Eye

They say that your eyes are the window to your soul. When these spiritual windows are open to others, what can they decipher about you? Psychologists assert that your eye contact says a lot about your personality.

Most predatory animals, including humans, have forward-facing eyes that give them a binocular vision. Our early ancestors could easily focus on their prey as well as dangerous animals and situations to avoid. Your eyes still provide safety and are continually processing pictures of the world around you.

Did you know that roughly half of your body’s sensory receptors are found in your eyes? They can detect visible light wavelengths up to 700 nanometers and many spectra of colors. Six extrinsic eye muscles control their complex movement.

When you combine positions of your eyelids and eyebrows, your eyes help to create instantly recognizable expressions. Humans are adept at interpreting eye contact, so we assume that someone looking into our eyes has nothing to hide. How you use your eyes to communicate with others usually mirrors what you are feeling or thinking.

What the Eyes Say Without Uttering a Word

Think of all the idioms you’ve heard about eyes and personality. They say a shifty-eyed person can’t be trusted. “She loves him, and you can see it in her eyes.” “He couldn’t even look me in the eyes and tell me the truth.”

Good eye interaction with others suggests that you are confident in your abilities. People may view you as more successful, and you may have better leadership qualities than those who avert their eyes. Your gaze may reveal an attraction to another, or it can imply aggression and malice.

Some cognitive disorders, such as the autistic spectrum, are known for their avoidance of connecting with other people’s eyes. Many people who battle depression, anxiety, or ADHD have difficulty focusing their eyes, especially when in a conversation. For others, eye connection aversion may be low self-esteem from a lack of confidence and basic shyness.

Understanding Eye Communication

While you assume that anyone who looks you eye-to-eye is telling the truth, it’s not necessarily so. Pathological liars often use eye connection to manipulate people into believing their lies. They often become so jaded that they can lie without as much as a blink. Here are some other things your eyes can show.

• Friendliness and Familiarity

When you are in public and surrounded by strangers, you can expect to meet a few people’s glances. However, most people only look strangers in the face for only a couple seconds, and then they look away. Looking at someone any longer becomes staring, and it makes others feel uncomfortable.

Friends and acquaintances will usually meet your eyes in a longer, natural way. Close friends and family can often look into your eyes and intuitively know how you feel before asking. You may tell them that you are feeling fine, but your eyes can betray you.

• Authority and Trustworthiness

If you want others to respect your authority, you must look them straight in the eyes when you talk. Would you have much confidence in a person in leadership who was shy and kept averting his eyes? When you make direct eye contact and smile while conversing with or addressing a group, people will respect you more and will assume you are successful and trustworthy.

• Mutual Attraction

The eyes are only second to the heart when it comes to stories, songs, and art about love and romance. When you are attracted to someone, you instinctively gaze into his eyes as he does yours. Scientific research demonstrates that people who are attracted to each other look into the others’ eyes more often and for extended periods.

Do you want a special someone to be more than just friends? How do you look him in the eyes? He may think you aren’t interested if he sees you avoiding his eyes and looking all around.

Eye connection in sexuality is another point that divides us from the animals. Unlike most of them, humans are usually intimate face-to-face and eye-to-eye. We often feel more attracted to those who express attraction to us in their eyes.

• Intimidation

Have you ever watched two cats locked into a staring contest? In the animal kingdom, staring allows them to size up their adversaries. There is a wild glare that means a clash of wills is about to happen.

While we are not felines, we still use our eyes to intimidate others, often without thinking. Remember the sharp glance your mother gave you when you were misbehaving in public? She didn’t have to say a word, but you got the point.

• Memory Enhancement

Why is it that you may forget names, but you hardly ever forget a face? Your brain is making countless references and notations when you look into another person’s eyes. Your first impression of this person may be what her eyes tell you.

It will trigger a memory in your brain when you meet the person again and make eye contact. For this reason, psychologists encourage people to look at each other when meeting and often during conversation. Not only does it suggest to the other person that you are genuinely interested in what she has to say, but you will be more likely to remember her and the conversation.

Do Your Eyes Have It? Different Types of Eye Avoidance

How can you use proper eye contact to your advantage? Do you want to reflect confidence and honesty? Here are some helpful ways to identify common eye contact problems and how to improve them.

• The Low Looker

In many cultures, it is considered rude and forward to look at someone straight in the eyes, especially those of authority. A downcast glance shows reverence, respect, and humility. Unfortunately, women were often taught to keep their head and eyes lowered as a sign of loyalty and subservience.

