What is He Saying When He Put the Fingers of His Right Hand to His Cheek?

This common defensive pose closes off the mouth. It is a shield against a verbal threat, but it also blocks any wrong argument on his part. When he realizes that you are right, he may be too deep into the argument to concede and still be comfortable with his concession. This gesture may unconsciously betray his uncertainty.

The palm of the hand touching the back of the neck is an even more defensive pose. With women, this hand-toneck gesture often becomes a hair-smoothing gesture, a flirting or preening signal, as if to say, “Well, you’re right, but let’s shift from an intellectual level to a man-woman plane.”

Many of us perform the hand-to-neck gesture when we feel that we’re in the wrong, either consciously or unconsciously.