The Disclaimer

The author wishes to state, clearly and for the record, that this book does not claim you can identify a person's politics by their face.

Not the face. Never the face. You were born with the face. Nobody here is reading the face.

This book reads what you did with it.

The difference matters more than anything else between these covers, so let's be precise. A jaw is not a tell. A jaw is a jaw. But the thing the jaw does — the little forward set it takes when its owner has decided to Be Reasonable At You — that's a tell, because it was a choice, learned in a room full of people making the same choice, and choices are fair game. We are not in the business of phrenology. We are in the business of theater criticism.

The author further states:

• That no real, specific, private human being is decoded in these pages. The specimens are composites — types you already know, assembled from a thousand dinner parties and parking lots.
• That both tribes are roasted in exactly equal measure, on the same page, every time, and that any reader who feels their side got the worse end of it is invited to notice that feeling persecuted while reading a comedy book is, itself, covered in Chapter 14.
• That the author has personally performed every single tell in this book, sincerely, while believing they were the normal one.
• That the author switched sides. Fully. Both directions. This is not a metaphor and the author would prefer not to discuss it.

The author accepts no liability for marriages, friendships, or Thanksgivings damaged by the reader's newfound inability to un-see any of this. You were warned. You're still reading. That's a tell too.

By turning the page you agree that you, also, have a dialect, and that you have just spent this entire disclaimer assuming you don't.

Welcome. I can tell we're going to get along.