Comfort 2 Growth

How often do you catch yourself checking out that cute girl or guy across the room? It seems our eyes and attention are magnetically drawn to the people we deem attractive.

In a study titled “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You: Attentional Adhesion to Mates and Rivals” conducted at FSU, researchers found heterosexual people of both sexes spend most of their attention and eye contact on people they considered a potential mate or competition…

Furthermore, members of both sexes who were in relationships, were found to spend greater time sizing up the potential threat to their relationship. A researcher from this study said “Men tend to worry more about other men being more dominant, funny or charismatic than they are. But when it comes to concerns about infidelity, men are very attentive to highly attractive guys because presumably their wives or girlfriends may be too.”

No Brainer Study

These findings may seem a bit obvious or ‘no-duh’, but its painful how uncommon, common sense really is. I have had many conversations with people about how they are unsure of themselves or don’t know how to react to eye contact from the opposite sex.

Generally, if you have caught someone of the opposite sex looking at you, especially more than once, then they probably consider you a potential mate and have given you the green light to open conversation with them.

If you are out and looking to meet potential love interests there is a rule you should follow. It is called the 3-second rule. It states that within 3-seconds of seeing or making eye contact with someone you deem attractive, you should immediately approach and open them up for conversation.

This rule is for people just beginning to push their comfort boundaries in social situations. The 3-second, no hesitation rule helps you beat analysis by paralysis. Most people will want to talk to a cutie, but will come up with a million little reasons why they shouldn’t or can’t. Take some advice from Nike and just do it!

Most people stress out over the opening sentence way too much. Just say Hi and pick something about the venue to talk about. You should be able to gauge their interest in further conversation with you almost immediately.

If they aren’t friendly or you can’t find a connection, do you really want to spend more time on this rude stranger?

Eye Contact Dominance

When I am out, I like to play a little game with eye contact. If I meet eyes with someone, I will hold their gaze until they look away. Whoever looks away first, loses. It is a competition to see if I can dominate their eyes. If the person looks back to play again, it is practically an invitation to chat.

This little game may sound pretty easy, but depending on who you are fixing your gaze on, it can be pretty nerve racking. If you are a man locking eyes with a beautiful women, and she doesn’t look away after two seconds, things can feel pretty awkward. Your ego will compel you to look away first, but you must not!

If done properly, your eye contact opponent will find you confident and possibly worth talking to. Not many people have the audacity to hold a gaze. You’d be surprised how timid people become when faced with someone they find mate-worthy.

There are a few caveats to this dominance game. You do not want to stare down anyone who may feel threatened by it. Many men will take this as a challenge to physical confrontation. Some people may find it creepy if you grill them without the proper expression on your face. You want to exude welcoming-confidence and fun. Not a challenging, stalker-like glare.

Windows to the Soul

It is amazing how much information is given away by the eyes. The adage that “the eyes are the windows to the soul” is around for a reason. We can detect peoples intentions, emotions, truthfulness and many other qualities just from the eyes.

A lot of communication is done non-verbally and subconsciously. Often times when you have a bad vibe about someone, it is because your subconscious is picking up on incongruent or hazardous non-verbal communication cues. This is why your gut is often right.

It is pretty easy for people to lie with their words. We can consciously chose what we say. Controlling our nonverbal behavior is a different story. If there is a mismatch between what someone is saying and how they are saying it, there is information being withheld.

Knowing this, we should actively notice not just what people are saying, but how they are saying it and what their body is communicating.

There is much research on how the physical body projects one’s inward thoughts and feelings.

Check back in the future because I will be researching and writing more on this interesting topic.