Airport security: I caught myself lying with NLP

Sitting at the airport lounge, I am excited to write I caught myself lying using NLP and eye movement. I am not an NLP expert, nor do I know much about NLP.

At the airport, I kept trying to convince myself to stand in place, stop fidgeting and look in control. I kept wanting to walk around and bounce--I was bored. Usually I wouldn't care much, but studying body language has made me aware, whether I know what "they" are looking for or not. I tried to convince myself fidgeting is a good thing, but I doubt that. I ended up chatting on Gtalk on my Blackberry.

When finally speaking with the security screener (selector?), a cute blonde, she asked me about who packed my bags and where they have been since. She questioned me further on books I got and asked: "who bought them?"

Being especially bored I said: "me" and quickly added "one was a gift", which I thought would add to my credibility due to the full disclosure attitude I kept throughout (to a level of being ridiculous). This is probably silly.

I didn't get any gifts while here, but having been through airport security hundreds of times I decided to be a bit interesting. I always get "randomly selected" anyway, and I keep wanting to figure out exactly how they screen me (individual skills as well as training varies in different countries), and this is Europe so I am not really concerned.

She followed up by asking: "who bought the gift for you?"

I visited a girlfriend here, so when thinking about who may have gotten it for me I answered, perhaps a bit too slowly, "a girlfriend".

I caught my eyes looking to my right just before answering the question! I have seen the NLP eye-direction diagrams (link to image from lifetrainingonline.com lie detection manual "How to Read People: Detecting Lies") one too many times not to stop and wonder whether NLP says I am lying.

Apparently, looking to the right (my right) means I am being creative, auditory or visually. To the left is recalling. It is much more complicated than that, but that's the basics, misleading as they may be.

I did have a girlfriend here who I visited, and I did buy stuff with her. She just didn't buy me the book. Meaning--although barely noticing it, I lied and caught on to the eye-movement which proves it. I am so proud of myself!

I did not get "randomly selected" and everything went fine. She did not press me further nor ask anything else. I guess I know airport security by now and did pretty well, especially as I have nothing to hide. But I did run to check the Internet and find an NLP eye movement diagram. :)

On another note, apparently being left-handed impacts the eye direction (flips it around), the airport security screeners do ask you for your passport, so they can theoretically watch for which hand you use to give it to them. :)

And of course, I make a very poor liar, which NLP verifies. Whether the airport security looks for it, or not.

Note to the wise: this is a one-time case-study, I did not test myself scientifically or otherwise to see if this is reproducible. Not yet.

Pinky.