By Romeo Montague
It is amazing how much there is to eye contact.
This thought came to me while riding the bus home tonight. I'd say it was an ordinary bus full of students with no crazy people stories or overheard one-liners to report.
I say that but that's not what I felt during the bus ride. If you'd stopped me while I was getting off the bus ask questioned me on my ride I'd probably've said something like this:
"Um... It was weird. In a good way. I think. Just not really a bad way, you know?"
Why? Eye contact. And a good deal more of it what I was used to.
It's not uncommon to make eye contact with others on the bus in sort of a looking-at-the-stuff-around-me kind of way. This evening was different. Three people matched eyes with me multiple times with either no facial expression or one that was vaguely a smile.
Usually I look away as soon as contact is made because, I mean, what would someone think if I didn't?
Tonight was different in that I felt like I was having silent exchanges with these people I didn't know. I don't remember any nods or full-on smiles or frowns or any other signals that people give to strangers.
How much can one say through a look at a stranger who has no way of knowing the context or habits of your looks? This made me consider why we have so many different conventions with eye contact in society at all. Why is staring rude (or flattering)?
I think it's because a look is that person's attention. To have someone look at you is to momentarily have their attention. And to have someone look at you while you look at them is to make known to each other you are giving them your attention, if only for an instant.
Maybe that is why tonight left me pondering. I shared my attention, a moment of my own personal existence, with another who did the same to me. For no reason.
It felt like a mutual recognition of one another's existence.
And,
I think,
that is good.
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