Data

The non-verbal exchange that I witnessed took place in Kroger’s medicine isle. Two teenagers, a boy and a girl, were walking very discreetly down the aisle. The boy was much taller than the girl and had a buzz hair cut, with sideburns an inch past the bottom of his ears. He was also wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt with some khakis. The girl was wearing a lot of makeup, bright red lipstick, a heavy winter jacket, and stone washed jeans. Her hair was up in a ponytail.

Incident

Guy – Walking down the aisle towards the condom section.

Girl – Branches off and goes to the aisle next to it.

Guy – Strolls quickly passed the condoms, looks at the condoms, and then looks around the aisle. He then goes over to the girl and seems to be embarrassed about getting condoms.

Girl - Starts to get angry by getting a red face and having buggy eyes, but does it discreetly so no one in the store would see them.

Guy – Again walks passed the condoms, but actually stops and looks at the different brands and kinds. He then looks around so no one would see what he was looking at.

Girl - Walks passed the guy very quickly and seems to whisper something to him.

Guy - Quickly picks a box of condoms from the shelf and hides them to his side. With the condoms, he walks to the cash register and grabs a pack of gum and a candy bar on his way. When he puts the stuff in front of the cashier he never makes eye contact with her. He gives her the money and takes the change and doesn’t bother to grab the receipt.

Analysis

From this occurrence of non-verbal communication, I witnessed that buying condoms was a very embarrassing thing, for the two teenagers. It seemed as if they had just started to have sex in their relationship and they were both new at the whole aspect of buying condoms. The girl seemed like she didn’t want anyone to know that she was the one that was going to be using the condoms he was buying. The guy seemed new at this too, because he was embarrassed to have anyone see him even looking at the condoms section. When he finally did grab a box he did it fast and tried to hide them, so no one noticed. When he actually went to purchase the condoms he threw in the gum and the candy bar so it wouldn’t look like his main purpose for going to Kroger’s was to buy condoms. As he was being checked out his girlfriend was nowhere in sight. Him not grabbing the receipt made it more convincible that he was embarrassed. It seems that younger people are still somewhat insecure about buying condoms. Even though society encourages the practice of safe sex and the use of condoms, many young people are still embarrassed about buying them. If someone has problems with buying condoms then maybe that person is not responsible enough to be having sex in the first place.