I was asked by The Independent to share my insights on the body language of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle during their engagement interview. Below are my insights and at the end is a link to the actual article.
Harry and Meghan are openly warm, and affectionate and close with one another. It is very sweet how they hold hands through the interview. He shows his deep affection and desire to be close to her by reaching out his hand in the handhold and lifting her hand up to support her and resting it on her leg. We see he is willing to give love to her, he doesn’t need to show more dominance by pulling her hand onto his leg. She is confident in his love and doesn’t need to reach over submissively to his. The actual hand hold is loose and open, allowing each of them some freedom and showing how relaxed they are being connected to one another.
Note the turn taking and length of turn times in the couple.
Meghan quickly answers most of the questions from the interviewer, before Harry,
and takes significantly longer turns. This reflects her comfort in media
interviews and shows she is lead taker in this kind of situation. But, the way
she does it shows she loves him. Notice the low volume, softness timbre and
warmth of her voice. Those paralanguage qualities show she is both smitten and
softened in his presence from her louder, stronger baseline in media interviews
about her before this relationship. Very sweet. She also shows her love and
connection by turning to him to check in on her answers from the first
question, where she checks in on what they were cooking the night of the
proposal, “What were we cooking? … roasted chicken.” And they both laugh.
As they talk about the proposal, I just love the lift and
softness and femininity of her voice with rounded softly vocalized T’s, C’s and
D’s rather than clipped consonants and a lifting up of the voice at the end of
her sentences as if she is asking a question. (Even on responses where she is
not checking in with him, that is what submissive females do.) Significantly, throughout the interview, she
keeps turning her full head towards him to gaze at him. She makes a point to
state he got down on one knee, and shares that more to the journalist than to
him, in a way that indicated the prince got down on one knee to her. She has
power that she knows Harry recognizes. She didn’t deliver that information in a
purely gushy romantic way. But she IS smitten. She loves to look at him! Harry
is wonderfully animated with his free hand gesturing and smiling as they talk
about the ring.
As he finished the proposal story, notice how his head tilts
toward her to show his desire to connect and be seen as a couple answering the
question not just have it be his story. The very next question she jumps in and
answers, but again turns to check in with him. I just love how they each have
power and how they each check in with each other in a very nice dance. If they
keep doing this, two such confident people, they will make a very good couple.
I can see them finishing each other’s sentences in an interview 40 year from
now if they keep this up.
Note how she got very strong as Harry describes how they
first met and as he talks about their mutual friend. She turns to him and speaks loudly and
strongly over his turn, ‘’We... need to protect her privacy.” And how he softly
demure and repeats, “protect her privacy.” She is comfortable being strong with
him and setting boundaries about what they will share publicly, and he
nonverbally acquiesced without looking his significant as he continues smoothly
with the story and gestures strongly with a movement across both their bodies.
Link to Article:
Patti Wood, MA - The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at www.PattiWood.net. Check out Patti's website for her new book "SNAP, Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language and Charisma" at www.snapfirstimpressions.com.
