this post was submitted on 22 Mar 2025
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Men, help me read eye contact.

Mainly interested in this guy who's always extremely serious when looking at me: he holds eye contact and i've caught him looking at me when I can't see him but whenever we interact he's dead serious.

Never smiled back to me, he's always nice though.. He doesn't seem shy but maybe I can't tell cause he seems very masculine... I don't understand if he's just serious, or shy or intentionally doing that. He almost looks angry but I can tell he's not haha

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (10 children)

Probably just someone without well calibrated facial expressions. Learned to be very stoic and show no emotions.

Easiest way to find out would be to just ask him what he's thinking when he looks so seriously at you, though I understand that's probably very scary.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago (9 children)

Yes I thought about it, but the weirdest for me is not smiling back at me. That's what typically happens even with strangers, no? I happen to smile at someone I'll never see again and they smile back, it just happens and I'm not the most social person myself... But in this case we bump into each other frequently, he will nod or say hi but smiling NEVER

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago (2 children)

He hasn't hit the threshold of emotion necessarily to cause a smile response. Your threshold is so low that you smile just by looking at someone.

Why his smile threshold is where it is can be due to many factors like culture, abuse, trauma, state of being, mental state, social conditioning, etc.

There is a Russian saying that states "A man who smiles without reason is mad(insane)." Give him a reason to smile.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Haha you're right, I just hope it's not bc of me 😔

I'd love to make him smile but I'm afraid I might cross a line, I really don't understand if I've bothered him in that past

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

You have two options.

Option 1: You keep overthinking and never approach him because you think he is a certain way. All downsides in a small scale.

Option 2: You talk to him, be direct, and you get to find out who he is. Either he has no interest for whatever reason or you find a great guy. I guess he could secretly be a serial killer or like fights dogs, but finding that out is just part of what makes dating fun.

Let me let you in on an open secret, girls have a far higher success rate approaching guys than the other way around. So if he, or any guy, appeals to you just fucking approach him and be direct. Eye contact and giving looks aren't signs that tell a guy a girl is interested. We are conditioned to believe a girl being nice is just a girl being nice and to ignore anything but the most obvious and direct indications of romantic interest. Seriously, just walk up to a dude and say "I think you're cute/attractive, want to go out sometime?" Very high chance of success if he is single and you aren't a 2 that just crawled out of a swamp trying for a 10.

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