How to avoid awkward eye contact and achieve stare-endipity

UNC is a walking campus. Cars have to stop at every crosswalk on Cameron Avenue, we can threaten buses with paying our tuition, and eye contact is inevitable — and usually awkward.

We walk out of an academic building — looking down at our phone — and hear a bee buzzing around our head. While swatting the air and looking for the bee that crashed our date with social media, we tragically meet the fate we fondly avoid: making eye contact with — wait for it, our brain is still processing — a person.

Our heart rate speeds up, our armpits perspire — did we put on deodorant this morning? — and our feet, as stubborn as we are, refuse to move.

Time freezes.

First, we curse all bees for luring us into the dark void of human interaction.

Then, we remember that the bees are dying, and we feel bad about our lack of moral integrity, quickly making a note to order a “save the bees” pin off Amazon.

And as if the blood of all bees being on our hands isn’t enough, we literally face a bigger problem: the eyes staring back at us.

Time thaws, and the moment of confrontation is hardly over.

Should we laugh or cry? Should we smile or look away? Should we say hi or stay silent? Is this moment really happening or is it a mere side effect of too many hours spent in Davis?

Here are some tips from UNC students on how to avoid melting into a puddle on the floor when faced with awkward eye contact:

Look at your phone

Millennials are attached to their cellphones. It’s not an insult; it’s a truth. As mitochondria are indisputably the powerhouse of the cell, your cell is indisputably the powerhouse against awkward eye contact. 

If you see someone you know at a distance, look at your phone until the distance shortens.

Don’t be the person who holds a door open for someone who’s 10 feet away, forcing them to shimmy-run toward you. They will secretly hold a grudge against you for the rest of their life.

Moral: Don’t be seemingly nice, but be actually nice, and don’t perpetuate the awkward.

“If I know them, I look at my phone and look back up at the opportune moment, but if I know them, but we don’t really talk and it’d just be awkward, I just look at my phone. I just keep walking,” said first-year Valorie George.

Laugh it Off

Sometimes, we embarrass ourselves. And sometimes, people see us do it.

We might love the old bricks that keep our school’s foundation strong — or wobbly, depending on the brick — but they constantly taunt our perceived cool, calm and collected self-image.

If you make eye contact after tripping on a brick, don’t panic! Instead, laugh it off. Hopefully, the other person will laugh too, easing your worries of looking like a dweeb.

Sometimes, though, life doesn’t work the way we want, and people don’t laugh at our jokes, and we’re left laughing by ourselves.

Admit it, we’re all dweebs once in a while.

“I was coming out of Morrison, and I like tripped over like the flower-bed edge thing, and then I stumbled and looked up, and made dead eye contact with this guy, and I just started laughing out loud. He did not laugh," said sophomore Jessie Keener. "And then I just kept walking, and it was so awkward.”

Make Friends

The best types of people are those who ease awkward situations. And we all want to be the best types of people.

So the next time you make awkward eye contact with someone, become friends. You’re feeling awkward, and they’re feeling awkward — you already have something in common.

Who knows, that person might even be your soul mate, and it’s not every day you meet your soul mate. Or maybe it is. You’ll never know if you don’t stop staring and start talking.

“I thought I knew them from somewhere, but I didn’t so I was like, too late now, and introduced myself. It’s how I met 20 percent of the people I know this year,” said sophomore David Waddell.

Just Look Away

If you make awkward eye contact and you feel like you might panic, or you stayed up all night to write a 10-page paper and you have no energy, or if you’re truly calm in all situations — just look away.

Something to avoid at all costs: don’t keep staring.

While staring for less than one second might simply make the other person wonder if they have toothpaste on their shirt, staring for longer than one second might make them wonder if they’re your next murder victim.

We tread a fine line — better safe than sorry.

“I thought I knew them, but I didn’t. I just, uh, looked down,” said first-year Tommy Fabian.

@laur_wren04

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