It occured to me today, that you can explain some people's personalities just by mere eye contact.

 

How did it occur to me? Well, as i was standing in line at the subway store in UBC, i was just looking around, and just by coincidence, as i was scanning the cafeteria, i made eye contact with someone who just looked up. The guy was probably older than me, about the same height but probably 10 kg heavier than me? Anyways, so the moment we made eye contact, the guy looked away.

It was an immediate, and probably automatic, reaction by him. That's when i had an epipheny. Imagine a time, where you were "checking out" someone that you notice to be rather attractive.  I think this is rather equal for both males and females.  I'm pretty sure girls check out cute/hot guys just as often has guys check out cute/hot girls. Let me clarify though, for the record, that check out simply means to visually glimpse, examine, admire etc, NOT to go and attempt a conversation for the sake of a telephone # (called colloquially, hitting on).

Anyways, so you are looking at him/her, taking in that person and analyzing the features that seem most attractive to you. Now, suppose you are looking at that person, and then that person looks up and both of you make eye contact.

OK, so let's pause time in this hypothetical situation here. From here on, there is like a split second, maybe, severa microseconds as your mind prepares you for an automatic reaction. There are many reactions, but here are some common examples:

 

- You look away immediately. A sudden jerk that, from an observers point of view, seems like you were doing something you shouldn't have been doing.

 

- You pretend to be examining something behind the person. from an observer there doesn't seem to be any difference in what you are doing, unless the observer was paying attention to your eyes. The person you were looking at however, will see through this pathetic attempt. It is actually fairly easy to tell if someone is making eye contact with you. Once eye contact is established, bear in mind that the other person has his/her full attention on your eyes (please remember that this is at the time of the split second). You think you're real smooth by pretending to examine something behind him/her, but the moment you look away from him/her to an object immediately behind the person, he/she will immediately tell that you've shifted focus. Anyways, I digress.

 

- You continue to stare at the person. This is scary. The person will see you, and if all you do is keep staring... let's just say that's not very pleasant.

 

- You smile (this will be elaborated upon).

 

OK. So having established these 4 more common reactions, we can start analyzing. The ones that look away immediately are, shall we say the type that are embarrassed by these things. They think that they are doing something that is wrong and will be seen as embarrassing, therefore they look away. Remember that the reaction is mostly, if not always, automatically decided by your mind. Thus looking away, is defines a more regressive personality. Further emphasis would depend on culture and race. For asians, it's a matter of culture and family influence. For guys, who are mostly geeks that are more at home with a math question or a video game than anythign else, it's conditioned in them. I find that most asians have a more broad sense of embarrassment towards things. It's almost as if you could be embarrassed about everything. The word that I would associate with most asian males is: timid. (Mind you, that does not mean all asian males are timid. Maybe it would be better to say that more asian males are timid than any other race). White people (not meaning to sound racist or anything), have a much lower sense of embarrassment. Or even if they feel embarrassed, they are still able to carry out something that an asian guy would just die of shame to do. To keep this article more serious and less comedy like, i shall omit stupid jokes and stereotypes for other races. (i.e. black people)

 

Anyways, okay, so you don't look away, but you pretend to look at something else. If this is what you do, then you gotta stop thinking that they dunno u are looking. This isn't a, if i can't see the person, then he/she can't see me. That person will still be able to see you even if you cover your eyes! If you still think that you can be invisible by covering your eyes, then most likely, as an infant, your environment did not provide you with the sense of... sense of... damn, this is wut happens when you do last minute studying for psychology, you don't remember sh*t after the finals.... anyways, let's just say the development of some of your cognitive skills was not... complete. I usually find people who do this to be people that have their own little explanations for things, and like to stick to their own explanation as opposed to the reality.

 

Wut if you stare? Well then, i think there is something mentally wrong with you ( no offense ). But i think it's generally acceptable by everyone normal, that constantly staring at someone who you aren't even talking to, is very rude. Unless of course you have something against that person. Then i guess it's okay for you to stare/threaten the person. you can 用眼睛殺人, heheh

 

Okay, so you smile. You think your slick. That all depends on how it happens. You will probably give your best shot at a friendly/neutral smile which may or may not be a friendly/neutral smile... depends on wut your face looks like. On the other hand, what kind of smile you do would also depend on the environment. (I guess the environment would affect all of the reactions, let's not get too complicated, because we are assuming that the reaction is automatic). For example, in a bar, you might smile wut you think of as an attractive/i'm interested smile. Anyways. If you smile, then you are probably more socially inclined....

 

bla bla bla... damn it's getting late, this could go on for ages....

i'll continue some other time... and yes, i noticed that this is kinda slanted towards a guy perspective, i'll balance it out next time :P