Eye contact is way more important than we give it credit. It’s not just about making moon eyes at your crush, our eyes do a lot of heavy lifting in all kinds of social situations. A lot of communication happens before anyone even gets a chance to open their mouth and say any words, through movement, facial expression, etc. And we scan all of that with our eyes.
Through eye contact we notice a person’s interest, attention, trust, attraction, and whether they’re focused or distracted, are they still engaged in a conversation or have they mentally checked out and are planning their dinner in their head? Not to mention that there’s a thin line when it comes to eye contact: too little and you look sketchy, too much and it’s like, “Why are you starting?” You need just the right amount of eye contact to establish a deep connection. So, let’s see exactly how much influence eye contact has when it comes to love.
1. Eye Contact Makes People Feel Seen
When someone gives you eye contact, at the most basic level, we interpret it as “I’m listening and paying attention.” It makes you feel seen and understood during a conversation, without the other person interrupting your monologue about what happened at work today. Research has proven that direct eye contact actually affects attention and processing, so our brains definitely treat it as important.
2. It Can Create A Surprisingly Fast Sense Of Intimacy
There’s a famous study by Kellerman, Lewis, and Laird that asked strangers to look into each other’s eyes for exactly two minutes without talking, other participants were told to look at each other’s hands or count blinks. The result was pretty interesting. Those who maintained eye contact reported stronger affection and attraction, compared to other participants of the study. This demonstrates that eye contact can indeed foster a sense of intimacy. But you know, don’t do this with unwilling people on the subway, that’s just creepy.
3. The Eyes Help Separate Love From Lust
The University of Chicago and the University of Geneva did studies that showed how our gaze can separate feelings of love and lust. They analyzed the visual patterns of students when shown photographs of people and saw that whenever the supers associated someone with the feeling of romantic love, they tended to look more at the face in the photo. When they associated the person in the photo with feelings of desire and lust, they tended to focus more on the body. Yup, the eyes will always reveal your true feelings.
4. Pupil Dilation Can Make Someone Seem More Attractive
So we know that our pupils dilate when we are looking at someone we find attractive. But what’s even more interesting is that a study by Edinburgh University found that pupil size can influence how attractive someone is. But this only applied in a very specific case. They found out that women during their fertile window in their menstrual cycle find men with larger pupils to be more attractive. How about that?
5. Eye Contact Can Make Conversations Feel More Honest
There’s a reason we often hear people say things like “look me in the eye when you say that” or a variation of that phrase. That’s because culturally we associate eye contact with honesty and trust. It’s natural for people to shift their gaze when they’re being dishonest, but, of course that doesn’t mean that it’s impossible to lie while maintaining eye contact. There are definitely people who can lie to your face and feel completely at ease. But generally speaking, in day-to-day life, eye contact during a conversation shows emotional availability, the fact that people are being open and honest.
6. The Best Eye Contact Feels Natural, Not Choreographed
There are a lot of techniques, tips, and tricks on the internet. There are even step-by-step instructions on how to make eye contact in a way to attract someone or to project a certain image. They’ll tell you to look someone in the right eye for 3 seconds, then their mouth for 1 second, then the left eye for 2 seconds, and other nonsense.
And of course they will promise you guaranteed success. But in reality, the best eye contact is the one that comes naturally, not a weird choreographed scenario. Somehow we as a society have managed to discover love by just acting natural for all these years. Let’s stop turning basic human behavior like eye contact into a set of spreadsheets, techniques, and tricks.