Misreading nonverbal signs

1). Because nonverbal messages can be ambiguous, they are open to misinterpretation. Have you ever been wrong about the meaning of someones nonverbal message? Describe what happened. How can people increase the accuracy with which they interpret nonverbal message?

I have a tendency to be really blunt when somebody is trying to give me nonverbal signs, because misreading them can lead to rather interesting situations.

There were a few times when I misread what a friend was trying to say, because their body language gave off a different meaning. For instance, a few years ago I was an emcee at an event and I was picking out people from the crowd to sign on stage. A woman seemed really excited at this notion, and gave all the nonverbal cues to pick her, but when I did pick her she seemed really upset. I learned after that her smiling at me was her way of being excited at the event itself and not a sign to pick her.

I feel that there are different ways one can improve in reading nonverbal messages by paying attention to what the person is trying to say, thinking before speaking, pay attention to your voice of tone and how they respond to it, and finally practice and practice reading nonverbal signs.

Taking all that into consideration, I still feel that people can and will misread nonverbal messages all the time, simply because we are programmed to be verbal first and every other communication method is secondary.