Are you any good at eye contact?

Rufeo

Do you stare at the person you're talking to, or give them a look now and again? I'm no good at eye contact. I will try to look now and again, but I admire some people who can hold it steadily.

Hoop66

What the fuck are you looking at?

Rufeo

Hoop66 wrote: »

What the fuck are you looking at?

You highlighted a "u". This is a very inconsistent sentence.

One eyed Jack

Sometimes. I’m 50/50...

Aglomerado

Rufeo wrote: »

Do you stare at the person you're talking to, or give them a look now and again? I'm no good at eye contact. I will try to look now and again, but I admire some people who can hold it steadily.

I'm terrible as well. I have to really make an effort in job interviews. Ex boyfriend commented on it once that my eye contact is really bad, obviously not lost in his eyes!

calistro

Have been working rally hard at this. Previously my eye contact would always drop as I felt I was staring to hard at the person, but then I realised that when I dropped eye contact my eye direction went to chest level be it male or female!...so you know what that looked like! So now I make a concerted effort to keep eye contact and to hell with the cross eyed feeling!!

Kintarō Hattori

So good that sometimes I feel I might be making the person I'm looking at a little uncomfortable.

EmmetSpiceland

Aglomerado wrote: »

I'm terrible as well. I have to really make an effort in job interviews. Ex boyfriend commented on it once that my eye contact is really bad, obviously not lost in his eyes!

If you’re not into the “eye to eye” thing try focusing on the persons nose.

Aglomerado

EmmetSpiceland wrote: »

If you’re not into the “eye to eye” thing try focusing on the persons nose.

Good tip. If the nose is a funny shape I might start laughing though

sbsquarepants

There's thin line you need to hit, unfortunately it's wedged tightly between looking very shifty and staring like a complete psycho. I'm not sure it's anything you can learn, it either comes naturally to you or it doesn't.

No one has ever commented on me one way or the other - however i have no idea if that's a good, bad, or completely indifferent thing

The Tetrarch

I look at my shoes.
When working in Africa forty years ago it was worse.
You shake hands. They hold on to your hand and have a lengthy conversation.

Graces7

Depends on the situation. If the contact is confrontational? Straight in the eyes,.. If casual. then not.

Pauliedragon

Rufeo wrote: »

Do you stare at the person you're talking to, or give them a look now and again? I'm no good at eye contact. I will try to look now and again, but I admire some people who can hold it steadily.

Depends on who I'm talking to. Men I always make eye contact. With the female variety my eyes tend to wander down slightly.

Depends on the breast size.

Salary Negotiator

One eyed Jack wrote: »

Sometimes. I’m 50/50...

because you only have 1 eye?

Church on Tuesday

50 % of the time you want to be making eye contact when speaking and 70% when listening.

Depends really how long you are in company with someone and the situation at hand. Obviously you don't want to stare into someones soul thus making them feel uncomfortable but also you don't want you eyes to flit around nervously either. Neither is a good look.

Just break eye contact naturally and glance at something or someone else if there's more than one person in the room with you. If it's a meeting or some such same thing applies really.

If it's a confrontational situation when someone is acting up you stare that **** down.

Terrible at it when I do not need to.

Generally stare over their shoulder or my gaze moves around a lot. In a social situation in a bar with one person I generally sit 90o to their side never opposite them - so generally not even looking at them directly at all.

As I age and I find my hearing slowly get worse - I find I am more and more looking at peoples mouth in louder environments. For some reason I can hear them better when doing this. No idea why. Subconcious lip reading? I dunno. There's probably some explanation for that.

If I am doing close up magic tricks or Mentalism stuff - I do consciously hold eye contact however. Part of magic is controlling what the mark sees and when - so holding eye contact can help you control when they look where you want them to look and when not. You can literally control when they look at you - allowing you to do sleight of hand - and when they look down. But I have to consciously force myself to it then. It doesn't come naturally.

Bobblehats

Graces7 wrote: »

Depends on the situation. If the contact is confrontational? Straight in the eyes,.. If casual. then not.

Approaching somebody on a footpath can be long and confrontational. And some flash their teeth, which is a sure sign of aggression

One eyed Jack

Salary Negotiator wrote: »

because you only have 1 eye?

Well I’m glad someone got the joke


(real answer is I just don’t make eye contact with people anyway. People who try to make eye contact on purpose are weird)

10 in a row

No, I'm terrible at it. Today I will make an attempt to make more eye contact when talking and listening to people

Bobblehats

One eyed Jack wrote: »

Well I’m glad someone got the joke

Yeh definitely not making contact with you pal. Might catch the aids!

One eyed Jack

Bobblehats wrote: »

Yeh definitely not making contact with you pal. Might catch the aids!

Cheers for the advance warning at least.

Bobblehats

I’m always protected.

RobertKK

Depends on whom one is talking to.

Tough03

I'm not great myself at keeping eye contact. Some people do not mind but I find others it puts them off the conversation.

Redneck Reject71

I always look people in the eye when having a conversation. The trick to not making them feel uncomfortable, is to add facial expressions along with it.Such as a curious, interested, thoughtful expressions while they talk to you. Just staring blankly at them the whole conversation would be uneasing and strange. Like serial killer strange,heh.

As for working with animals, usually maintaining eye contact is a bad thing,heh.

RandomViewer

Depends on the situation, will lower my head slightly and look upward when I really need to make a point

SmartinMartin

I interview people for a living, so yes making eye contact is a huge part of my work.

Rufeo

SmartinMartin wrote: »

I interview people for a living, so yes making eye contact is a huge part of my work.

So how do your candidates fare? Do you get nervous yokes who won't look or people who keep staring.

SmartinMartin

You always know when someone's been coached to make eye contact and they take it to the extreme!

Tony EH

Rufeo wrote: »

Do you stare at the person you're talking to, or give them a look now and again? I'm no good at eye contact. I will try to look now and again, but I admire some people who can hold it steadily.

This is a bullshit American thing that's been spread by pseudo psychology nonsense.

Most cultures do not constantly stare at one another when in a conversation. It isn't a natural thing to do and is considered to be an aggressive stance to hold. It isn't polite and it isn't "listening".

It's just bollocks.

It's much more natural to occasionally look at the person conversing and then look away. But the talker will tend to look at a listener for longer periods.

Nobody holds a stare for the duration of a conversation. It isn't a normal, or comfortable, thing to do. For anybody.