Go For the Eyes, Boo

I read this article (NY Times click bait article, but they do link to the actual study which I was too lazy to read) where they talk about an experiment that was able to make two people fall in love.

A heterosexual man and woman enter the lab through separate doors. They sit face to face and answer a series of increasingly personal questions. Then they stare silently into each other’s eyes for four minutes. The most tantalizing detail: Six months later, two participants were married. They invited the entire lab to the ceremony.

I have really struggled to maintain eye contact with people for a long time now. We had a workshop on public speaking at work, and part of that involved trying to maintain eye contact with someone else for as long as you could. I was fairly good friends with the person I was partnered with, and I lasted about 3 seconds. It's just so difficult.

The biggest reason for me is that I feel really vulnerable, like the person looking at me can tell what I'm thinking. In high school and most of university, the biggest hint that I was interested in someone is that whenever they were around, I'd find the floor incredibly fascinating. Oh, and lying. I've gotten a bit better at it now, but it used to be the case that I just couldn't lie to someone while looking at their eyes. It's like eyes are super truth lasers or something like that. (As a side note, because I feel like this is going to come up, if I tell you something and I'm not looking at your face, that doesn't mean I am lying!)

Looking at someone in the eyes while telling them something seems to carry a feeling of honesty with it. It opens yourself up to scrutiny, and you're also not as easily able to hide those micro-expressions that betray your true meaning.

Back to the article, I can see how something like that would develop intimacy with someone quite quickly. I find that when someone shares something quite intimate with me, I immediately feel closer to them, and am comfortable sharing in return. Maybe it's the idea of mutually assured destruction - you reveal my secret, and I'll reveal yours?

I don't know if this kind of thing would work unless the other person was already somewhat attracted to you. I can already think of a couple of times when someone has said something intimate to someone else, and the recipient did not appreciate it at all. It all comes back to the hot vs creepy thing. A hot guy tells you that he thinks about you while sleeping, and you picture yourselves falling in love.

Or maybe you picture yourselves doing some non-PG rated things, but my MS Paint skills aren't really that great.

Unattractive guy tells you that he thinks about you while sleeping, and you start to get worried.

OK, perhaps a bit extreme, but there definitely has to be some level of pre-existing attraction or intimacy before you go baring your soul. If you went around staring at people and asking them probing questions, I doubt they'd respond very well.

What I take from this article is that if you do want to build intimacy quickly with someone, you have to be willing to put yourself into a position of vulnerability, but it's also important to listen to other people's answers, and give them the feeling that they can also tell you everything. I imagine if the questions went something like this:

Candidate 1: What is something that you've done that you've never told anybody about?
Candidate 2: Well, there was the time when I was at home alone with my sister. I knew that our parents were going to be out for another two hours at least, so the coast was clear. I waited until she got into the shower, and I crept downstairs quietly, and baked a batch of choc-chip mint cookies.
Candidate 1: WHAT?! You like mint?! That's just disgusting. 

there wouldn't be much intimacy at all.