power of interpretationAs I was driving today down Centinela Avenue in LA, the woman in front of me was driving me nuts. I had an opening, so I decided to go into the left hand lane from the right. She, of course, decided to do the same thing. Were we connecting on some deep energetic level? Was there some type of flirtation going on?

She really liked the front end of my car and wanted to tease me by wiggling her rear end into another lane? Maybe she was just annoying as f#ck?

As I was about to pass her, I thought to myself, “Should I do the drive-by — stare down?”

You know when somebody is really annoying, you finally pass them, and you want to give them the look. That look when you know the other person can read exactly what you’re thinking. It’s a look so intense there’s no way they can be in any doubt about how you feel.

Those thoughts are usually along the lines of, “You’re a terrible driver. How dare you cut me off!”

Or, “Can’t you see I was trying to pass you? Can you see from the look in my eyes how angry you’ve made me?”

It’s funny what we think is actually being conveyed by our looks. When the person looks at you and you’re staring at them, they probably think to themselves, “Why is that person staring at me? Is that person crazy next to me?”

It’s funny because life is all about perception. More accurately, life is all about mishandling perception. Every day we interpret glances. We interpret smiles. We interpret so many things. I remember a guy I coached a while back who really liked this girl. He said to me, “Every time she sees me, she gives me this look. I know she likes me even though we’ve never talked. We’ve been passing each other for months now.”

It’s funny. His interpretation was that he likes her and she likes him, but neither one has spoken to the other. In reality, her look is probably in wonderment.

She was probably thinking, “Why does this guy keep staring at me? Is he ever going to talk to me? It’s creeping me out!”

Yet, we interpret things based on what we need to feel, or how we need to make ourselves feel better. It’s an interesting trait humans have. We’re constantly trying to read into things. We’re always looking for a hidden meaning in every look and touch.

We try to figure each other out without just asking. You’ll never truly know what someone is saying from a look or a glance. Sure you can make generalizations about body language, but you need to be damn good at reading people to put it all together.

The best way to know how someone is feeling is to flat out ask them. Maybe you won’t do that to the person pulling in front of you in the car, but the next time you go to misread a look or glance, why don’t you talk to the person instead of making up a scenario in your own head?