You've got the look

Don’t stare into her eyes too long, you might get her pregnant. My three female readers, are you aware that there are different levels of glares that men can give you that you must learn to protect yourself against (or, at least, build up an immunity to)? The first level of glare is the one that exposes you to his x-ray vision. The second level of glare is the one that will require you to be quarantined. And the last type of glare is the one that will require you to take a pregnancy test.

But while you scour for lead-lined underwear, how can you measure the intensity of a man’s stare? By observing a body part of his that will grow to three times its size when it is stimulated.

Well, I was going to go with the answer “pupils of the eyes.” But feel free to go with that answer as well if its growth stimulates your attention. 

According to Echkard Hess, former head of the Department of Psychology at the University of Chicago, he found that pupil size is affected by one’s general state of arousal: pupil size increases when people view something that stimulates them. So, my three female readers, when a No Girlfriend Since Birth (NGSB) gazes at you with dilated eyes, he either finds you very attractive or he has just come from his room where he was watching really nasty porn. 

But more interesting than watching really nasty porn (well, most of the time) is that, according to body language experts Allan and Barbara Pease, gazing intently into each other’s eyes will get you a second date. For an Australian television show, their research organization used a dating agency to test this theory: They selected several men and women who were told their next dates were well matched, and they would have as fun a time as possible without having to take any blood tests and urine samples. But they also told each man and woman separately that their date had suffered an eye injury as a child and that he or she was very sensitive about it because the eye didn’t track properly. The researchers added that they weren’t sure which eye was injured, but said that if they looked closely enough, they would be able to pick out which eye was injured.

During their dates, the couples spent the evening gazing into each other’s eyes and giving each other eye exams while searching for the problematic eye. The result of these dates was that the couples reported high levels of intimacy, romance, and overextended conversations about good ophthalmologists, and that the likelihood of the couple going on a second date was 200 percent higher than the dating agency average. So, what have we learned from all this? We have learned from this experiment something that our government has been trying to teach us since 2001 — that it is OK to lie through your teeth as long as you get the results that you want.

Now that we all understand how misleading people is the basis for building a solid relationship, let us talk about something very basic: the proper way to gaze. Although this seems to be a rather elementary subject, men still manage to flunk this subject. I’m not sure why, but I think most men are under the impression that there might be a pair of eyes on female breasts. The book Why Men Don’t Listen and Women Can’t Read Maps, says that the geographical area of a person’s face and body that you gaze upon can dramatically alter the outcome of your encounter as to whether it will end up in intimacy, in a medical emergency or, if you’re really lucky, in a little bit of both.

First, you have the social gaze. This is the type of non-threatening gaze you initiate where you look at the triangular area of the other person’s face between the eyes and the mouth for about 90 percent of the gaze time. This is the area of the face we look at in a non-threatening environment. Mind you, this type of gazing is very appropriate in most social encounters except when you meet with a Viva Hot Babe. (“What’s wrong with you, don’t you want to look at my breasts!? Can’t you see they’re staring right back at you, hmp!”)

The second type of gaze is the one that can lead to potentially life-threatening injuries: the intimate gaze. This is the type of gaze people take when they approach each other from a distance: they steal two quick glances between the other person’s face and lower body to first establish if the reproductive organs of that person are complementary or comparable to his or her own, and then a second time to determine if any body part of his or hers will grow to three times its normal size. This gaze runs from across the eyes and below the chin to the southern parts of the person’s geography.  And despite vehement denials of it, hidden cameras reveal that everybody engages in the intimate gaze, even chief executives. 

The Definitive Book of Body Language conducted an experiment where they sent a group of non-nudists to a nudist colony (It was pretty easy though to spot the non-regular nudists from the lifestyle nudists because they were the only ones who were covering their faces so you wouldn’t be able to recognize them). All the non-regular nudist men reported that they had trouble resisting the urge to study the more salient points of the female anatomy, and the hidden video replays showed just how obvious it was when they did look down. These non-regular nudist men were penalized by the nudist colony by being forced to wear boxer shorts.