If you are a low looker, then train yourself to hold your head high and meet other people’s eyes. Keep good posture, let your eyes show that you are friendly, intelligent, and subservient to no one.

• The Kewpie Doll

Have you ever seen one of these iconic baby dolls with their pixie smile and adorable side glance? You wonder what they are thinking. Whether it is from nervous tension or learned behavior, many people often avoid direct eye contact by looking to the side or a corner of the room.

“Kewpie dolls” personalities often have a difficult time when they are in leadership and must address a group. Are you one of these who keep your eyes glued to a corner rather than face your audience? Practice speaking in a mirror and retrain your eyes to look at the eyes of your listeners.

• The Rapid- Fire Blinker

Some people have a nervous tick in their eyes that often gets worse when they are talking to people, or they experience eye twitching. While they try to keep their eyes focused during a conversation, all the other people can see is a flurry of blinks and twitches. If they gradually gain control of their eyelids, a rapid-fire blinker may also be a low-looker or a kewpie doll.

Some rapid-fire blinkers not only blink, but they often have conversations with their eyes closed. Occasionally, they may open their eyes to flash a bit or to acknowledge what the other person is saying, but their eye contact is limited.

Do you want to remedy your Rapid-Fire Blinker habit and practice good eye connection? Since rapid blinking may be symptoms of a physical or mental condition, consult your professional healthcare provider. Practice keeping your gaze steady and relaxing your eyes.

• Give Your Eyes a Rest

Although making good eye connection is beneficial in a conversation, there can be too much of a good thing. When you are having a discussion with another person, some eye movement is expected. A thoughtful pause to glance up and think about what the person is saying is helpful because a constant stare will make others uneasy.

• Practice Makes Progress

Some people are naturally talented conversationalists, but you can learn these skills with practice. Maintaining proper eye connections with others can be practiced in front of a mirror or with a trusted friend. If you have one or more of these common eye aversion characteristics, you can retrain yourself.

As you talk to the mirror or your practice partner, train yourself to rest your sight at the other person’s eye level. If he wears glasses, you could focus on the rims or study his eyebrows, if you feel uneasy about looking pupil to pupil.

If you feel your eyes going back into their old habit of aversion, gently bring them back into focus. Ask your trusted practice partner to give you honest feedback and to let you know when your eyes aren’t making the proper connection.

Final Thoughts on Using Proper Eye Contact in Life

Using proper eye interaction in your professional and personal life can tell others a lot about you. Show people that you are self-confident and can make eye contact when you are conversing. You’ll discover that people will be more apt to confide in you and will see the confident, fascinating person you are.

Sometimes, a man or woman’s wandering eye is not necessarily a sign of disrespect. Instead, a short glance toward the opposite sex is more often than not a sign of curiosity from your partner. Or, they could simply not help but notice someone’s attractiveness.

Much as we might admire a beautiful sculpture or painting, it makes sense that we would continue to appreciate beautiful people after the honeymoon stage of a relationship fades, and the bond matures.

Sometimes, however, wandering eyes could be a sign that your partner is or is considering cheating. So what are some other signs you can look for to tell the difference between the two?

Here are 15 signs your partner has a wandering eye:

1 – Does your partner criticize you, incessantly?

Constant criticism is considered by experts to be one of the four horsemen. Sometimes as people settle into a relationship, they find their partner’s quirks and habits to become less endearing and more of an annoyance. If your partner happens to be less emotionally mature, they may seek out another partner behind your back instead of ending the relationship.

If someone is suddenly finding every opportunity to find something wrong with not just your actions, but who you are as a person, they may be trying to deflect some internal shame about not being forthcoming with you. Even if your partner isn’t cheating, this is a sign of a strained relationship.

2 – Has your partner made accusations of you being the cheating partner?

Along the same lines as deflecting shame, if your partner makes accusations about you cheating, they may do so because the fact that they are cheating makes them feel insecure. Some people want to have their cake and eat it too. They want loyalty and a hot new fling.

Be careful, though, as some people have simply been burned in the past, and that accusation might not have any relation to current behavior. Therefore, your significant other may not be a cheater.

3 – Has your intimacy suddenly changed?

When someone is cheating on you or has a wandering eye, their sexual behavior can change. They may retreat from the bedroom due to guilt over their actions. Conversely, they may ramp up the volume in the bedroom with some new techniques their side-lover introduced to them. Be careful with this one. Indeed, he or she may merely be trying to spice things up in the bedroom to get you excited.

4 – Have strange expenses showed up in your bank account?

