Verbal Communication Observation

While on break at my job in Panera, I observed the mannerisms of a couple sitting at a table across the dining room. They couple seemed a little bit younger than me, maybe in their senior year of high school. They were holding hands across the table and their eye contact was heavily placed on each other. They ate their meal in a neat fashion, being cautious of making a mess. Moreover, they had very polite tableside manners. The only time I caught the boy checking his phone was when his partner left to go to the restroom. Besides that instance, the couple never checked their phones as they were too deeply entwined in their conversation to notice their cell phones. All of these details and their abundance of smiles and laughter lead me to believe …show more content…
They were in the process of getting to know each other and they were trying to present a positive image. The nods and laughter echoed this sentiment but in order to really understand the relationship of the couple verbal communication cues would have been beneficial. Being able to analyze the couple from far away is just the half of it but if I had been able to hear their dialogue it would have provided further justification of them building face. Because they were radiating positive energy I do not believe they were having a serious discussion over politics or religion of the sort. They were probably just having a light conversation that most people have when they still are not too familiar with one another. It is highly possible that the couple was just sharing the best and most important details of their lives, perhaps their greatest accomplishments or their favorite memories because at this new point of their relationship they only want to highlight their best characteristics to the other person. They are trying to project a positive face that will further attract the other person. After all, nobody likes to present a bad image of themselves to someone upon meeting them. We like to put our best foot forward in these scenarios and although I was only able to look at the body language between them, it was clear that the couple’s facework was aimed at building up their self-image in order to captivate the attention of the other