More About Music and a Little Miscellaneous, Too

I don't know why, but music seems to be a common topic on my blog lately. Maybe because my life has an almost constant soundtrack. I was talking to my brother in the car the other day, driving down to Salt Lake for my cousin's wedding, and I asked him if he listens to music a lot. Almost never, he replied. How is that even possible? One day I accidentally forgot to switch my iPod from my purse to my coat pocket and went to school without it. I almost went crazy. I felt like I was missing a hand or something. It's worse than being without my phone, even.

Contrary to popular belief, I do listen to American music. Not much popular stuff these days, though. I'm really not into the "bump-and-grind-baby-let's-get-it-on vulgarity contest" that seems to be popular music these days. Nor am I into teeny boppers a la Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus, or Selena Gomez (to name my eight-year-old cousin's favorite "artists"). I do like a lot of the alternative/alternative rock bands. Mutemath and Coldplay (yes, I know Coldplay is very popular, but they're not "popular") are probably my favorite, but I also really like Keane, The Afters, Jimmy Eat World, and most of what Pandora throws at me on my Mutemath channel. It's funny. I adore kpop even though most of it is autotuned out of existence and obviously electronic, but I prefer my American music to be instrumental. Hmmm. Maybe cute boys > autotune...? But anyway.

My brother and I had a good chat on the way down to the wedding. In the course of our conversation about how women and men communicate differently, he asked something that got me thinking. An age old question, really: How do you (a boy, that is) know when a girl is going to be receptive to maybe taking the relationship in a little more intimate direction? (I'm talking about hand-holding and hugging here; after all, this is my brother we're talking about.) Now, currently in one of my classes we've been discussing the different communication styles of the genders. Girls communicate a lot through body language and subtle hints and cues. Boys tend to be a little more direct, and so mostly seem to miss those subtleties; hence the question from my poor, beleaguered little brother.

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What I came up with in 20 minutes of discussion seems to boil down to two main points: 1) proximity, and 2) eye contact. That is, 1) when a girl willingly places herself fairly consistently within easy arm's reach, and maybe casually touches the boy's arm or shoulder during conversation; and 2) when a girl maintains pretty consistent eye contact (not staring; that's just creepy). I suppose I can't really speak for the entirety of my gender, but those two points are very true of myself. My bubble of personal space is quite large when I don't feel comfortable with someone, and I will very rarely make eye contact with someone that I don't feel at ease around. This involves a lot of edging away when the aforesaid uncomfortable person moves closer and/or staring off into the space over their left shoulder while making conversation if placed in a position opposite said person, or just never turning my head to speak to them if I am (fortunately) next to them. But I'm curious to see how well my hypothesis stands up to your reality. I'm not biased, I welcome male input as well as the female variety.