Subconscious mirroring

We all do unconscious mirroring, sometimes, to some degree. Some self-help books on imaging, office politics, or interviews recommend doing that in order to build better relationships with your friends, your colleagues and sucking up to your bosses. The general lines to go about doing it is to copy your target's little gestures, leaning back in your seat as he does, crossing your arms if he crosses, breathe to the same rhythm, and pretending to accidentally step in another pile of poo if he did so too.

The danger is that your target might notice your mirroring, and instead of forming a subconscious liking for you, he might be put off, or worse, think that you are mocking him. Hence it is vital, according to the experts, that you keep your mirroring gestures small, natural and entirely unnoticeable. At least to the conscious eye.

However, for the uninitiated, we don't really need to try all that hard. Friends mirror each other whenever they sit and talk, or walk alongside each other. We relax when the others slag visibly in their chairs, lean forward if he does so while talking, and generally walk to the same pace with the same swagger. (This brings us to an interesting observation: if a friend leans back away from you when you lean forward, you have a very clear signal that he/she isn't being very comfortable around you.)

All this is very fine and good, since we want our friends to be comfortable around us, and like us to say the least. However, things can get a little annoying when strangers start to mirror you, also subconsciously. Behold the pedestrian on the sidewalk who obviously was torn between two directions, and just as you were passing him, he would miraculously, and usually to his own surprise too, choose the direction which you are walking in, and walk shoulders to shoulders to you, in tandem, two people crowding a sideway which is empty for miles.

Or the obnoxious smelling man on the train, who seems to lean onto you with every lurch of the train, giving off a smell which only in the best of moods you would call "homely"; each time you lean forward ever so surreptitiously in your seat to escape the smell, he would lean forward after a minute's lag time, totally unconscious that he is doing so simply because his subconscious saw you doing it at the edge of his vision. And if you get up early the moment the train doors closed on the stop before yours, to escape the stench, he would get up early too, ambling along the train corridor after you with that vacant eyed look. All the while his subconscious is spinning up stories why he needed to lean forward due to a creak in the back, or why he needed to get up early due to the crowd in the train. He didn't follow me anymore after we got off the train; I hired someone to take him out.

To the people who know, subconscious mirroring by strangers are irritating, especially since you cannot stop them from mirroring you short of stripping yourself naked and start dancing in the train. Now you know too, being my readers, and I shall gladden my heart with knowing that henceforth I will not be the only one being irritated by subconscious mirroring by strangers.