Why Men’s Non-Verbal Facial Expressions Can Make Women Nervous

There are many stereotypes that exist when it comes to the differences between men and women. This is especially true when it comes to communication styles between the two sexes. We expect men to be somewhat without emotion when communicating. For women, however, the opposite is true. Our expectation is that women should be the happy, cheerful sex, which is reflected in the smiley-face syndrome. Many miscommunications can occur because female and male facial styles vary so profoundly.

Although men might take on an air of neutrality, there is actually no such thing as neutrality in communication. Women perceive negatively. Men’s masking of facial expressions causes uneasiness in women. This is why women often view and interpret men’s monotonic facial expressions as punishing and admonishing or as negative feedback.

The monotonic face is one of the reasons women feel uncomfortable with men. Males can appear unavailable and emotionally inactive because it has political value to them; this is the ultimate nonverbal way for them to express their masculine control.

When a woman can’t take a read on the man with whom she is talking, it makes her anxious. She becomes confused and begins to doubt herself. She might even become more animated to spark a reaction, but the man will hold fast to his stony demeanor. Indeed, when a woman increases her expressiveness in this situation, the man may believe that she’s becoming overly emotional. This undercuts her credibility. This is one of the occasions that prompts women to complain, “I get in trouble when I’m excited.” As a consequence of male facial stonewalling, the woman may cut short the conversation, explode in a rage, or avoid personal contact altogether.

Some men love the stone face because they know that it makes the other person feel uncomfortable and throws them off balance. It puts them in control. What should a woman do when she encounters this stratagem? It is recommended that she recognize this ploy and then hang tough, refusing to be influenced by it. Or she can use the verbal package to expose the nonverbal, by saying, “I’m not getting a read right now on how you feel about what I’m saying. What do you think?” It’s a powerful approach to let a man know that he is not intimidating her.

Often our expectations are based on the assumptions we have about people or groups of people. The same is true of us. Have you ever noticed how your expectations become reality in your personal life? Expectation is literally a self-fulfilling prophecy. We do this consciously and subconsciously. Remember the kid in grade school who was always really rowdy and disruptive? Sometimes if people already assume they are perceived a certain way, then that is indeed exactly how they will act, even if they don’t mean to. The rowdy kid in grade school knew everyone perceived him as disruptive, and so he was. The teacher expected bad behavior, and the expectations were fulfilled.

Consider the profound impact this can have in your own life. Are the assumptions and expectations you have about yourself liberating or victimizing? There are countless examples of “self-fulfilling prophecies,” or the Law of Expectations at work in everyday life. Ever notice how people who think they’re going to be fired suddenly experience a drop in the quality and enthusiasm for their work? Then what happens? They get fired! Their belief causes them to act a certain way, and those expectations then work to bring about the very thing that at first was only a figment of their imagination.

In another study, second graders listened to statements from their teachers before taking a math test. There were three types of statements: expectation, persuasion, or reinforcement. The expectation statements went something like, “You know your math really well!” or “You work really hard at your math.” Persuasion statements involved sentences like, “You should be good at math.” or “You should be getting better math grades.” Finally, for the reinforcement statements, teachers said things like, “I’m really happy about your progress” or “This is excellent work!” Now, what do you think the results were? The scores were the highest in the “expectation” category! Why were the expectation statements the most effective? They created personal assumptions within each student. Those assumptions conditioned the actual external results.

In learning the German language, there are certainties that a student must and needs to consider. Since the Internet have taken its many changes mostly for the betterment of each Internet user, there have been countless German programs and materials, be it video or audio, scattered all over the World Wide Web. All you need is several left-clicks or right clicks and you’re good to go for your first German lesson.

But searching for the correct and appropriate German material isn’t the only time-taking part in learning the German language. You do realize that learning the German language still requires a lot of time, effort and understanding. Experience and practical use of the language is also a high necessity. So what else is there that you need to know about learning a foreign language?

Aside from the reality that people say learning the German language isn’t much of a difficulty when you are learning it, the part where you have and need to stick to your lessons is dragging. It can be more of a temptation to completely forget about it. At some point, you will lose interest, disregard the lesson or think about how to abandon the entire course.

But there are real factors that can happen when you are on the process of learning the German language regardless what foreign language you want to learn. Embracing each and every difficulty should be the only way to do it.

And of course making mistakes is going to happen in a rampant manner. This too, you have to expect because if you are not well prepared, you might see yourself a failure. And that’s not a very good thing at all. With every obstacle that you learn in life and from learning German at least, there are some things that you need to accept. Don’t try to be too perfect because even a native German speaker still makes mistakes.

And of course, expect to have fun as you move along.