When a woman acquires a new lover, she may suddenly have a new income that is unexplained. If the man in the relationship is cheating, you can expect to see that bank balance decrease as he woos his fling. Finances are a significant point of contention between couples. Therefore, both parties should be transparent.

If there is a lack of transparency when it comes to money, this may indicate you both have a strained relationship.

5 – Do you have an intuition that something is off?

Sometimes nothing does a better job of tipping you off to cheating better than your gut. You do not consciously realize this, but your gut picks up on thousands of micro bits of data as you go about your day. When something is off, your gut or intuition will undoubtedly tip you off. Indeed, because you are reading this article right now, your intuition is probably already on full alert!

6 – Has their schedule suddenly changed?

Another sign that a partner is participating in an affair is if their schedule shifts to make time for steamy romp sessions, rather than to bury their heads in more work or a suddenly sick family member. Make sure that your partner gives other signs of cheating before accusing them of being a cheater, however.

7 – Are your friends treating you differently?

Friends may start acting more courteous or try to avoid you altogether. That is because they are often the first ones to find out about an affair. The same applies to your partner’s friends. They, too, may start to avoid you or act exceptionally nicely around you.

One way you can check to make sure that your partner doesn’t have a wandering eye is by telling your friends that you’ve noticed the change in their behavior and want to know what that’s all about. Who knows, they may be planning a surprise party for you and your spouse. Otherwise, your partner may already be cheating on you.

8 – Have technology habits changed?

If your spouse suddenly has their eyes glued to their phone most of the day, they may be having an affair. Of course, if your spouse needs to be on their phone often for work-related reasons, that is one thing, but if their habits change, that might signal a strained relationship.

Technology habits can include anything from checking their phone once before bed to suddenly checking their phone more often for “emails.” If they suddenly change up their technology habits, this is a reliable indicator that your partner has wandering eyes.

9 – Do they have a new phone?

Unless your significant other has recently dropped their phone in the toilet, your partner buying a new phone without explanation is a major red flag that they are cheating on you. Many people who are seeing other people on the side will keep a burner phone or small flip phone, away from your vision so they can hold conversations you won’t be privy to.

10 – Do they have a secret cloud account?

Along with a new phone or new technology habits, most information these days gets stored in “the cloud,” or an online data storage service. This data can include work-related documents, videos, and yep, you guessed it—racy photos from an affair. If your significant other is secretive about showing you his laptop or other electronics, he or she may be a cheater.

11 – Have they stopped making plans for the future with you?

Someone who is cheating may stop making plans for upcoming birthdays or celebrations because they want to keep the calendar open for both you and the person they are keeping the affair with.

12 – Have you effectively discussed your boundaries with your partner?

Cheating isn’t always as cut and dry as going out and hooking up with a stranger. For some couples, cheating can range from watching a man walk by a few seconds too long to creating emotional intimacy with someone else beyond what they have taken the time to develop with their spouse. You will want to discuss some of your boundaries with your partner so that they don’t unintentionally hurt you.

13 – Has the emotional intimacy between you two changed?

Speaking of emotional intimacy, have you noticed your partner sharing less meaningful information with you? As relationships grow and mature emotional intimacy, ebbs and flows as life becomes more complicated and less complicated. However, there should always be an open pathway for communication. If one party shuts down, that person may be participating in an affair.

Perhaps you can suggest to your partner to have a weekly discussion about life and your feelings towards each other.

14 – Have their clothing preferences changed?

If your partner generally wears a pair of jeans and a regular t-shirt, and suddenly go out and purchase more formal clothes, this can indicate that they are making an effort to impress someone else.

The same can be said if they have been keeping roughly the same style of hair for the past few years and suddenly come home with a bold new haircut. The best way to handle this situation is to ask your partner what they intend to use their new clothes for or why they decided to get a new haircut.

You never know, they might want to take you on a lovely date!

15 – Is your partner happy overall with life?

Your partner should be content with his/her life. Discontentment can lead to poor behavior, so it is wise to discuss life paths together to find out how to improve the relationship. This will help your partner to keep their eyes from wandering.

Final Thoughts on Having a Partner with a Wandering Eye

If you suspect that your partner is a cheater, it is essential to have an open and honest conversation about if cheating is the actual issue or if it is related to a stressful life circumstance the both of you are going through. What is the reason behind the deception? Is there a work schedule issue where both of your paths are failing to align often?

Do you both have enough interests together to keep the relationship interesting? Is one partner addicted to adrenaline rushes? There’s never an excuse for cheating. However, depending on the reasons for cheating, you can decide where to go from there. It will depend on if your partner is remorseful for his or her actions. It will also depend upon your morals and feelings.