Feeling Worthy of Any Human (Or Dog’s) Eye Contact
The eyes are the window to the soul. Or to someone who lacks the confidence to make eye contact, the eyes are more like the shoddy storm shelter door attached to the back of the abandoned house. And to the soul.
Making eye contact with people has been something I’ve struggled with from a young age. And it wasn’t just limited to strangers. I would feel uncomfortable locking eyes with people I knew well — classmates, relatives, neighbors’ dogs… No one was off-limits to my inability to engage via my four eyes (though my thick glasses did provide a nice barrier for a while).
Self-esteem was never my strong suit, and this lack of confidence often manifested itself in a strict avoidance of eye contact. If I was being rung up at a cash register, I would awkwardly look down until my purchase was complete. I would assume the cashier thought I was avoiding eye contact because I thought I was above them, when really, I felt so lowly that I didn’t deserve their eye contact.
And when I worked the front counter of a pharmacy, I would apply this mentality by barely looking at the customers. Essentially, I was living with the mantra of Wayne and Garth from “Wayne’s World”, shouting “We’re not worthy!” over and over again, all while worrying that others thought I was just being rude.
To think you’re not worth another person’s eye contact is a ridiculous assumption, but if you listen to the Wayne and Garth in your head, you’ll start to believe it. Just like I believed walking around with my eyes closed during a weird stage in my toddler years was a great idea, and possibly my most extreme case of eye contact avoidance.
In improv, we’re trained to always make eye contact with our scene partner because it establishes trust. This is intended to make you and your partner feel completely comfortable with the fact that neither of you knows what will happen next, but focused and ready to support whatever the other person does.
While at first this seems contradictory, as it’s always uncomfortable to hold eye contact for an extended period of time, it actually helped me off stage in my daily eye-to-eye interactions (and disproved my theory that everyone who can seamlessly do this is a straight-up serial killer).
Applying this improv rule to real life, along with the confidence I’ve gradually garnered from performing, resulted in a huge difference of how I present myself. Now I feel worthy of making sweet, sweet eye contact with nearly anyone I come across — although I have yet to test myself against the President or Beyoncé.
It’s also important to note when you might be creeping someone out with too much eye contact. You’d be shocked to know the amount of dogs I’ve made uncomfortable with my own gaze. I just want to see their souls!
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