Nose Rubbing

You’re on vacation and you’ve just checked into your hotel, only to find that your “super-luxury” accommodations are nothing more than a shoebox filled with plastic furniture. You traipse to the lobby and demand the room the room that you booked- the one you saw on the hotel’s website. While the desk clerk tells you the hotel is sold out and there isn’t a thing she can do for you, she rubs the front of her nose a good up-and-down rub. What’s going on here? Does working for such a shady operation make her nose itch?

That nose rub is a self-touch, a means of claiming the nerves of a person who isn’t being entirely truthful. In this example, there’s a good chance that employee is discouraged from handling out room upgrades… but that doesn’t mean that she can’t do it.

Does the nose rub have any other purpose? Well, sure. As you already read, rubbing the nose can be a response to an actual itch or sense of discomfort. But it can also be a sign that someone’s not being honest with you.

If your date keeps rubbing his nose, what does that mean to you? First, make sure he isn’t allergic to something in the area. If he insists he’s feeling fine, then the excessive touching or rubbing of the nose might indicate he’s feeling uncomfortable. Now, this could be a good thing or a bad thing for you, depending on what’s making him feel uneasy. If he worried because he likes you a lot and he’s sure he’s making a fool of himself, then that’s not so bad. But if he’s squirming in his seat because he can’t wait for the date to end, that’s obviously another story. How can you tell the difference? By reading the rest of his non verbal cues, of course. Is he angling himself toward you and away from you? How his eye contact? Have the two of you touched at all during the course of the evening?