To Eye Contact or Not To Eye Contact

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What did you learn growing up about Eye Contact?

Were you in the hard knocks school of “Look me in the eye, Son!” or did you hear “Never look a person in the eye” from your social mentors?

And when you fell in love. The first time. Was it in her eyes that you found yourself? And could he see right into your heart when he gazed into your baby blues? Or in my case, the brown-eyed girl?

Attended a marriage seminar several years back called PAIRS where the first lesson shared the importance of body language, encouraging couples to establish a focused position before talking. Knee to knee. Eye to eye.

But not everyone does the eye contact thing naturally. Personally, I get a tad distracted if I’m concentrating too hard when I look into someone’s eyes. My mind begins this peripheral dialogue that sends me into a zone all by itself.

“He’s looking into my eyes. I’m looking into his. He’s holding his stare. Holy cow, he hasn’t blinked. In a really long time. Wait! Which eye am I looking in? Left? Right? Both? Yikes! Who will look away first? [I do… then return, and…] He’s still looking. Right into my eyes. Wow. What was I saying? What were we talking about?” Continue reading