Holding someone's gaze is one of the easiest ways to acknowledge to another person that you notice their existence and consider them a valuable human. So it's no wonder that making eye contact with someone immediately boosts your attractiveness in their perception. People tend to like those who like them.
Eye contact is an important, natural component of communication used to convey liking and attraction. Locking eyes play a role in reducing uncertainty within initial romantic interactions. Eye contact has no direct effect on romantic attraction but enhances self-disclosure.
Longer eye contact (e.g., 3–7 seconds) can signal interest or attraction, but it can imply aggression if someone's gaze is held for too long (e.g., 10 seconds or more). But, in general, appropriate eye contact can make you seem more confident, likable, attractive, trustworthy, attentive, and memorable.
Intently staring can be a good thing and might mean that he likes what he sees. Research indicates that in many cases of prolonged eye contact, both parties are interested in each other or maybe aroused.
Level 5: The Gaze
The Gaze is the last level that can occur unconsciously although it's usually conscious. This is when someone looks at you and just keeps looking at you past the normal “look away” moment. This is a solid 2-3 seconds of eye contact without them breaking it.
Use the 50/70 rule. To maintain appropriate eye contact without staring, you should maintain eye contact for 50 percent of the time while speaking and 70% of the time while listening. This helps to display interest and confidence. Maintain it for 4-5 seconds.
Eye contact makes people more honest.
This phenomenon reflects the age-old “eyes as windows of the soul” concept. You know logically that someone can't read your mind by looking into your eyes, and yet you intuitively know that eye contact makes it less likely that you will get away with lying.
Making eye contact helps both people focus on the conversation and read facial expressions. This can improve understanding. And improving understanding can significantly improve communication between two people.
Flirting using eye contact is great because it doesn't require you to think of witty lines, or even to know very much about your crush. Eye contact is one of the most powerful ways that people convey attraction, but it's also subtle enough to be fairly risk free if you don't yet know if your crush is interested.
Some studies show that intense eye contact can actually stimulate sexual arousal. People like feeling seen and understood. Intense or prolonged eye contact helps people feel seen and can make them feel confident and even aroused. Not only can eye contact heat things up, but it can also make sex more intimate.
Eye contact is one of those Goldilocks things: Too much, and people find you intense; too little, and people think you're shifty. Getting it just right, though, can be a challenge — especially when you consider that so many people find the whole thing awkward to begin with (even rock stars have trouble).
Intense eye contact that indicates attraction is called gazing. When someone gazes at you, they maintain longer than usual eye contact. This usually means several seconds of them looking at you. They want you to notice that they are looking!
Locking eyes with someone you find attractive can also be a sign of flirting, and it is actually one of the oldest, most common, and most effective ways of flirting. Locked eyes are a level of eye contact that requires certain chemistry from both people involved.
Actually, science has proven it so! Certain chemicals (or endorphins) that produce the emotion of love can be emitted through emotions expressed in the eyes. There are physiological changes in the eyes that occur when love is expressed between two individuals.
If a man is giving you intense eye contact whilst you're speaking, they may well find you sexually attractive, but that might not have anything to do with it. It might just be that they genuinely find the things you're saying to be deeply interesting, and are listening intently so as not to miss any of it.
Eye contact is a subtle but strong sign. If she holds eye contact with you, that could be a sign she's interested. Let's say you're in a social setting and a woman across the room looks at you. If she looks at you and then instantly turns away, it may be because she is shy or doesn't want to get caught looking at you.
Prolonged eye contact has been thought to release phenylethylamine, a chemical responsible for feelings of attraction. It has also been thought to release oxytocin, the love chemical most closely associated with longer term bonding and commitment.
A new study by University of London's Hannah Scott and colleagues (2018) is based on the idea that people stare, because “faces, and in particular, the eyes, provide lots of useful non-verbal information about a person's mental state.” The eyes contain “socially relevant information,” they go on to explain, because ...
High levels of dopamine and a related hormone, norepinephrine, are released during attraction. These chemicals make us giddy, energetic, and euphoric, even leading to decreased appetite and insomnia – which means you actually can be so “in love” that you can't eat and can't sleep.
Yes, eye contact can mean attraction, but it can also mean a simple, non-romantic or non-sexual curiosity. Someone could look your way because they're trying to figure something out about you, or it can even indicate a negative fixation — that is, they're looking because they don't like what they see.
Avoiding eye contact is also common in people with social anxiety as it raises their anxiety levels. Avoidance of eye contact is associated with shame, embarrassment, and self-consciousness, things people with heightened anxiety suffer from.