eye contact

It was a warm day in May, and I was sitting on a bench park of Paris. Next to me, there was this beautiful woman that I had just met, and we were chatting about the book she was reading. I was looking into her eyes and she was doing exactly the same.

But there was something wrong.

Every time I was looking into her right eye, I was feeling very awkward. So every time this happened, I broke eye contact and looked around. The same thing kept happening, over and over again, until at some point she told me that she had to leave. I then asked for her number and she gave me a sweet smile: “Non. Je ne donne pas mon numéro aux étrangers”.

Clank! It was over before it even started: I had blown it.

For two minutes I sat there while I was back tracking what we had just said, when it came to me.

6 years in primary school.
6 years in high school.
5 years in University.
1 year for my PhD (two left to go then).
That was a total of 18 years of education.

For 18 years, I was doing exactly what Capitalism asked of me: I learned how to do a job right, I kept performing uber specific tasks that no one really understood, and I was doing them well. But I had no idea how to do the simplest of things:

How to look another human being in the eyes.

Eye contact is the most basic of human non verbal communications. It comes in every flavour and colour:

You have angry ones, you have happy ones and you have sexy ones. There are dark ones, there are blue ones, and there are those happy green ones: They are everywhere.

But for most humans, eye contact remains as mysterious as rocket science.

The importance of eye contact.

There was an experiment done lately and the results that came out were quite stunning. They took a group of people and made them think they were interviewers in what it seemed to be a standard job interview. They told the first half of the interviewed people to avoid eye contact with the interviewers, and the other half to maintain a very confident eye contact. Then they asked the interviewers to write down their opinions: The interviewers were more ready to hire people that maintained good eye contact than those that averted their gaze.

In another experiment they tested to see if there is any correlation between attraction and eye contact. They showed images to a group of people of people smiling at them and people smiling while looking away. Again the results were overwhelming: Most people were considering much more attractive those ones looking at their direction than the others looking away.

I learned this the first time I met Roberto.

Roberto was an average looking guy that had the most intense eye contact I had ever seen. Then he would stare at you blankly when you were talking at him, and he would look at you constantly while he talked and smiled.

No, no. He didn’t just look: He was locking eye contact.

And … he was pulling girls, from left and right, like crazy. He was making friends everywhere. It was impressive.

It is very well known that people that are shy, or people that are not good in social situations, they never look at you when they are talking.

If you want to pass your message across, you have to look into the other’s persons eye at least 75% of the time when listening and at least 90% when speaking. When you talk to more than one person and especially when you talk in public, you might find it a good idea to look at as many people as you can. It will be like having many small conversations with each one of them.

The moral time for staring at someone is not the same in every society. Europeans and North Americans consider staring much more normal than in Asia, where it would be wiser to stare a bit less if you don’t want to have your head chopped off by some Karate-Thai professor.

During a group conversation, looking into someones eyes is the prominent way to regulate who will speak next. May I speak next means I will look at you before I open my mouth. I know several guys that get that wrong and they think that yelling is a great conversation starter. Well, after you had ten beers it can be, but this article is based on sober observations.

Avoiding gaze, also known as gaze aversion, has a basic reason: We tend to think better when we don’t look into someones eyes. It is a perfectly good thing to do when you are thinking. You see, when you are looking straight into someones eyes, your internal dialog either stops or diminishes. But you should not over do it: People may start thinking either that you are not honest or that you are not at an ease.

The latest research says that the best way of calming a person down is by establishing direct eye contact. They arrived at this result by examining the only police reality show: The bold TV series COPS. Before you start laughing, read a bit more.

In one particular episode, there was a lady screaming because her grandson had been shot and he was in the hospital. The policemen wanted to take her with them to see her grandson. But she was not cooperating. So they tried looking at her eyes. Every time the policeman was looking into her eyes she was normal again, while every time she was breaking eye contact she was starting to panic.

We are now going to move into darker waters.

