The Date Whisperer
“People feel weird when they meet me, ” 27-year-old Blake Eastman tells me. He’s perched on a coffee table eating gummy bears.“人们看见我时感觉奇怪，”27岁的布莱克·伊士曼告诉我。他坐在咖啡桌旁吃着小熊形状的软糖。
Sitting across from him on the couch in an expansive, hardwood-floored rental space in Chelsea getting ready to watch him teach “The Dating Workshop, ” I admit that I feel, if not “weird, ” a bit self-conscious. It’s hard to meet a master of body language (or, to quote Eastman, “nonverbal communication”) and not worry about what you’re doing with your hands, how solid your eye contact is, and whether he’s reading your mind. Hint: He sort of is.
伦敦切尔西市一个宽敞的租赁房子，屋里铺着硬木地板，坐在布莱克对面的沙发上，准备好了观看他教授“约会讲习班”，我承认如果我的感觉不是“奇怪”，就是有点自我。见到一位熟知肢体语言（或，引用伊士曼的话“非言语交际”）的人不容易，不要担心你的手在做什么，你的目光交流有多坚定，或是他是否在读取你的想法。提示：他有点是。
For eight months, Eastman has been teaching singles on the dating scene to read minds, too, and to use their bodies to send clear signals. For example, you can send the message, “If you touch me, I will gag, ” by slowly moving away each time your date invades your personal space. Or you can communicate, “Kiss me! Now!” by playing with the buttons on his shirt, looking at his lips, or softening the tone of your voice just so.
8个月来，伊士曼都在约会情境下教授单身男女读心术，以及使用肢体传达清晰的信号。例如，每次约会对象想侵入你的个人空间时，你可以通过慢慢地离开，发出 “如果你碰我，我会呕吐，”的信号，或是通过玩他衬衫上的纽扣，盯着他的嘴唇，或是让自己的语调变得柔和来传达“吻我！立刻！”这一信号。
Those moves might sound primitive, but on a first or second date, it’s difficult to say exactly what you’re thinking. Most people opt not to. Eastman’s theory is that if you’re not fluent in body language, you’re likely to give your date the wrong idea, to inadvertently act uninterested when you’re interested or vice versa, to be left mystified by someone’s vanishing act, even though he was telling you the whole time—wordlessly, of course—that he couldn’t wait to get away. Modern dating is one big (quoting Led Zeppelin here) communication breakdown. But The Dating Workshop and Eastman’s other classes, including Body Language Explained and Deception Detected, are designed to help.
这些举措可能听起来简单，但是初次约会或是第二次约会，很难准确说出你在想什么。大多数人选择不。伊士曼的理论是，如果你的身体语言不流利，可能会给约会对象错误的观点，即对约会对象感兴趣，无意识的行为却显得你不感兴趣，反之亦然，被某人刚刚的行为弄得困惑，即使他一直无声地告诉你，他迫不及待想要离开。现代约会是一个大的通信故障（引自“齐柏林飞艇”）。但是“约会讲习班”和伊士曼的其它课程，包括肢体语言解释和发现欺骗两项已经被制作出来帮助大家。
“I promise you, ” says Eastman, who has a blue-eyed baby face but speaks with the quick cadence of an Aaron Sorkin character, “in about a year and a half, my name will be synonymous with body language.”
“我向你承诺，”蓝眼睛娃娃脸的伊士曼说，说话却带着阿伦·索尔金的音调特征，“大约一年半的时间内，我的名字将成为肢体语言的同义词。”
Arguably, the writer Neil Strauss has a corner on that market. His 2005 runaway best-seller, The Game, told the story of the years he spent with professional pickup artists learning how to seduce women. Much of Strauss’ strategy entailed nonverbally conveying self-confidence. Eastman, however, didn’t come to the study of body language to get laid. He says he developed his proficiency in nonverbal communication during childhood as an adaptive response to his anxiety. In social situations, he often found himself paralyzed, imagining worst-case scenarios about what would happen if he made the wrong move or said the wrong thing. So he learned to read people to discern what they wanted from him. Years later, he obtained a master’s degree in forensics from John Jay College of Criminal Justice, started teaching psychology classes at LaGuardia Community College, and became a professional poker player. He uses his winnings to fund his own research in nonverbal communication, conducting countless hands-on hours in the field.
