Learning about non-verbal communication

For this blog assignment I decided to watch a show on MTV called "The Inbetweeners". I have never seen the show before, and I thought it would be an interesting program to watch for non-verbal communication.
The episode starts with a group of (what I assume) teenage boys drumming in an abandoned lot with trash cans and sticks. They look like they are friends.  Based on my observations the boys appear to be friends. They smile, punch (friendly gesture) their shoulder and goof around. Then the four boys go to a car wash run by (what I assume) school teen girls raising money for home coming. The boys display a great number of facial expressions of awe and desire for these girls who are attractive and are wearing bathing suits to wash cars. Based on my observations these girls do not seem to reciprocate the same attraction for the boys. Their expressions and mannerism indicate the boys are not their friends. At one point one of the boys is talking to one girl, while she scrubs down a car. He looks very nervous. She looks very flirty, but then the conversation ends with her shrugging her shoulders and dismissing him. From these 15 minutes of no sound, I can tell this is a representation of teenager communication boys and girls.

Source:http://www.tvequals.com/2012/11/06/the-inbetweeners-season-finale-review-the-dance/

After turning on the sound I was able to confirm my observation. Indeed these four boys are teenagers trying to get attention from girls. Their hormones are raging and from the type of things they say it seems they really are in that stage of trying to impress girls. The only surprise from the dialogue were the things the girls were actually saying back. The conversation between the shy boy, who gets really nervous, and the girl in the bathing suit, who is scrubbing the car, was about the girl letting him know that she wouldn't date him because he is a virgin. The conclusion to this dialogue was that she would definitely had sex with him after he lost his virginity. I was not expecting this. I guess a lot of things have changed since I last watch teen shows!

Although I was able to observe some non-verbal communication and accurately understand some of the relationships between the characters and the plot, I probably would have been more accurate if I had been familiar with the show. At least, I would have known the girl characters were not as dismissive and playing hard to get as I first assumed!

This was a fun assignment. I hope my colleagues enjoyed it as much as I did :)