Saturday, 26 January 2019

Averted gaze

A friend of mine was talking to me the other day, and I suddenly remembered that he always has his head slightly to one side when he looks at me. It is so slightly to one side that I had always mistaken it for the sort of body language which says something like, 'I am challenging you to accept what I say without question, but I see there is a hint of disbelief in your reaction'.

I have been assuming this for years because he is the sort of blindly cynical man who cannot accept an obvious truth when it is staring him in the face, albeit a little obliquely.

He once told me how to cast bronze, forgetting that I had been casting bronze for years. He described a method so dangerous that it would inevitably lead to a catastrophic explosion if you were stupid enough to try it, and he would not accept  that I knew what I was talking about and he didn't.

As I looked at him the other day, I suddenly became conscious of the real reason his head is a degree or two to the right as he talks. His prominent nose is bent slightly to the right and in order to have it pointing straight at you, he aligns the rest of his face to suit.

This must be the way he looks at himself in the mirror. It is now permanently set in his muscle memory.

8 comments:

  1. To quote Rabbie Burns 'O wad some Power.....
    A very appropriate post so near to Burns Night Tom!

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    1. Very apt Weave. Mirror, mirror, on the wall...

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  2. What an unfortunate characteristic to have been inflicted with.

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  3. So in conclusion, the face positioning arrangement to compensate for the nose is no excuse for his know it all behaviour. He is a know it all anyway.

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    1. He is the same age as me and smokes skunk from morning to bedtime.

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  4. It always worries me seeing Corbyn looking at May at PMQ's. He has his head down, and looks up over his glasses. It looks very submissive and inferior.

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    1. That's how our tyrannical headmaster looked at us in his office and I would not have called him submissive.

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