Are you never able to “hook up” with your date on a first date? An American neurologist knows an astonishing and simple tip for establishing a successful first contact… And more if there is affinity? Your turn to try.
Are you going on a series of first dates without really meeting the spark that makes the difference? A scientist may have the key to establishing a lasting connection with your date, and her solution is rather unexpected.
Look at your date’s left eye to make better contact
So, for Dr Tara Swart, lecturer in behavioral sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the best way to create emotional contact would be to… look at the left eye of the person in front of you. Why that ? She explained it in a podcast, and it would have a link with our parents:
“Most people are right-handed, so they will hold their baby in their left arm, so they can use their dominant hand to do things. This means that when you look at your baby, your right eye is looking at their left and this nerve interaction optics travel through the brain. This impacts the amygdala, where emotions come from.”
In short, by looking at your date’s left eye, you “create this emotional resonance loop that is part of how mother and baby bond (primitive bond).”
Of course, you might come across someone whose parents were left-handed rather than right-handed, and that theory would fall through. But according to the neurologist, looking at the left eye is “statistically more interesting”.
Allow yourself “light” physical contact
The other natural tip of this neurologist to provoke a successful meeting consists of building a bond via light physical contact: a handshake, a hug when saying hello, a kiss… According to Tara Swart, these are harmless acts, “which yet create higher levels of the bonding hormone oxytocin and invite you to let your guard down slightly, and take a healthy risk.” Nicknamed “the love hormone”, oxytocin produced in the part of the brain called the hypothalamus, and secreted into the bloodstream by the pituitary gland, helps to regulate emotional responses.
Of course, it is in no way a matter of imposing physical contact on the other person or of feeling obliged to give each other a kiss or more. Consent remains rule number 1. But if you both want the meeting to take a little more personal turn, “the more physical contact you can get, the better.” she decrees.
