strangers & eyes

i started to touch on this a little in a post a few days back. but i didn't say nearly as much as i wanted to. so here goes.

i like to watch people interact with strangers. and i like to interact with strangers myself. a conversation with a stranger is, i think, one of the best kinds. it's just a tiny tip of a great mystery that is another person's life. you'll likely never see them again, but that's what makes it so fun.

i did this little experiment last year. i looked every single person i saw in the eye. this includes everyone i saw on the street, in class, in the hallways at work, in cars even. :) i didn't stare, i just looked. sometimes i smiled; usually i didn't. i figured that'd be too weird for most people, and it'd probably get me too much unwanted attention.

it was an interesting time. i felt a lot more connected to people in a way.

one of my primary conclusions: to most people, eye contact is a personal invasion, however subtle or minor. upon meeting my eyes, most other eyes would immediately drop to the ground, or look at a slightly different angle (so it would appear possible that they'd never really looked at me). clearly, they believed they were invading my space as well.

a few scattered individuals looked right back at me. and kids, of course, never had a problem with eye contact. babies especially. how is it, anyways, that babies know to look you right in the eyes? if babies and kids do it, it must be something we teach them -- something innocent and automatic that our older, "wiser" influence overrides and overpowers -- as they get older. i don't know how. i'm sure a lot of it is teaching them to be scared of strangers, which is good.

but i think how people interact with strangers says a lot about them. strangers can't do anything for you, they don't have any expectations you feel compelled to meet, you don't know who they are, and they probably feel the same way about you. so how you talk to them, interact with them, or look at them, probably reveals the most basic, fundamental kindness and respect you have (or don't have) for human beings in general. it shows what's left when the fake/habitual veneers of politeness, kindness, and civility are stripped away and you have no other reason to esteem them except for how you treat people for simply being people.

i think eye contact can be difficult for people, especially strangers, because the eyes (of course) are "windows to the soul." and it's so, so true. so much can be given away by a quick gaze or instantaneous aversion. people feel vulnerable when someone's looking into their eyes. that's why they six seconds, or so, that's as long as most people can maintain eye contact before looking away. when the occasional stranger would hold my eye contact for more than an instant, it was a sign of openness. and that's scary to most people.

now, there are rare instances when i don't want to look into someone's eyes for one reason or another. so i might just stare at the ground like most other people do. i don't look strange or different, because everyone does that, but i feel unbelievably self-conscious and powerless. i think the constant eye contact became more of a signal to the people i was looking at: i know my surroundings. i know where you are. i know you're walking towards me. i know you're creepy. i know you're looking at me. i know who you're looking at. etc. so it became stressful for me to NOT look someone in the eye, and it still is.

so that's what i learned during my little experiment in human interaction. i didn't really figure out anything profound or novel. but it was definitely a good habit to get into. i'd recommend it highly.

i don't really know where i'm going with this. these are just garbled thoughts. say it with me now: "i don't have a journal, you know."