Eye power: Deciding whether to go or stay

Have you ever noticed how you just know when someone’s eyes have met yours in the street?

And how you can’t stop yourself from looking back? How when you want someone to like you, you look into their eyes. While when you want to avoid them, you look away.

Eye contact’s also a key part of how you size up a potential date. And the essential steps are always the same.

They’re completely unconscious, and triggered whenever men and women first catch sight of one another.

First she smiles shyly at him, her eyebrows lift, her eyes open wide, and she gazes at him for just a few moments.

Then her eyes drop, her head tilts down and to the side, and she looks away. She’ll probably also touch her face, and maybe even giggle.

COURTSHIP RITUAL

This series of gestures is so distinctive and so universal, that it must be an innate courtship ritual. Many courting animals also gaze at one another.

Watch a pair of baboons someday. It’s just like two novices in a singles bar!

Some people argue that these gestures depend on how we were brought up, and so are not an instinct.

But the fact is that all women, all over the world, respond in exactly the same way whenever a new male makes eye contact with them.

Which means that it must be something they were born with, and not something they’ve learned.

Women react quite differently if the male attention’s unwelcome. So if a guy looks at a pretty girl and her eyes avoid him, or worse still she looks up despairingly, then it’s time for him to move on!

DOMINANCE SIGNAL

Men’s body language is just as automatic. Like when you walk into your boss’s office, has he ever leant back in his chair, hands clasped behind his head and chest thrust out?

Or perhaps he’s walked from behind his desk and smiled, standing tall so his upper body is lifted? If so, watch out. He’s subconsciously projecting dominance over you.

That chest thrust is also quite instinctive, and is a male dominance signal for many social animals. Think of gorillas pounding their pecs!

But it’s the gaze which really makes things happen. Wherever eye contact’s possible, men stare intently at a potential new mate for two or three seconds.

ATTRACTION

Every guy’s caught himself doing it. If her eyes meet his and she’s interested, her pupils dilate – and his. Completely automatically. Before she smiles, drops her eyes and looks away.

It’s no wonder women wear veils in many cultures. Because an exchange of eye contact like that has an immediate and powerful effect on a very primitive part of your brain.

It triggers attraction or anxiety, in both men and women, and you simply must respond. Probably you’ll begin by fiddling with your clothes, or some other meaningless “displacement activity”.

While you figure out whether to go or to stay. And whether to start playing the mating game...

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