The Power of Seducing with Your Eyes

Forget this silly TikTok "triangle gaze" trend. Here's how the most famous seducers in history used their eyes to flirt.

By now, we all know that TikTok is your one-stop shop for weird-ass dating advice disguised as hating on the opposite gender. Slap your sweetie with a tortilla, down some testicle meat, recycle your favorite "high-value" man meme, and you have one mega beast of TikTok fuckuppery.

But the latest flirting advice might make us hit the old-timey rewind button on our descent into de-evolution.

It's called the "triangle gaze," and it doubles as both a seduction technique and a way to alert your date that they have broccoli stuck in their teeth. Best of all, even if you flunked geometry, you can still get this Pythagorean theorem of seduction nailed.

All you do is trace an inverted triangle on your crush. Look at one eye. Then their mouth. And then back up to their other eye. And voila…watch the flames of lust burn in your beloved's eyes. (Sorry, I get purple prose(y) when trying to justify pseudoscientific body language.)

According to cod psychology experts, looking at the eye and then the mouth signals you are about to move in for a kiss. (Let’s just hope your date is a body language expert because I could see that one going horribly wrong.)

To be fair, this advice has some merit. But it complicates one of the most powerful flirting techniques — eye gazing.

Since humans walked upright, they have been flirting with their eyes. Aristotle called the eyes "the organs of temptation." Socrates taught that "what is most loveable is most beautiful." He believed when our eyes behold beauty, we see the promise of love. Plato took Socrates' teaching a step further and believed our eyes allow our souls to see.

Philosophy aside, women throughout history seduced men with their eyes. Renaissance women dilated their pupils with drops of belladonna. And although they might have gone blind in their seduction dance, research shows they were on to something.

During sexual arousal, the pupils dilate. Interestingly, one study on pupil dilation found that men respond more to dilated pupils than women do. Researchers theorized that men are attracted to women with larger pupils because it signifies the woman is ready for sex. Sure.

You can mimic this "I am about to cum” look on your next date with circle contacts that extend the limbic ring. There’s only one problem. How will he know if you are really enjoying yourself or on drugs? Tricky.

Another study found that people with dilated pupils are viewed as more trustworthy. This one makes sense. In most mammals, the whites of the eyes — the sclera — are dark. But the whites in the eyes of primates and humans serve an important purpose — they signal gaze direction. Although one could argue detecting gaze direction is also a sign of mistrust. Humans make love or war.

But perhaps the eyes seduce for unscientific reasons too. The Elizabethans interpreted Shakespeare's infamous "the eyes are the window to the soul" quip literally. They believed people with blue eyes were honest. Green-eyed people were prone to jealousy. And people with dark eyes were mysterious.

Whatever the eye color, examples of eye seducers abound. Lord Byron had his infamous "underlook." At fancy parties, he would tilt his head down and gaze at the ground as if he found the floor more interesting than his company. Then with this head still down, he would look up at his target and undress her with his eyes.

Byron’s eyes removed plenty of petticoats. We can imagine how his lovers must have felt like he was sharing a secret with his eyes.

Grigori Rasputin used his eyes to bore into someone's soul. Supposedly, his gaze was so captivating that it made women want to sin. (And by sin, I mean Rasputin was a total manwhore.) Legend has it that he hypnotized the entire royal court with his eyes. He certainly won the trust of Tsarina Alexandra.

I dunno. This one makes me grab my pocket mace.

Marlene Dietrich mastered the eye flirt by shaving off her eyebrows and drawing new ones higher than her natural brow.

During many of her seduction scenes, she raised her brows and lowered her sultry lids. I suspect that her narrowed eyes were alluring because they mimicked a woman in orgasm. There's nothing sexier than a woman in the throes of pleasure.

Of course, her higher brows could have also signaled youth to our lizard brains. Unfortunately, as we age, our brows lower.

Screen vamp Theda Bara's kohl-rimmed, brooding eyes captivated audiences with their intensity. Even in black and white film, her expressive gaze went from lioness to kitten.

But there might be another reason for her come hither look. Bara was so near-sighted that she had to memorize the location of furniture and props on each set so she wouldn't trip over them. (Glasses were not sexy in the 1920s.)

That's not smolder. That's squinting because she can't see.

Marilyn Monroe created her infamous doe-eyed look with long fluttering eyelashes. She cut her false eyelashes in the middle and used them to extend her eyes to create an almond shape. Then she arched her neck to the side and demurely looked up at the camera. It was the female version of Byron's underlook.

But these are examples of seducing the public. The rest of us poor slobs will have to work our charms on our significant other. Fortunately, we don't have to work too hard. Simply holding your lover's gaze builds intimacy.

In the 1970s, Zick Rubin found that couples with a stronger connection held each other's eyes longer. Strangers held each other's gaze anywhere from 30–60% of the time, but couples held each other's gaze 70% of the time.

Psychologist Arthur Arun picked up the mantle of Rubin's research. In one infamous experiment, Arun asked two strangers to reveal intimate details about their lives and stare into each other's eyes without talking.

Of course, this exercise is not easy. But the strangers reported a greater attraction to each other after their staring contest.

That attraction is partly due to mirror neurons — a type of brain cell that respond equally when we perform an action and when we witness someone performing the same activity. Mirror neurons fire when we mirror our partner's smiles, tears, and laughter. Mirror neurons are our empathy receptors. They make us feel what we see.

Naturally, deep-eye gazing also reveals clues about sexual arousal. One interesting study examined how the eye gaze differed in people in love vs. lust. Although I would argue that those two emotions often collide, the researchers found that those in love focused more on their significant other's face than their bodies.

Still, there is a fine line between creepy staring contests and flirting with your eyes. Most master flirts will hold someone's gaze and then look away. These seducers share one trait — they balance desire with mystery.

There are countless internet articles on how to flirt with your eyes. I won't give any trite pickup advice for one reason — you can't force attraction. If you are interested in someone, you will naturally hold their gaze. Dale Carnegie’s wisdom applies — “to be interesting, be interested.”

Sure, you could manipulate someone into thinking you like them when you rather be staring at a brick wall, but I don't give such advice.

And remember that many neurodivergent people struggle with eye contact. That doesn’t mean they are not interested. It means their senses are picking up more than someone’s gaze.

Let’s let Herodotus weigh in. He said, "Men trust their ears less than their eyes."

Sadly, I doubt his wisdom applies to modern romance. In our appearance-focused world of online dating, we rely on our eyes far more than our ears. So maybe some clever TikTok influencer can invent a triangle technique for listening next.

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