Hugs? Handshakes? In-person conversation? As the lockdown eases, you may need a refresher on reading body language

There's a big difference between a nod, and a nod with a smile.

Just ask Jess Cole, who's worked as a bartender and server at Ottawa's Chez Lucien for the past seven years.

A nod with a smile, she says, can put customers at ease. I see you, it might say, or I'll get there as soon as I'm done with these other folks.

The nod alone, however - often the only option when you're wearing a mask in the middle of a pandemic - can come across as curt and dismissive.

It can be the difference between good service and bad service - that's how it feels," she says.

But it's not just the masks that hamper communication and cloud our interpretation of others' intentions; it's also the distancing, the new protocols ... and the fear.

Small wonder that people's body language - the back-and-forth of micro expressions, head tilts, hand movements and stance - has changed so much in these past 15 pandemic months.

The gleeful hug, the buoyant fist bump, the empathetic shoulder squeeze; they've all gone the way of the dinosaur.

What's taken their place is the hesitant half-step and retreat, the vague waving of fists in mid-air and the hand gingerly extended and quickly withdrawn. It's a language of hesitancy and indecision, as the brain tries to keep up with new rules while the body works on years of instinct.

And as the lockdown begins to lift across Ontario and the country, many of us will have to get reacquainted with the body language of others.

Mark Bowden, an expert in human behaviour and body language, has seen the changes.

Generally speaking, in North America, he says, anything within a distance of about a foot and a half is our intimate space. If you're within that radius, you either already know the other person really well or you're being allowed to get to know them really well. Further out, to about four feet, is what we call our personal space. Generally, the people we have conversations with move into this space. To do so, they must show that they are not a threat. We do that with our body language; a handshake, open palms, a tilt of the head.

But Bowden, the president of communication training company TRUTHPLANE, said people are now having their conversations from further away, in what he calls social space - around a body length away. And we're less likely to have personal or intimate conversations at that distance, he explains. Our brains are used to having those conversations closer in.

You're having conversations with people who you know really well. And they're a long distance from you. And so, it feels odd, and maybe you can't put your finger on it," says Bowden.

It's just one of the ways we've begun to change our behaviour since the pandemic began, but it's not a permanent change.

B.C. Provincial Health Officer Bonnie Henry recently floated the idea of a Hug Day," for that time in the future when the pandemic threat has waned enough for us to close the enforced gap between us.

Bowden laughs when it's mentioned, but he thinks it's a great idea.

It's going to be weird. And I'm all for it," he says. I think it's a very important idea to go, Let's not be alone in this. Let's all take a day and do this together. Because then everybody's being weird together and making mistakes together and having the joy of it together. Because we are social mammals and hugging each other is part of that whole mechanism.

I think what you're going to see is people relearning how to do that. ... How did I used to hug my mom? How did I used to hug my aunt? How did I used to hug my next-door neighbour or my best friend?

I think you'll get you'll get quite a bit of oddness around that. But it should be short-lived."

On the rare occasions when Cole's workplace has been allowed to open for customers to dine in, she says she's noticed her own body language changing - a result of the challenge in communicating with customers and anxiety about whether everyone is following health protocols.

Her first shift back after one lockdown, she says, she was so nervous she was shaking.

Now, she says, her body language has become a little more standoffish, a little more curt. She's less tolerant of people who disregard safety rules, and her body language reflects that.

There's a stiffness that mentally and physically is really exhausting," she says.

I love my job, and I try to do a really good job. And it's hard when you can't connect with people the way that I like to connect."

All of us are body language experts, says Maja Djikic.

It's as universal as breathing."

Djikic, an associate professor at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management who teaches classes on non-verbal communication, said the pandemic has made us more aware of other people's presence.

Reading body language is the product of millennia of evolution of threat assessment, she explains.

If we consider bodies around us to be a source of a threat, we're going to observe them much more carefully," says Djikic. The pandemic has ... made us very acutely aware of other people's physicality."

If there's a silver lining, we may come out of the pandemic with more sensitivity to unwanted physical contact, she says.

As an example, social rituals, such as hugging or kissing on the cheeks often have a cultural component, but there's an opportunity, post-pandemic to realize that individuals within that culture - or individuals who have been traumatized by COVID-19 - may be uncomfortable with those contacts.

While most people will quickly return to their previous customs, it will be just as important for those people to slow down and read the body language of others. There will be those, she predicts, who have been traumatized and become wary of unwanted physical contact.

Bowden predicts an uncomfortable post-pandemic period, but as soon as people find themselves on familiar, pre-pandemic ground - a favourite bar, minus the Plexiglas and masks, for example - all the usual cues and communications will snap back into place.

What we're going through now is an adaptation, not an evolution, says Bowden, and humans tend to grudgingly adapt to a new behaviour, then spring back to an old one when a crisis has passed.

We're talking about 5.5 million years of having this social mammalian brain, which means that we want to gather together in comfortable groups for support and survival," he says.

It's hard-wired in, and we don't evolve that fast."

Steve McKinley is a Halifax-based reporter for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @smckinley1