Fashion Mode

Well, perhaps like you, I like to do a little people watching. The other day I was sitting in the mall at the food court having my teriyaki stir fry and listening to the 80s rock version of elevator music and watching all the new fashions walk by when I noted a couple sitting caddy corner from me having a conversation. It looked like a one-way conversation where the husband was going on and on about something to his wife. Perhaps he was telling a story, or explaining some event.

In any case the lady was listening intently at first, but later she began rolling her eyes, and later in the conversation she started using the "turn the page" e-book gesture. I was trying to figure out if she was looking at a personal tech device, but she didn't have anything in her hands, nor was she wearing those really cool Google goggles, so she must have been gesturing to her husband. In other words hurry up, or get on with it. Was she doing it on purpose, or out of habit I wondered? It made me smile when I thought about it.

Then she used the scrolling down gesture to her husband, so I'm guessing by this time he must've been rambling on with no end in sight. Was she making this gesture unconsciously or do her and her husband just use sign language when talking to each other? Was she lip-reading, was she hard of hearing or deaf and using sign language gestures to him? I wondered. But then I saw her speak and say a few things to her husband, and then he went back to giving his monologue.

The music was a little too loud to hear what they were saying, and I didn't want to butt it or eavesdrop anyway. Nevertheless, it seems to me that our personal tech devices are changing the way we interact with each other, and I suppose this is something that might become a new trend. Have you ever watched someone talking on the phone to someone else and they held up their hands as if their hand was talking, somehow saying to you that the person on the other line was yapping, and they couldn't get them to stop their dialogue.

Will these scrolling motions and page flipping gestures become part of our everyday speech? It's hard to say if this will catch on, but I can tell you with that couple it's already beginning. Indeed I hope you will please consider all this and think on it.