My interest with eye contact started when Timothy Ferris dared his readers to make and maintain eye contact with strangers to see what would happen. I remember feeling overwhelmed by discomfort as I waited for the other person to look away, but I followed through with it a few times, before discarding it to the dusty pile of positive/reinforcing/assertiveness exercises.

When in Italy I remembered the challenge, as I spotted people making eye contact with me. It wasn't just "flirtatious" men, or "in pubs", but it was men and women, old and young, a constant flow of eye-connection with others, for seconds or longer, on trains, streets, and restaurants, during the day, in broad daylight, *gasp*. The same thing happened in Berlin - eye contact, everywhere, not as much as in Italy, but still a considerable amount.

It was a novelty to keep my head held up to scan and meet the eyes of others while walking instead of my general looking at my feet routine.

Coming back to Ireland, I started experimenting, making eye contact with people in these same situations, watching for people reactions, and my own, to see if it was my imagination.

I'm no expert, but it doesn't feel the same in Ireland. It feels like I have a little program running in my brain that rewards me with a nasty jolt of adrenaline, the equivalent of a slap on the wrist, every time I meet eyes with a stranger for longer than a millisecond. Make eye contact for too long, and I am making the other person feel uncomfortable, i.e. it is rude, and potentially creepy or aggressive.

So when I try to meet the eyes of strangers here, not only do I find that most people are determinedly looking elsewhere, to the sky, to the ground, straight ahead, into their pram, or trolley, at the shelf, at the counter... but that if I do happen to "catch" them looking at me, they almost immediately flick their eyes away.

My "experience" tells me it has a lot to do with the simple fact that it's actually harder to meet the eyes of a milky blue eyed, blond lashed person than a dark eyed, dark lashed person, as blue eyes are more indistinguishable from the rest of the face.



So there are cultural differences according to Ellen's evidence of "feeling" I hear you saying... so what?

Well for one thing, on a pure chemical level, making eye contact with someone you find attractive releases dopamine into the brain. For me that's a pretty good reason to do it. Free drugs ;)

The second thing that I "feel" is important, is that, for me, when people make eye contact with me, and maintain it for a split second longer than the Irish norm, it's as though they have seen me.

It may sound crazy, but going through the day making eye contact with people, is akin to being on the receiving end of a thousand mini hellos. It makes me feel like I exist, like someone has acknowledged my presence on this earth beside them, and not just ignored me. See more on extravert here.

Back in Ireland, I force myself not to follow my instincts and stare at the comfortable ground, but battle to hold my head up and scan for the eyes of others.

So if you catch me staring at you for longer than is acceptable, try not to consider me rude, just remember it's my way of saying, "hello, I see you."