可以说，作家尼尔·施特劳斯已经垄断了市场。他在2005年出版的畅销书《心理游戏》，讲述了多年来他和专业把妹达人学习如何勾引女性的故事。施特劳斯的许多策略都承担了非语言形式传达自信。然而，伊士曼并没有想起学习肢体语言。他说，童年时期为适应自己的焦虑情绪，逐渐熟练了非言语交际。在社交场合，他常常感觉没有勇气，想象如果他做出错误的行为或是说出错误的话，最糟糕的情形会是怎样。所以他学会了解读人们的想法来辨别人们想从他那得到什么。多年后，他获得了约翰·杰伊刑事司法学院法医学的硕士学位，开始在拉瓜迪亚社区大学教授心理学课程，还成为了一名职业扑克选手。他用赢来的钱赞助自己非言语交际的研究，实地进行了无数个小时的亲身实践。
Some of his lab settings are cocktail parties; he sets them up, films them, and then studies the footage. In the summertime, he stands between two mailboxes across from the outdoor tables of Blue Water Grill, a seafood restaurant in Manhattan’s Union Square, observes people on dates, and collects data. He shares his findings through The Nonverbal Group, the research and teaching company he founded and runs. In his rental space, he maintains an office—a desk and computer, shelves full of body language and pop-psychology texts including The Brain In Love, Who’s In Charge?, and a couple of books by Malcolm Gladwell (“who I fucking love to death”)—as well as a seminar room where he’s taught more than 2, 600 students in the past year.
伊士曼实验室的一些器械是鸡尾酒会所用；他设置好后拍摄下来，然后研究这段录像。夏季，在曼哈顿联合广场的一家名为深海烧烤的海鲜餐厅外摆放着户外桌子，他站在桌子对面的两个邮箱之间，观察约会中的人并收集数据。他在他所创立并维持的研究和教学团队-非语言群体里分享他的发现。在他租赁的地方，他有一个办公室，里面放着一张桌子、一台电脑、书架上都是关于肢体语言和流行心理学的文献，其中有《恋爱中的大脑，谁来负责？》，两三本我酷爱的马尔科姆·格拉德维尔写的书，以及一个会议室，去年他在那里的学生超过2 600名。
Eastman tells me that The Dating Workshop usually draws more women than men. But when the room fills up, the crowd is about 50/50, the majority in their 20s and 30s and got tickets to the class through Groupon and LivingSocial. The women have nervous eyes and adjust their tights; the men look like computer programmers with their straight backs, solemn expressions, and wire-rimmed glasses. To begin, Eastman asks his students to shout out questions and writes them on a white board.
伊士曼告诉我“约会讲习班”通常更关注女性而非男性。但是屋里人满的时候，男女大约各一半，绝大多数是二三十岁的年轻人，从Groupon和LivingSocial拿到上课的票。女性眼神紧张、整理衣服；男性看上去像计算机程序设计员，腰背挺直、言语庄重、戴着金丝边眼镜。首先，伊士曼让学生喊出问题并记录在白板上。
“I can feel people making assumptions about me, ” says a guy in the back row who wears a blazer over a plaid shirt. He asks Eastman for advice on changing that. “Like, I tell people I went to Harvard, and I can tell they’re thinking I’m a douche bag.”
“我能感觉到人们在对我议论纷纷，”坐在后排一个男生里面穿着格子衬衫，外面套着鲜艳的运动服。他向伊士曼寻求改变这一问题的建议。“就像，我告诉人们毕业于哈佛，我能感觉到人们认为我很讨厌。”
Eastman nods, watching him for a moment. He tips his head and squints. “Well, you do have a little douche baggery to you, ” he says. The room, including the Harvard graduate, erupts into laughter. “We’ll work on that, ” he adds. (Later, he tells me that the “douche baggery” he picked up on stemmed from a disconnect between the arrogance in the Harvard graduate’s words and the insecurity apparent in his body language.)
