Eye contact is important, especially in dating and gauging people’s attraction to you. Everyone should have a basic understanding of what each person is eye-coding to them in any given situation, and it doesn’t take a cryptographer to figure it out. In this article, I will decrypt the 11 levels of eye contact.

Level 2: Glance (Conscious)

This is the first type of eye contact where you’ve possibly made a positive impression on a person.

  • If someone breaks eye contact with you quickly and intentionally, it’s usually a polarized response: they’re either attracted and momentarily self-conscious by your presence, or they’re uninterested and avoid making contact altogether.

Ditch the Toxic Relationship Cycle

There are some pretty clear signals to know if a relationship is going to work or not

  • Research shows the more in love a couple is, the more time they spend gazing into each other’s loved up eyes
  • Don’t break the spell.

What Do You See?

Humans have a tendency to make things more difficult than they have to be

  • Eye contact is something you can practice and get good at
  • If making eye contact with strangers is one level too far, you can begin with people you feel comfortable with
  • Another easy trick is to stand or sit a little further away from them

Level 3: Glance and a Half

This is the first level where interest is conveyed ever so slightly. It’s when someone looks at you and breaks eye contact as they normally do, but they hold the eye contact for a split second longer than is normal.

  • It’s subtle, it’s short, and it’s unconscious.

Level 4: Double Glance

If you make eye contact with someone attractive and they look away, keep looking at them for a few seconds. A percentage of them will look at you a second time.

  • This is a clear sign of physical interest, and 95%+ of the subsequent interactions you initiate with this person will be received warmly.

The Power of Eye Contact

It’s arousing. Looking into someone’s eyes will make you significantly more aroused than looking at someone whose gaze is averted.

  • If you want to catch someone’s attention, suddenly looking at them (even if you don’t move your head at all) will tend to do the trick.
  • It makes people believe you. If you tell someone something they don’t know to be true, they’ll tend to believe it if you look them in the eye. Even if it were something they know not to be truthful, they will still be slower to disagree.
  • Makes people think you’re smart. We generally judge people who make eye contact with us to be smarter and more competent.
  • Makes you appear more sincere.

(Don’t) Avert Your Eyes!

Eye contact can be intimidating, especially when you suffer from trauma or have attachment and intimacy issues.

  • The goal of this guide is to peel the layers of eye contact and reveal to you a simple yet powerful action that anyone-yourself included-can master.

Glance (Unconscious)

An unconscious glance is when someone looks up at you and then immediately looks away, although they are not aware of what they are looking at.

  • Just like Level 0, this level of eye contact is neutral and there is not much to take away from it.

Level 6: The Smile

The sixth level of eye contact is The Gaze plus a smile.

The Eye Fuck

This is someone who makes eye contact, holds it, smiles, and then never stops. They just keep staring and smiling.

  • Eye ******* is the first level of eye contact that makes the leap from “interested/curious” to “they want to have sex with me.”
  • When undesired, this can be extremely creepy.

Level 5: The Gaze

This is when someone looks at you and just keeps looking at you past the normal “look away” moment.

  • When undesired, this becomes the infamous “creep stare.”
  • In good cases, this is a good sign of interest and you would be dumb to pass up an opportunity.

Why Good Relationships Can Fail

Any eye contact from Level 3 upwards should be a strong incentive for the two of you to at least have a conversation

  • Level 3 happens most often when they are consciously focused on something else
  • They don’t realize that they’re looking at you, though they totally are

The Dreamboat

This is when you wake up in the morning to someone staring at you with that dreamy smile like they’re drunk or stayed up all night sniffing glue.

  • Assuming the feeling is mutual, this is amazing. It’s the most validating eye contact a person can give you and centuries of literature and movies have been based off of it.

The Crazies

These people haunt you. They’re everywhere and nowhere. They haunt you even when you are not physically present.

  • They signify delusion, hopeless emotion, and the complete loss of grip on reality. People who have seen these people prefer to keep the pain and horror stowed away in their hearts.

Level (-1): No Eye Contact (Intentional)

This is when someone is not only not making eye contact with you, but they’re consciously making an effort to NOT look at you.

  • The anti-intimacy. The non-verbal cue for “Give it up… and go the fuck away from me.”

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