I am not a stalker...I'm doing research.

I asked my grandma once when I was a child what love looked like.  She replied, “Well it’s bigger than the whole world, but small enough to fit inside your heart.”  My grandma typically gave vague answers like that. I learned to never ask her questions and expect a direct answer.

Many evenings instead of doing the obligatory task of studying, I can be found eating with friends, lazily reading non-academic books and buying jeans.  While to you this all may sound frivolous, even a little irresponsible, especially since the GRE’s are this week, I like to think of it as a kind of ongoing research.  Not in the traditional sort of way, but in the “I am a dating columnist, therefore it is necessary to be social” sort of way.

Scoff if you will, but even when trying on new shoes, I am working.  I am always listening to others’ conversations.  I am always in the next changing room eavesdropping on the lives of my fellow urbanites.  I am always watching out of the corner of my eye as I walk through the mall, picking up bits of information to use for later when I am all alone, sitting in front of my laptop.

Oh relax! I am not a stalker.
I am just hard-wired to observe people.  I watch the way they interact and the way their dialogue unfolds before the actual conversation begins.

The polite but guarded way someone might smile at a stranger or the overt sexual leer from a man at a bar to the group of females just walking inside. 

I like to watch couples most of all. You can always tell what type of couple they are just by the way they stand next to each other.  For instance, there was a middle- aged couple waiting for a table the other night at a downtown restaurant.  I noticed the way she leaned into him as he kept eyeing the young auburn-haired hostess.

This tells me he is having an affair with someone, most likely from his office, and that she knows all about it, but refuses to give him up to another woman because she fears the uncertainty of being alone.

In class this week, two seats across from me, a boy wearing a basketball jersey was constantly stealing looks at a fraternity boy wearing a tight white t-shirt while the professor was lecturing about the innate differences between philosophies of Hume and Kant.

What the jock didn’t see was the frat boy noticed him as well and, should they both be reading this column, I’d like to say, “Yes, he likes you, too…Now will you both please pay attention to what the professor is lecturing about.”

 I like most about my parents’ relationship is the ease at which they relate to each other without uttering a single syllable.  I feel blessed to be a witness to the small way my parents look at each other sometimes and it’s as if they are saying, “You are still the one that I fell for on the playground 40 years ago.”

Body language is not a talent or some unattainable psychic ability limited to a few persons with exceptional abilities.  If you stop, look up and pay attention, you might sneak a peek into what others are thinking, and more importantly, you might become better at communicating honestly what you’re feeling.

I am a people-watcher and I cannot escape this habit, nor would I if given the opportunity, because along with all those awkward moments you often witness…on very rare occasions, you also get a glimpse into what love actually looks like.