Mirth and Motivation

“Making eye contact with adults while dressed as a clown is risky.” Doug Coupland

Humor: How & When To Avoid Making Eye Contact – Dress like a clown

Humor: How & When To Avoid Making Eye Contact – Want a Cat’s love

When You’re feeling anxious, mad or sad.

How/When to Avoid Making Eye Contact: ♥When dressed as a clown – wear dark glasses or look down. Some people are deathly scared of clowns.
♥Apparently, Cats don’t like being looked at – Sneer instead or wink at them. Let them do the staring and save you the hassle. My cat has it down.
♥If you’re feeling anxious, mad or sad – stay away from the source of pain

It’s common knowledge that eye contact is an important part of communication. We make eye contact to establish trust, familiarity, confidence and even friendship with others. Some use eye contact to intimidate or stare down an opponent. For a shy person, making eye contact can be a challenge because it’s uncomfortable for some of us to look directly into the eyes of other people; especially the eyes of strangers. With some effort, we can learn to look without feeling terrified.

“If you go flying back through time, and you see somebody else flying forward into the future, it’s probably best to avoid eye contact” Jack Handy

Humor: How & When To Avoid Making Eye Contact – Wear Google glass

Humor: How & When To Avoid Making Eye Contact – Public stalls and urinals

How/When to Avoid Making Eye Contact: ♥While wearing Google Glass… Just say “okay glass,” and it takes care of everything – no eye contact needed. ♥When Sitting in a stall or using a urinal at a public bathroom, it is definitely not a time to stare – feel free to close your eyes.
♥Watching your favorite TV character in a drunken moment demands averted eyes – feel his pain with eyes cast asunder.

When I researched the topic online, there were lots of articles on how to make  effective eye contact, articles on cultures that don’t encourage direct eye contact out of respect, and on the benefits of looking directly at others when we speak. For this post on “How To do something,” I decided to take the path of humor which is always a great way to break the ice. Some of the suggestions are true and others are tongue in cheek.

“I’m hopeless at small talk and have a problem making eye contact.” Gary Numan

Humor: How & When To Avoid Making Eye Contact – Be Pinocchio and tell a lie

Humor: How & When To Avoid Making Eye Contact – Eat a banana

When you’re feeling inferior/insecure

How/When to Avoid Making Eye Contact: ♥When telling a lie, the eyes will give you away unless you’re a seasoned pathological liar – best to avert the gaze of another when fibbing.
♥When eating a banana or a lollipop, keep your eyes to yourself – don’t ask me why, do the math.
♥If you’re feeling insecure or down on yourself, avoid eye contact especially with manipulative types – they know the look and feed off it. Take a De-stress ride.

I found it quite interesting reading some of the articles on making eye contact. There is an impressive body of work with great insights on the subject. A Google search gave me about 539,000,000 results and I’ve added some links in the post. More below!

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