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As I stood very close to her and talked, she'd take a step back now and again. And I would follow. She drew her shoulders up a bit (it looked a little defensive). I think she made less eye contact than normal, but this could be a placebo effect. She ended the conversation by telling me about how she needed to powder her nose.
I’d say the whole encounter lasted five minutes.Subject number 2I think he thought I wanted to have sex with him. He seemed quite unhappy about this and casually mentioned that he was gay three times. I still don't know if he was. He looked maybe 66% gay.Subject number 3This time I was getting more hardcore, getting right up in her face, and after only a couple of seconds the subject diffused the situation by deciding to sit down. It was a smart move but I wasn't going to give up that easy. I moved even closer and leaned forward a bit. That’s when she decided to go to the bathroom. I outsmarted that as well and waited for her outside the toilet. When she got out she looked seriously uncomfortable, as if she were desperately running through all the possible excuses in her head to get the hell away from me. She didn't seem to find one for quite a while. Then suddenly she lit up, and said that she needed to have a private talk with the host of the party.ConclusionEveryone was more or less freaked out by this one. No one said anything officially, but their body language came in loud and clear. I would almost say that Seinfeld’s reaction was understated, actually less neurotic then the subjects in my focus group. This gives him 1 out of 5 Neurotic Points.
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Neurotically eating peas gave me actual neurosis. The closest I got to a reaction was a fake I'm-going-to-say-something-look. Since I consider dumping as a solution to a problem to be quite dramatic, I give Seinfeld 5 out of 5 Neurotic Points for this.Experiment: “That's funny”Seinfeld meets this girl who doesn't laugh. Instead she says, “That's funny,” whenever he tells a joke. This freaks him out. This experiment is about interacting with people without laughing.Subject number 1First he looked like he was going to have a nervous breakdown but then he started to laugh (slightly uncontrollably). Then he went to the other side of the room. It seemed as if I was bringing more happiness than nervousness into the world.Subject number 2This girl didn't tell any jokes ever, so for the first 20 minutes I was convinced that I was totally wasting my time. But then, out of the blue, she told this long urban myth tale and expected me to laugh at the end. I didn't, but I assured her that it was funny. She smiled sweetly and went to get a drink.Subject number 3
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