I'm creating a new acronym: AEC, awkward eye contact. Put yourself in this situation and you too will see why this acronym needs to be adopted into our everyday lingo.
Imagine this: You're sitting in class with your notebook in front of you. There's doodles all over the page as well as the lyrics to your "jam" of the week. Somewhere on the page are the seemingly inconsequential notes that you've taken for the day. You're professor is talking about something that you haven't been paying attention to since the first five minutes of class. You're sitting in a circle formation, so if you look anywhere but at your notebook you'll be looking at one of your class mates. There's a hot blonde dude directly across from you though (if you are of the straight male persuasion and reading this, imagine a biddy instead), and you've been wanting to look at him for awhile. You decide it's time to take a chance and look up at him and his Greek-god like beauty. You look up at him, YES! he's also doodling so you can let your gaze linger. Within a span of approximately five seconds he looks up at you. SHIT. You quickly look to some proximal location to make it seem as though you weren't just staring at him. For just one moment, the two of you were looking directly at one another. And, now, you're sitting there wondering if he actually noticed the AEC or if it was just your imagination. And, if he did notice it, you're wondering if he's over there wondering about why you were staring at him and for how long your stare lasted. Embarrassment sets in and you go back to doodling, or if your me, you write little notes regarding the degree of awkwardness of that little moment. Now, you would think that we would learn from this experience, but no the AEC happens all the time. We can't seem to stop having these moments. Perhaps, we should just give in and actually talk to the person, especially after repeated AEC incidents. You know, make a new friend...
No human contact is way to scary for our generation.