Meanwhile, the non-regular nudist women claimed that they did not experience the same trouble when they were studying the (presumably) non-circumcised parts of the male anatomy. This is because, unlike a man’s tunnel vision, a women’s mutant peripheral vision extends to at least 45 degrees to each side, above and below. This means that she can appear to be looking at a man’s face while, at the same time, checking out the parts that are hopefully worth checking. Now, what does this all have to do with gazing?  Well, nothing really, but isn’t it always fun to talk about nude people?

The last type of gaze is one that can lead to paternity suits. This is, according The Anatomy of Love: The Natural History of Monogamy, Adultery and Divorce, what is called by many a gynecologist and DOM as the “copulatory” gaze.  And what is more potent about the copulatory gaze is that it is usually initiated by the female (although my wife will never admit it. Hehehehe. Joke lang, sweetheart. Please don’t use the hot poker on me again). This is an intense two to three-second stare that has the power to dissolve underwear. After a stare that would make the Care Bears feel insecure, the starer drops his or her eyelids then looks away. Once the stare has been established, the man will turn all fidgety — he will probably tug at his earlobe, adjust his shirt, fiddle with his eyeglasses, involuntarily pee into his underwear, or perform some other meaningless movement — a “displacement gesture” to alleviate anxiety while deciding how to acknowledge this invitation.  Should he flee the premises and make sumbong (confess) to his yaya that the girl was giving him that look which he only sees in porn movies, or should he replace his dissolved underwear with a new pair and try to engage the woman in conversation (that is, if his brain has not yet been turned to Jell-O)?

This is often the effect of the copulatory gaze on most weak-willed, knock-kneed and mama’s-boy men (Not that I am speaking from experience. Tumahimik ka, Yaya). But for men who have had No Girlfriends Since Birth (NGSB), this type of gaze can be particularly debilitating. It can cause one to lose his rationality, his motor functions and his bowel movements. Thus, to withstand the intensity of the gaze and to eventually partake of its fringe benefits, a man must be willing to undergo stare training.

That being the case, allow me to introduce you to the illuminati of the copulatory gaze: the baboons. No, no silly. Not the pro Con-con or the Con-Ass ones (or whatever con they are trying to pull) in congress. I’m talking about the ones in Manila Zoo.

Baboons gaze intently at each other during courtship. In fact, anthropologist Barbara Smuts (yes, that is the anthropologist’s real name) said that a budding baboon courtship she witnessed on the Eburru cliffs of Kenya “looked like two novices in a singles bar.” You know, I swear I’ve seen some of those baboons hanging around the local nightclubs. In my heathen bachelorhood, I might have accidentally picked up a couple of them, too.

Smuts related that the affair began one evening when a female baboon, Thalia, turned and caught a young male, Alex, staring at her. (The real names of the baboons have been hidden to protect their privacy. These are their professional adult movie star names). He glanced away immediately. So she stared at him — until he turned to look at her. Then she looked down, then proceeded to intently fiddle with her toes. On it went. Each time she stared at him, he looked away; each time he stared at her, she groomed her feet. This type of patintero gazing continued until Alex finally caught Thalia gazing at him — the much sought-after “return” gaze. 

Immediately, Alex flattened his ears against his head, narrowed his eyelids, and began to smack his lips, the height of friendliness in baboon society and among men who can only pick up women in KTVs. Thalia froze. For a long moment, she looked Alex in the eye. Only after this extended eye contact did Alex approach her, at which point Thalia began to groom him — the beginning of an almost life-long lice-picking sexual fetish partnership.

So my (former fellow) NGSBs, take heed: if you see a female intently fiddling with her toes in a bar after giving you that underwear-dissolving stare, then you know you’re in for some real action. But if you are wary of trying out the copulatory gaze in bars because your underwear is not yet ready for it, try them first with people whom you are comfortable with.    

However, if your yaya is unwilling to practice with you, then I know some baboons that are willing to give it a try.  And again, I’m not referring to the ones in Congress. My apologies to the baboons.

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For comments, suggestions or you would like to buy the baboons a drink, please text PM POGI text message to 2948 for Globe, Smart or Sun subscribers. Or e-mail ledesma.rj@gmail.com or visit http://www.rjledesma.net.