This is a significant source of paranoia for me. I went blind at 19 and even though that was more than twenty years ago, everyone tells me I have very normal body language. Apparently 19 is late enough that it's all fixed in your brain by that point. It's tough because I guess they're under pressure to be nice about it, but people I trust say I'm even a bit more animated than normal but that's just me. I say fine, great, the last thing I need is any more reasons for people to think I'm weird. I have no idea how this affects born blind people or if they're concerned about it.

The title of your post actually made me think it was going to be about me being able to see other people's body language and I simply can't, and that does occasionally cause awkwardness. People point "over there," over where? Or they're holding something "so I bought this," you bought what? Or they're nodding along with something I'm saying and the conversation trails off into silence for a few seconds as I wait for them to agree or not.

But again I'll sort of take it, because that at least means they're comfortable and not thinking about it, even if they do end up going "oh sorry I was nodding."

Much body language is learned through vision and imitation. You can’t imitate what you can’t see.
This comes up in conversation with me and my blind friends from time to time. Even those of us who can see but not well don’t do subtle expressions or gestures. I talk a lot about the “blind smile”, which is usually big and shows more teeth than other smiles because that’s how you feel it. And smiling is an innate, instinctive expression. So you’ll see blind people smile but there’s something different about it from the norm because most of us don’t have any way to model the expression from others. Most of our expressions are broad and innate.
Basically, I have an awesome poker face.

I'm still trying to understand what you mean by "typology." I think maybe you meant, "gesticulation" instead? The act of using gestures to convey meaning?

Well, I can tell you that I've known a lot of people who have been totally blind since birth, and they do not use a lot of gestures. Hardly any. The people I know who are blind know, but COULD see earlier in life, they are more prone to use gestures, to be more "animated." But it doesn't matter really. You don't have to gesticulate--- you can convey so much meaning and depth just with your voice.

I can't really read them but I nod my head a lot. Also gesture.

It luckily has been absolutely natural since I was young. Find it even more attractive when a blind woman can meet me on that level. We can't see each other's eyes if the girlfriend is blind, but I still look at her in the eyes when I say meaningful things. I do point, nod, and shrug. When i meet people, interviews on radio, conversations with anyone, I am doing all stated above at appropriate times. it was more logical than it has ever been something that has to be studied. I went to school and spend my life up till about 13/14 only seeing blind people for 2 weeks every summer starting at 6. All I knew was sighted people. Then, my child's mother is sighted and I would feel her face and ask her to do faces so I could feel them and visualize and know. I treat these things like I treat all the other simple things. You know how when a sighted person is portraying a blind person and it all is exagerated? Take sitting in a chair for example, they'll fumble around and try to look for the chair when none of us as blind people do that. So it's the same thing as these gestures. Don't over exagerate them.