Eye Contact

[Blanca]

As those of you who have met me may have noticed, I tend to avoid making eye contact with people. It's a wierd thing that I've had for absolutely ages (like, since I was about 8 or 9), but when I consciously make eye contact with people it makes me extremely uncomfortable. It's almost as if I don't know where to look (ie which eye to look into).As soon as I consciously do it I go deep inside my head (usually to the detriment of the conversation) and, in a nutshell, everything goes tits up. I should point out that this is with everyone - not just hot girls (although with hot girls it's a bit easier if anything).

Anyway, when I don't consciously make eye contact I'm not sure if I do it subconsciously. Anyone who's met me, please let me know - I feel it's an important thing to do not just with girls, but with people in general. People who don't make eye contact usually come across as untrustworthy (in my opinion) and create a poor first impression.

What are your thoughts guys?

[Red]

I work with a few people who tend to avoid eye contact. They just come across as socially awkward to me. I guess if they were a bit "rougher" they might be seen as untrustworthy. Either way, it's something you want to get over. How you would do it is an interesting one. Have you done any reading about the "inverted triangle" etc.? Have you got anyone to "practice" with (assuming the general public aren't working for you)?

A bit of tough one. Sounds like a form of AA but I don't know if anyone has written a "method" on how to break this one.

Hope someone has some good ideas.

[photo_guy]

eye contacts really important tbh not just in picking up girls but in everyday life. Ad call it a fear as you say you get uncomfortable holding eye contact. The way to get rid of it for me would be just practice and get out of your comfort zone the more you do it the easier it gets.

just my view tho someone else could have a better approach

[Summer Junky]

Well I hadn't noticed it at all mate so it can't be that bad. You come across as a pretty confident guy so I wouldn't worry on it too much.
I also have this problem, although not so much now. For me it got easier as I got older, because I became more confident in myself and wasn't as worried as much about what other people were thinking. Like you say you go in your head quite badly when it happens and you get paranoid, which really is something that you just get to grips with more as you get older and begin to realise that there's fuck all to be paranoid about. Everyone's in the same boat. We all often wonder to ourselves what other people are thinking about us and how were coming across, it's part of human nature.

[Hustler25]

Yeah gotta say mate i'm with Summer, I've not really noticed this from you. I'd say you tend to hold quite good eye contact at a good level, as in it's not too intense and focused or it's too shifty.

I had this problem about a year ago, I remember Nova and I before we began to take all this stuff more seriously would walk around the streets of Manchester just trying to catch peoples gaze and then maintain it. It feels quite wierd at first but after a while you'll become a champion at staring matches. This maybe abit of an odd thing to do but it works well for your general confidence and reinforces your own reality.

As a result my eye contact has improved dramatically and I now quite relish making eye contact with people, it's a good indicator to test the strength of a person and to see if they are full of shit.

[nova]

Originally Posted by Hustler25

it's a good indicator to test the strength of a person and to see if they are full of shit.

Haha

Aye. Like the guys say, a bit of practice - Like the approaching, like lengthening the interactions with the hot girls who made you uncomfortable, it all desensitizes you slowly but surely... until you no longer think about it.

[TorchedFrog]

adam spot in in my opinion,

change your inner thoughts

if you think your gonna spunk your load early then thats what will happen the fact you know you have a problem making eye contact is what may be stopping you making eye contact, remember the game you played at school where you stared into each others eyes and the first one to blink loses, well play that with everyone you meet but dont tell them your playing it, try counting how long each one goes without blinking, it will take your mind of it and have you doing constant eye contact with out subconsesly knowing your doing it within a week

[Shark]

Hi Blanca - for me personally I ahve always had a little bit of a problem with eye contact; when I do public speaking etc I am fine and can make direct eye contact with people but on a one-to-one basis, especially in sets I find it hard and find myself trying to concentrate on it which blows my Game and usually, the set. I think eye contact is extremely important and without it you can't work such routines as the Inverted Triangle (mentioned above) and judge the kiss-close etc.

The way I started to overcome it was to use escalators! I would travel around London between tube stations (or most shopping centres have them) and as I went up or down I would loook across to the opposite escalators and make eye contact with everyone (man, woman, child) that I passed and made sure I held eye contact and didn't break it. There is no 'danger' in this - even if a burly bruiser type thinks you're starring him out and wants a fight, after about 3 seconds you have passed him and he can't get to you! lol I really found this helped and once I was confident in not making eye contact, keeping it and not breaking eye contact like Hustler25, I actually enjoyed making eye contact and using it as a Gaming tool.

Everyone is different but that really helped for me because the timeframe of keeping eye contact (only a few seconds at most) made it not awkward as if you were sitting opposite someone on a bus for 20minutes! Anyway, hope this helps in some small way!