Eye contact is a lot like pooping. Some is good, but non-stop is not so good. I had to learn this the hard way, of course. I used to be painfully shy (whereas now I’d characterize my shyness as more of an intermittent dull ache, manageable but still sometimes unpleasant). The prospect of parties or social situations where I wouldn’t know many people filled me with palm-sweating clamminess, heart-palpitations and rampant blushing (the blushing remains an ongoing issue and cause of frequent embarrassment, but I digress).

Eye contact used to be a bit of a problem for me. I’d tentatively raise my gaze towards a stranger’s eyes, but at the last moment my eyeballs would behave like a skittish grey mare and gallop off. I remember having a very stern talk to myself before going to one particular party, telling myself that I would seem more normal if I made lots of eye contact with new people that night. And boy did I ever! My eye contact was unblinking, sustained and unremitting and I felt very very proud of myself. It took a while for the euphoria of my eye contact success to fade enough to realise that I was making my eye contact guinea pigs profoundly uneasy. It appeared as if some believed I wanted to fight them, while others thought I was doing some kind of sexy eyeball voodoo move. But I suspect most of my stare victims just thought I was unhinged (or possibly a serial killer).

Ultimately, the experiment was an extravaganza of cringe, but I learnt from it. Like laser beams or a pole dancer’s thighs, eyeballs are powerful and too much of a powerful thing can be dangerous.