. It’s a great show. That show is based on a real-life man who I featured in the book. His name is Dr. Paul Ekman and he discovered micro expression. What Dr. Paul Ekman did when he worked for the show is he actually has a blog with every single episode and he tells you that the real and fake science of every single episode. So I love that because he actually tells you what’s real or not, so I would often watch that show and then pull up the blog and read it alongside the show. So that’s actually my favorite one for learning real human behavior tricks.

John Jantsch: [00:24:44] So I’m speaking with Vanessa Van Edwards, she is the author of ‘Captivate’ which is available in April of 2017. One last question. So we already talked about a huge benefit, people want to be likable but you suggest that there are far greater benefits like making more money, getting the positions you want, influencing people, that really come into play here. So you want to talk a little bit about some of the expanded benefits of this idea?

Vanessa Van Edwards: [00:25:13] Yeah I think that PQ is the new IQ. We talk about PQ, we talk about people intelligence and we’ve known that social emotion intelligence is important but we haven’t known how important it is and there are so many studies that show that. When you go into an interview or a negotiation or a meeting and you prepare all the things you want to say, actually someone decides how they feel about you within the first five to 20 seconds. And that has a lot to do with body language, first impression, opening lines and the rapport building that happens after that confirms that role that they hope that they made, that could really hold the meaning beginning. So a lot of people work really hard on their technical skills and I don’t know about people listening but I felt a little fooled by schools in a certain sense. I focused a lot on my grades and my technical skills. And so I completely neglected all the people skills, the soft skills and so I think that we can turn soft skills into hard skills. I do not think it has to be gray. I think it can be black and white and that is, I think far more beneficial for us as adults who are trying to get ahead. It’s the missing link I think in a lot of people’s success.

John Jantsch: [00:26:25] So at the Science of people you have– and part of the book you have a PQ test which I think is rather fascinating. I have not completed it yet but I’ll let you know how I do but you also have some bonuses for book buyers you want to talk a little bit about that?

Vanessa Van Edwards: [00:26:43] Yes. So I knew that you would be picking up the book for different reasons. Some people for business, some people singles wanting to up their romance like other people wanting to make friends and so when you get the book we also had a kind of choose your own adventure. The chapters that are best for romance business or social depending on your flavor.

We also have a chapter that we didn’t put in the book that is sort of a hidden extra chapter where I talk about being a human Swiss Army knife which is just like you want to learn karate moves for every potentially dangerous situation. I will give you all those secret moves that you can put in any social situations. So those are kind of some fun extra as well as we have a bunch of videos and stuff too. You’re a visual learner. I get it. We have a lot of videos too.

John Jantsch: [00:27:29] Awesome. Vanessa, thanks so much for joining us. Pick up ‘Captivate-She Science of Succeeding with People’ and hopefully we’ll see you next time in Portland.

Vanessa Van Edwards: [00:27:39] Thank you so much, John.

from Duct Tape Marketing https://www.ducttapemarketing.com/transcript-of-guide-to-figuring-people-out/

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