It has often been the case with conversations involving religion, politics, or the environment (or any combination of the three) that my participation inevitably provokes any number of nonverbal communication maneuvers. In recent months however, I have found myself becoming an expert of sorts on such maneuvers, largely due to my increasingly passionate concern for animal “rights” and its subsequent domination of my conversational repertoire. It has been my experience that such maneuvers usually fall into one of three categories:

The Guffaw
There are a brave few in conversations who, having so diminutive a design to conceal their conceit either out of respect or just plain good breeding, feel little reserve in bellowing out their arrogant disdain, and this is they.

The Scoff
Those less bold though no less brass often employ a scornful expression, no doubt fancying themselves ingeniously clever, but effectively revealing themselves as not only ignorant, but all the more cowardly.

The Eye-Roll
Not only the most common, but arguably the most annoying of the three, this is the maneuver of choice for the ignorant masses; those individuals whose condescension is so informed that it conveniently lacks articulation, not even to be contained in a mocking mien.