Dominance, evil eye and shamanic soul gazing.

Have you ever played the game of staring into each others eyes until one of the two looks away?

Dogs are really bad with this game while cats are notorious for winning. Look a cat (Not yours) straight in the eyes and wait for her to look back. If she decides to look at you, trust me, there is no chance she will blink or turn first.

There are many people that like to play this game but in more real situations. They like to intimidate you and very often they will succeed. Looking someone in the eyes can simply feel very awkward. Imagine talking to a very pretty girl in a bar and suddenly you feel less calm. Can you do anything about it?

There are some people that are not just good at this game: They are devilishly good.

Have you ever heard of the evil eye?

In our modern society where computers and science seem to cover every aspect of life, there is nothing more disturbing than the knowledge that someone can make you sick only by staring at you.

In most Mediterranean countries there is this urban legend known as the evil eye.The story goes back as far as the ancient Assyrians dating to 3000 BC. It says that once in a while, a person can feel sick because someone stared at him with an evil eye. Watch out for it. The word in Italian is “Mal occhio” and for many people having university degrees and carrying impressive CV’s this is more than a mere superstition:They really believe the evil eye exists.

It there any truth in it?

Probably most of you have come across once in your lifetime that someone had an intense stare that made you look away. It would probably feel like someone was looking inside your soul. Have you ever wondered what is going on there?

There is a modern theory that may shed some light to it.

You see, every brain is made of two hemispheres and for every person one is more active than the other. One is more analytical and sequential while the other is more emotional and random. But there is more to it. For some reason you have learned to use more the one than the other. So around 80% of the population prefers using the left hemisphere. Being left brained means that your right hand will be used more often than your left hand.

Having a dominant brain hemisphere means that for specific vision angles one eye will be more dominant than the other.

Are you with me?

When dealing with interaction between two personalities, very often, some kind of competitiveness arises. It may be about who is the leader, it may be about where are we going tonight, or it may even be about who is controlling the frame of a flirt conversation. Everyone knows that when there exists a small conflict between a man and a woman, then chances are, some kind of attraction will develop.

When a conflict develops, then people tend to use their dominant eye to stare at the other person. When they do that they will try to hide their softer eye.

Once I had a conversation with a guy that always wanted to be the cool guy of the group; He was doing that by dominating every one in that group. So there he was, throwing some stupid arguments at me and I was about to answer him when I noticed something amazing. While his right eye was completely normal, his other eye had shrunk to a small crack. I immediately understood that this person , through the years, had developed this remarkable technique to avoid people looking him in his soft eye when he was putting pressure on them.

If you want to avoid this type of conflict, the only thing that you have to do is to choose their non dominant eye and lock it. Another option is to stare him at the area between the eyes. This will give him/her the impression that you are staring at him, while you are actually not looking at neither of his eyes. In either case avoid his dominant eye. And avoid that person all-together because probably he is no good.

Most people have already felt the strange feeling of being stared at while no one is in their visual field. This is because, at every given moment, your subconscious registers everything around you: The feeling of the computer mouse at your hand, the smell of food coming from the neighbour and the smell of cannabis in your living room. Everything. All these gut feelings you get from times to times, they are nothing more than your subconscious announcing to you that there has been something going on that your conscious hasn’t yet ’seen’.

I was once in a forest park training, I was only 16 years old and had stayed later than usual so it was dark. Then suddenly and with no reason, I felt a strange feeling and I looked towards, what it seemed to be, a random direction. I couldn’t see anything but pitch black. I waited. One minute passed. Two minutes passed. Nothing was there. “What am I looking at? There is nothing to look at”, I thought. And as I was about to turn my head, I noticed a cigarette glowing in the dark.

While I was running THE BEST sprint of my life, I understood what had just happened inside me.

My subconscious had seen the small difference in colour tones lurking in the dark and decided to tell me about it.

