By Mary Kearl
How you write your letters -- dark, small, large, curved or angled -- can give insight into your personality and innermost thoughts, says Michelle Dresbold, handwriting analyst and author of "Sex, Lies, and Handwriting: A Top Expert Reveals the Secrets Hidden in Your Handwriting." Read through the photo gallery below to learn about what writing traits reveal about the person behind the pen. Note you'll need to disable your pop-up blocker to view the slide show.
By Mary Kearl
If You Don't Do This You Have No Follow-Through
Have No Follow-Through
"Somebody who crosses their 't' halfway doesn't follow through in life. He starts something, but doesn't finish it. But if he crosses his 't,' he's completing it. That physical act will translate into other areas of his life over time, which is just a small example of how you can change traits in your writing to be better in life," says Dresbold.
Signature vs. Handwriting
"You write your signature for other people. Your signature is how you want to portray yourself to the world, while the rest of your writing displays how you really are. If your signature is very different from the rest of your handwriting, what you show to the public is not necessarily what you feel inside. You can have one image for the world and another image of yourself internally," says Dresbold.
Recognize These Signatures? From top to bottom, they belong to Charles Manson (notice the swastika), Liberace (there is a piano in that scrawl) and Beatle Ringo Starr (notice the star within the Starr)
Detect Lying in Writing
"If you speak the truth, you don't have to think much about it," Dresbold explains. "When you lie, you hesitate, because lying takes extra thinking. In writing in which someone is lying, there will either be a gap, the words will tighten up (as a person who's lying tenses up) or they will move out of alignment. If you practice noticing this, you can really tell when someone is lying."
Which Note-Writer Do You Think Is Lying?
If you thought John was lying, you're right. Notice the spacing and change in writing style between "I got" and "a flat tire."
Are You Obsessed With Sex?
"There are different things that can show obsession. People like Michael Jackson have phallic symbols in their handwriting. Usually that means an obsession with sex. Lower loops can represent the emphasis people put into physical action below the waist. These symbols could also appear in your writing if you're thinking about sex more than you usually do," according to Dresbold.
Can you spot the "sexual symbol" in these signatures?
Messy vs. Neat Handwriting
"Messy handwriting can be a good thing. You could be very bright and very creative, but messy handwriting could mean you're thinking quickly because your brain is moving very fast. Perfectly neat handwriting is not necessarily a good thing. If someone's handwriting is too neat, they may not be able to be spontaneous," says Dresbold.
The messy scratchings in the top sample belong to none other than poetic songwriter John Lennon.
The Ideal Handwriting
"Extra-round-looking handwriting indicates when someone is almost too young and relaxed, or too easy-going. Ideally we want a combination of curved and angled handwriting, at least for an adult," Dresbold says.
Israel's fourth prime minister, Golda Meir's autograph embodies this balance.
If Your Periods Look Like This, You're Stuck in a Rut
"If someone makes their periods or the dot on a lowercase 'i' big and thick and grinds them into the page, it means that they're resentful and can't move forward," says Dresbold. "Someone who grinds their periods is stuck in one place. The physical movement on the page represents someone who is fixated, someone who can't easily get over things and can't easily move on."
Tiny vs. Large Handwriting
"When you write large, you feel free," according to Dresbold. "A person who likes to be seen will have writing that's noticeable and free. If you try and write really, really tiny, you need to focus more and block out the rest of the world. People who write this way are focused on their tasks and don't really notice what is going on around them."
Sample B's signature belongs to the now-famous recluse, the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski.
How Rule-Breakers Write
"A lot of behaviors can show rule-breaking. One that is pretty obvious shows up when you write on lined paper: On the left-hand side, there is a vertical line -- that stands for society -- and when people write through that line on a normal-sized sheet of paper, choosing to disregard that line, it means rules in general aren't for them. That, to me, is a pretty dangerous sign," says Dresbold.
O.J.'s Handwriting Gives Him Away
"Your o's and a's are your communication letters," Dresbold explains. "The clearer your o and a are, the more clearly you communicate. If something is wrong with the shape of these letters, that means there is a problem with your communication. O.J. Simpson puts a slash through his o -- called a forked-tongue stroke -- the sign of a liar. Any little mark through your o's and a's means that something about your communicating isn't 100 percent truthful. But if someone bumps your arm while you're writing, that's different."
Catch a Con Artist
"Over and over again, con artists will make some letters look like they could be another letter, and some numbers look like they're another number, to the point where one letter can be so ambiguous that you can't read it," says Dresbold. "If you can't read their numbers, that's a sign of a con artist or an embezzler. With someone like Scott Peterson, that ambiguity is very prevalent. His handwriting looks very readable, neat and nice, just like he looked at first glance -- but you can't read every third word of his writing. You think you can read it because your brain figures out what the word should be. But when taken out of context, the words are unreadable. A very good con artist tries not to write very messy."
The bottom writing sample is from Scott Peterson -- it is his return address. Would you be able to replicate it?
Indications of Rage, Antagonism, Irritability and Frustration
"If you make angles -- very sharp angles -- in your writing, it means you feel tension. You can't relax when you make angles. If you put angled marks where they don't belong, it shows the tension you are feeling. Adolf Hitler has big checkmarks all over the place. That is extreme tension. A person writing with that number of angles is showing a lot of rage," Dresbold explains.
Lawless Scrawl
"The 'Felon's Claw' is when the cursive G ends with a frown, and the loop at the bottom looks like a claw. You will find G's like that in the handwriting of people who somehow keep doing things to mess up their lives. They don't believe they deserve good things happen to them. It can be women who find they always end up with the wrong men. Psychologically, it means they set themselves up for failure. Many convicted felons have that claw in their writing. If you do see the felon's claw, it doesn't mean the writer is a felon. If you find you have a felon's claw in your handwriting, however, it's time to think about what you're doing in your life to screw it up," advises Dresbold.
http://www.aolhealth.com/healthy-living/handwriting-personality
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