伊士曼点点头，看了他一会。指出男生的头和斜视的问题。“你确实有点讨厌，”他说。整个屋子，包括这个哈佛毕业生爆发出一阵大笑。“我们来弄弄这个，”他补充道。（稍后，他告诉我他用的“讨厌鬼”来源于这个哈佛毕业生的话语中的自大和他肢体语言明显的无安全感之间的一个脱节。）
“What about the nice guy theorem?” asks another man. “Nice guys finish last.”
“那好人定理呢？”另一个男士问。“好人吃亏。”
“Not true, ” Eastman says. “Those are just nice guys who don’t know how to market themselves.”
“不对，”伊士曼说。“这些只是不知道如何推销自己的好人。”
He continues to take questions until he runs out of space on the white board. Then he sets about answering them.
直到白板上写满了，他才停止接受问题。接下来他要回答了。
“What’s cool in the world of dating, ” he tells the group, “is that no one’s ever telling you how they feel. They’re showing you.” He introduces “the orientation reflex.” That’s the move a person makes to orient toward what interests him—turning his head, for example. He insists that people orient toward us all the time, and we should learn to notice it. He talks about “pacifying gestures” we use to diffuse the anxiety of dating, how men rub their palms on their pants and women play with their fingers. He explains that many people do poorly on dates because they’re “emotionally incongruent”: What comes out of their mouths doesn’t match what shows on their faces.
“约会中酷的是没有人会告诉你他们的感觉，而是展示给你他们的感觉。”他介绍了“方向反射”。即一个人会朝着感兴趣的方向移动 – 例如转动头的方向。他坚持认为人们一直朝我们确定方向，我们应该学会注意到这一点。他谈论了我们使用的“安抚姿势”来化解约会的焦虑，男人如何在裤子上搓手和女人玩自己的手指。他解释道许多人在约会中表现不好，因为他们“情感不一致”：说出的话和脸上的表情不一致。
He uses President Obama as an example: “During the debates, he’d say, ‘Mitt, I disagree with you, ’ ” Eastman says, making a placid face. “Not, ‘Mitt! I disagree with you!’ ” Eastman says, changing his expression to an angry one. In that case, he explains, Obama came off as weaker than he meant to. But emotionally incongruent people can also come off as odd, and that can hurt them on dates.
他用奥巴马总统举例：“在辩论中，他会说，‘米特，我不同意你的观点，’”伊士曼面部表情平静地说。“不，‘米特！我不同意你的观点！’”伊士曼的表情变成了愤怒。他解释道，在这种情况下，奥巴马比打算表现出的要弱。但是感情上不一致的人也可以表现出奇怪的行为，那会在约会中伤害到他们。
So if they’re doing so many things wrong, how can discouraged daters improve their skills? “Video, ” Eastman says. “You watch yourself on tape. Then you can change.” It might be a creepy move to set up a video camera on a first date, but Eastman will approximate the experience for you in his workshop by filming you talking to your classmates.
所以如果他们犯了那么多错误，泄气的约会人如何改善约会技巧呢？“录像，”伊士曼说。“你看自己的录像，然后就可以改变了。”初次约会就弄摄像机可能是一种恐怖的行为，但是伊士曼在其工作室拍摄你和同学说话可以帮你提供类似经历。
After the first hour, Eastman tells his students to get up and mingle. Everyone stands and starts moving around the room, wearing I-can’t-believe-we’re-all-sober smiles. I talk with one woman, an actress in her early 30s who grew up in Virginia and feels mystified by New York men. “Southern men are so different, ” she says. “Here, I’m confused. I’m always horrible on the first couple of dates.” She’s taken two of Eastman’s classes with a LivingSocial coupon, and she believes they’ve made her more aware. She feels more comfortable and less compelled than she used to be to fill every moment of silence on a date. I talk with a computer programmer (I knew it!) who is here for the first time and says he’s benefiting from the class. “I don’t agree with everything Blake says. But he’s good.” I talk with another woman who says that meeting Eastman and his girlfriend has changed her whole life. She has new friends, a new job, a new outlook. She wears the dreamy gaze of a cult member. I meet another man who has taken a few of Eastman’s classes and seems similarly enamored. “He’s just so amazing, ” he says.