The evil eye is no different from the above. It is the response of your subconscious because someone has stared at you intensely. When you were young, you were told by your parents that this may be evil. And as for many other people that falsely believe in it, a belief is a self full filing prophecy. Being stared at is OK if you believe it is OK. No one in northern Europe, for example, believes in something so obviously ridiculous as the evil eye and they never had a problem with that. They prefer believing at other things, like trolls or fairies.

How to find your dominant eye.

Choose an object that is more than one meter away. Point at the object with your index finger. Now close one eye. Notice where the finger is in your visual field. Do the same with your other eye. You may notice that in one case the finger is pointing more close to the object while the other will be more at the side. When the index finger is closer to the object, this is your dominant eye. For more details check out the link at the bottom of this article.
Another way to find the dominant eye is to see which eye stays open when you yawn.

What are the best ways to stare at someone.

If you are in a business environment and would like to be emotionally detached, it is better to look between the eyes.

If you are in a flirting situation, you can go for the triangular gazing: You shift between his/her left eye, then the right eye and finally the lips.

Another excellent bit is the high powered look-pause-look bit. While talking to a girl, you pause your voice but continue to look at her eyes. Make sure that you look pleasent but penetrating. Choose her soft eye. Then after a second you continue your phrase and make sure not to blink until you finish your phrase. What that does is that creates havoc in the emotional system of the girl as you show some level of confidence. You will know that you delivered it well if she blushes or averts her gaze. You will know if you delivered it bad if she avoids you the rest of the conversation. Only for advanced users and always but always practice safe sex.

For an excellent example have a look at the last bitpart of the stare down video. He throws that look at the journalist. It is a dark but quite mesmerizing look.
If you want an emotional result from the other person look at him/her in the soft eye. That will probably be his left one, or the right one as you see it.

Remember to smile during the above, if not the feelings you will provoke will be negative and you may lose some teeth during the violent encounter. You have been warned. Try the above at your own responsibility.

Remember to breath. Breath in a relaxed and calm manner through the diaphragm will permit to the other person to relax while talking to you. For more information look here and here.

How to practice your stare.

For that you will need a mirror and some time to spare. I assume from being here, you have already plenty of the latter.

You have to be able to look into someones eyes and lock it for long periods of time.

1.1) Focus on a small dot for some long period, let’s say one minute per day for a week. This will train you to focus on a small area easier for longer periods.

1.2) Practice with your self in the mirror. Do it for a week. Remember to breathe. The key here is to breathe. When you break contact with someone is partly because you have stopped breathing. The stress arising makes you stop breathing and then because you need air you become even more stressed etc. Stop that vicious cycle. Train it when you look at yourself in the mirror.

2.0) Now add an extra element.Remember not to blink too often and to smile. The first week you will notice that it will be impossible to keep your eye fixed at your pupil. Your eye will vibrate and move away. When finally you will succeed to do that you will find out that your internal dialog will become silent. As you brain is over focusing on one point only and as your peripheral vision takes over, you will see your whole image on the mirror change a little. At least when I did it, it changed just a little. But then again, I don’t do LSD.

3.0) Then you can practice it with other people. Women have learned to look at someones eyes for long periods. As cats, they also are very good at that. Sit on a bench and look at women passing by. You will be amazed how many will look back at you. Don’t smile. Don’t even flinch. You may get a smile there, you lucky, lucky bastard.

Looking at someones eyes, produces a hormone called oxytocin that makes you more likable to the other person. A smile can be very important here. If you try to be too serious you may come across as a stalker. Smile, god damn it.

The shamans were a group of cool people that knew how to live their lives. They did not pass their life in front of television sets or surfing the Internet. They had other things to do that were more important. They also knew a lot of good stuff on how to live a happy, good life.

If you want to make your other half feel very close to you, you could share, the two of you, a beautiful technique that is called soul gazing. Soul gazing is when a couple is looking at each other’s eyes, through their soft eyes, while they are breathing in sync. It helps to build a very strong bond. Don’t try it unless you really like the other person.