Sometimes you have to disconnect to stay connected. Remember the old days when you had eye contact during a conversation? When everyone wasn't looking down at a device in their hands? We've become so focused on that tiny screen that we forget the big picture, the people right in front of us.
I just always knew that I lived in two worlds. There was the world of my house and community, but to make my way in that white world I had to modify the way I spoke and acted. I had to sometimes not make direct eye contact.
Flirting all starts with eye contact! You can tell a girl is into you if she's across the room and still making eye contact with you.
If you see a gaggle of teenagers walking towards you, you tend not to make eye contact, because you know they're going to recognise you. You learn to adapt: 99.999 per cent of people aren't looking to be harmful or unpleasant; they just want something, a photograph or an autograph.
People simply don't make eye contact anymore.
Making eye contact with adults while dressed as a clown is risky.
As any speaker will tell you, when you address a large number of people from a stage, you try to make eye contact with people in the audience to communicate that you're accessible and interested in them.
There is a saying, 'Eyes are the windows to the soul.' It means, mostly, people can see through someone else by eye contact in seven seconds. I have a habit that if I meet someone I don't know, I'd like to look at her or his eyes on purpose. When my eyes lay on them, I can immediately see their true color.
I have a big thing with eye contact, because I think as soon as you make eye contact with somebody, you see them, and they become valued and worthy.
I am very superstitious about toasts. I never toast with water, and I'm very careful to make eye contact with everyone I toast with.