Note #3: Learn Their Tells

Everyone’s got a giveaway

A woman I know who lost most of her sight told me that everyone has what she called a “giveaway.” A tip-off to clue her in that they were there before they’d announced themselves. One person has a heavy walker, another is always doused in cologne, some people just have big mouths, she said. They always reveal themselves before too long.

It’s a useful character exercise to think about people you know or encounter in daily life with that lens in mind. Is someone always brushing their hair back with a finger comb? Someone else idly buttoning and unbuttoning the top of their shirt?

I once knew a butcher who was invariably prying flecks of meat from between his teeth with a toothpick. Spearing, chiseling, scraping. Always cleaning, even during conversations. It must’ve been so habitual, the constant tasting and flossing throughout this days, he no longer even realized he was doing it.

When we think of people, we often have a specific image that comes to mind, a symbolic short-film in our heads, and public flossing is the one I have for Richie. I sometimes still imagine him surrounded by hanging slabs of meat, the practical but private habit creeping incrementally into social settings. Those meaty vestiges of his day are charming testaments to his mastery: how devotion to a craft often leaves less for other zones of life.

The next time you’re people-watching, do so with a net. Training your mind to capture idiosyncratic mannerisms can be a way to collect seed details for future characters, and a means of becoming more discerning generally. I haven’t seen Richie in years, but I still think of him sitting in his chair, oh so close to finally loosening that last stubborn scrap of beef.