the gaze, post-college edition

Scientific proof of what Dale Carnegie (How to Win Friends and Influence People) and authors like him have been saying for years: “People prefer faces that appear to ‘like’ them, showing that attraction is not simply about physical beauty.” Averting your gaze — instead of frank, straightforward eye-contact, coupled with a smile — has a “pronounced subliminal effect,” and an entirely negative one.

Translation: Don’t stand there looking bored and distracted; it’s unlikely someone will take it as bait and attempt to cheer you up / ask you out / find you interesting, engaging, and deserving of a big, fat promotion.

PS. Come to think of it — and I was, actually, just thinking this, which is pathetic in a way — this explains the rapidly diverging paths of Lauren Conrad and Whitney Port. Whitney is going up, up, up because she’s alert and she wants it and it’s written all over her face. LC, on the other hand, glimpsed in professional settings, tends to look like she just got up from a nap. Seeing her at her desk at Teen Vogue, all pouty and sideways glances — I want to reach through the t.v. screen and hand her a cup of coffee.

to amuse yourself while walking down the street

The past couple weeks I’ve been conducting an experiment. When I’m walking New York City sidewalks and happen to catch someone’s eye, instead of continuing on with the same neutral expression, I smile. As if I’m pleased to see this particular stranger.

Not a grin, nothing that might have him or her thinking I’m a muttering crazy lady, or a junkie who just got her fix, simply a modest, almost half-smile. It has to be genuine, though, which means — and I’m being serious here — the area around the eyes has to crinkle. If only the sides of your mouth are drawn back and up, then the smile’s clearly fake and it comes across as more aggressive than reassuring. (You know what I’m talking about. It’s like the Chili’s hostess who’s been reprimanded by her manager to be “more upbeat,” so when you walk in the door five minutes later, she acts like it’s a family reunion five years in the making, and it freaks you out.)

How do you smile genuinely? I wonder about this from time to time, and my latest answer is this: You have to decide that, unless you have absolute evidence to the contrary, you will regard every human being you encounter as a well-intentioned person capable of bringing you joy. Or perhaps just pleasure.

Thing is, you have to make this decision every other day. Over and over again. Sometimes — and especially in late winter, when bodies are cold and nerves are frayed — every day. Smiling well is first and foremost an intellectual exercise.