Lack of nonverbal feedback, like a poker face (defined by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary as “an inscrutable face that reveals no hint of a person’s thoughts or feelings”) can confuse others. At ZOOM meetings you may have seen some like the four shown above. Yesterday’s Dilbert cartoon mentioned a specific subtype – the resting bored face (RBF):
Tina (the technical writer): I’m sorry. Is my description of the problem boring you?
Dilbert: What? No I’m totally engaged.
Dilbert: I just have a bad case of ‘Resting Bored Face’ or RBF for short.
Tina: So…no matter what I say you always look like that?
Dilbert: You make it sound like a bad thing.
Tina: You’re sucking the life force right out of my body!
Tina: I’d rather be dead than spend another second with you.
Wally: Can you teach me the RBF?
Dilbert: I’d love to. But I probably look like I wouldn’t.
On the other hand, overly expressive faces also can be confusing. Back on June 16, 2011I blogged about why you should Learn to ignore these audience behaviors.
The four faces were adapted from page 9 of Charles Lederer’s 1923 book, Cartooning Made Easy, at the Internet Archive.
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