the notorious act of eye contact (as it pertains to mating)

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As I understand it there is a commonality in mammals as it deals in eye contact. Gazing or staring prolongedly into another person's eyes means one of two things, an invitation to mate, or a sign that you are prepared to fight.

By now some of us can force ourselves to make eye contact, but there's a potential problem of prolonged eye contact being misinterpreted as wanting to have sex, or wanting to attack.

What are your thoughts on the subtle differences between aggressive and passionate eye contact? When gazing into the eyes of a member of the opposite sex, what do you believe are some ways that you can convey interest that has that member feeling more comfortable, AND without coming across too strongly?

Perhaps a complementing smile goes a long way in helping, but personally it's harder for me to smile at strangers than it is to look into their eyes, and I don't want to come across as an overly-happy doofus. Many out there probably feel the same way. Let's help each other out on this, shall we.

fight: prolonged eye contact with mouth neutral or turned down

mate: inetemittent eye contact broken with looking away periodically and smiling a little. The smiling isn't mandatory. The looking away and then looking back and then looking away and then looking back is.

I think Janissy has this more or less covered. Just try it out, as Janissy outlined it, without worrying too much; in the company of those in your dating pool, having a nice conversation, it's definitely not sexual harassment. If looking directly into the eyes really makes you uncomfortable, try the bridge of the nose.

Whenever I look into a woman's eyes she really wants me in the most animalistic, sexualistic sense of the word.

Sometimes also when I accidentally look at her boobs - e.g. if they are quite big or quite prominent - an animalistic attitude overcomes her and her face and voice change and she really wants to have babies with me.

Again, like I say, I can't help it; I am a sex magnet for women, and they want my babies.

heh.. must be your humility!

a lot of idiots speak about making a woman laugh, writing them poetry, talking about feelings, being cocky-funny, etc, but besides being a nice, friendly guy this is literally the only trick you need in your arsenal if you want to successfully seduce a girl. i can talk about the most boring stuff in the world, maintain direct eye contact, and i still manage to seduce. everything except your walk and confidence can be imperfect, but if you manage to do the direct eye contact thing with any girl that's interested, you're still good to go. once i started doing this with women, my entire way of interacting with them changed.

I've read from numerous sources that if a male has seduction in mind, he must establish eye contact and maintain that contact until the female looks away. This supposedly shows that you are bold and unintimidated by her. Are you sure the tactic you described isn't meant for females?

One of the unfortunate things about learning eye contact is that different sources say different things, except that they all agree that it is crucial. It can be difficult to discern which tactics you read are truth or guesswork.

i think generally if there is attraction pupils will dilate. of course the ambient light level will make this more difficult to discern but i think it is a good indicator of attraction or being stoned. I felt like girls were more attracted to me when i was stoned and relaxed.

The look for a bit and look away thing is a game most primates play. The "I wasn't looking at you" game turned into a lot more fun for me when I became sure of what it meant, though I did it most on public transit so I needed to head over and go for direct eye contact a lot quicker unless they were just going to up and vanish at some near stop.

In a similar way eye contact itself became much easier for me when I checked around to see how long it would take other people to look away. I use it now to get homos(?) to stop looking at me, though obviously accompanied by the "I'm ready to fight" characteristics rather than the "I'm ready to sex" ones. It might just be that on public transit everyone sweeping their eyes around fears for their lives but whatever the case looking into people's eyes started to feel just a little empowering for me.

If I really feel like I need to look away from someone I'm talking to I shoot my eyes up to the full 45 degree direction (throwing in some jitter if it feels right,) and give a few other indications that I'm trying to think of something, especially the "I'm about to say something" sounds if they're not the type to let me get in a word edgewise. I'm not sure if this should be effective in dating but it feels at least "good enough" for conversation with girls.

I think Janissy is pretty much right, but I'd make a couple changes to differentiate passionate from friendly eye contact.

Typical friendly eye contact is only maintained a short time before looking away, maybe about a second? (Haven't really timed it...maybe someone else knows?). Passionate eye contact is held for longer.

The more important difference is that friendly eye contact is aimed at your general eye area, and attention isn't very fixed or direct. In passionate eye contact, attention is fixed directly and intensely into your eyes. The energy level of it is totally different.

Smiles can accompany either one. With passionate eye contact, whatever the expression, the energy level should be turned way up. Everything is amplified.

I believe this is true for both genders, although women tend to look away more frequently and do the whole batting the eyelashes/looking over the shoulder thing more (yuck). What do you think?

This system isn't foolproof, though. Every so often, you'll encounter someone who makes the sort of eye contact that typically indicates romantic interest, but they're actually not interested at all. AFAIK, though, I've only ever met one of these, so I think the track record is pretty good.

BTW, I really like the original question.

I can't look at people in the eyes, it makes me feel sick.

I've heard that as well, and maybe now my subconscious is developed enough to notice that.

Flirting is a pretty natural behavior so a lot of girls will do it when they would turn you down for a date or even conversation. If someone is doing these eye things at you they think you are attractive but they may not really be thinking all that much.

Intent to fight or mate can be determined by context. I've never engaged in hand-to-hand combat with a female at the conclusion of a date. Nice avatar.

Likewise, my Vulcan brother.

This is true, but not unique to arousal. It, like the eye contact, is also a part of the fight-or-flight response.