第一个小时过去后，伊士曼告诉学生起立，交换。每个人站起来，在屋子里走来走去，衣服上有我不能相信我们是清醒的微笑。我和一个30出头、在弗吉尼亚长大的女演员交谈，她被纽约男性弄得很困惑。“南方的男性很不一样，”她说。“在这里，我感到困惑。我总是在头几次约会中很害怕”。她用LivingSocial得来的入场券上了两堂伊士曼的课，她相信这两堂课已经让她懂得更多知识。每次约会中的沉默时刻，她感觉比以往更舒适，紧迫感更少了。我和一名计算机程序员交谈，他第一次来这听课，说自己收获不小。“我不完全同意布莱克说的。但是他很好。”我和另一名女性交谈，她说遇见伊士曼和他女友改变了其一生。她有了新朋友、新工作、新面貌。她有着狂热崇拜者的梦幻般的眼神。我见到另一个男士，他上了几次伊士曼的课，似乎有着和那名女士同样的迷恋。“他多有吸引力啊，”他说。
After living in New York City for six years, I’ve met (sometimes as a seeker, more often as a journalist) my share of self-help gurus: diet experts, sex coaches, life coaches, career coaches, a man who believes he can make anyone a millionaire, an older woman who wants to fill up Madison Square Garden with young women and preach against premarital sex, an angry meditation teacher who demands $2, 500 for meditation classes. And all of them, even the angry meditation teacher, have disciples—people who think this guru must be the path to happiness; on the guru’s website, they’ll write testimonials: I don’t know where I’d be without him.
在纽约住了6个年头，我见到了（有时是探索者，更多时候是记者）许多自助专家：饮食专家、性爱教练、生活教练、事业教练，一个相信他可以让任何一个人成为百万富翁的人，一个年长的女性想要麦迪逊广场花园里都是年轻女性，反对婚前性行为，一个愤怒的冥想老师，每节课要收费2 500美元。所有人，甚至愤怒的冥想老师，都有弟子，那些认为专家是通往幸福之路的人；在专家的网页上，他们会写感言：我不知道没有他会怎样。
But Eastman seems far more sweet than parasitic: While we were waiting for his students to arrive, he gushed about his girlfriend, whom he met in one of his classes. “Most people don’t communicate, ” he says. “My girlfriend and I are completely transparent. We have the best relationship I’ve ever seen.” He talked about how great his friends are, how supportive his parents are. When I asked him what learning nonverbal communication has done for him, he answered, “I don’t know where I’d be without it.” Eastman doesn’t give the impression that he aims to gather admirers but rather that he yearns to help people feel as comfortable as he’s learned to feel. “Communication is the most important part of relationships, ” he says. “I want people to learn to communicate.”
但是伊士曼似乎比寄生物要友好多了：在我们等待他的学生时，他滔滔不绝地讲他在某节课上遇见的女朋友。“大多数人不会交流，”他说。“我和女朋友是完全透明的。我们有着最好的关系。”他谈论了他的朋友有多好，他的父母有多支持他。当我问他学习非语言交流有什么用时，他回答说，“我不知道没有它我会怎么样。”伊士曼没有给我们那种他想聚集仰慕者的印象，而是渴望帮助人们感觉和他学习感知的一样舒适。“交流是关系中最重要的部分，”他说。“我想让人们学会交流。”
Later in the night, the group engages in a second mingle. This time, they seem more relaxed. Still, Eastman has tips: “You were playing with your fingers behind your back, ” he tells someone.
稍后的晚上，这群人加入到第二次混合中。这次，他们似乎更放松了。但是，伊士曼仍指出：“你在背后玩手指，”他告诉某人。
“And you, ” he tells another student, “have a low blink rate. Guess who else has that? Me. And you know what happens if you stare at people without blinking? They’re gonna think you’re creepy.”
“你，”他告诉另一个学生，“眨眼频率低一点。猜猜还有谁？是我。如果不眨眼的盯着别人，你知道会发生什么？他们会认为你很恶心。”
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