I’ve made several promises to myself over the years. More like little pacts, a promise to change and create a new habit. When I was fourteen, I got my first job in a restaurant as a hostess. I would listen to the servers and hear “y’all” every other word. Now living in the south, that’s completely normal, but for some reason, for me personally, it sounded funny to me. To the point that, to this day you will most likely not catch me saying this. I’ll hit you with a “you guys”.

I’m pretty dead set when I make my mind up, so if I make a conscious agreement with me I like to hold myself accountable. Nobody else in this world will truly hold me accountable, I have to! People can change, they just have to want to!

Now, most of the time I silently make these pacts with me. I don’t say them out loud or even realize until someone points out a weird quirk of mine, which I then vocalize it. If a conversation about a topic comes up and I am adamant about my opinion, I sometimes realize that I’ve been having this conversation in my head for a while and never was aware of it.

Fast forward, I’m in my twenties working at a little family restaurant/bar and I make another secret pinky promise to myself. I didn’t realize until my thirties how set I was on this promise.

Initiation of eye contact…

They say the eyes are the window to the soul. For some reason I became hyper aware of when people looked into my eyes, while waiting tables and bartending, that eye contact initiation is a unspoken contest between two opponents to claim victory of dominance, power or respect! People speak more truthfully through their eyes than their words. If you’ve become aware of this tiny superpower, you may have realized certain types of people or in certain situations, people cannot connect through their eyes because a lack of confidence or dishonesty.

When meeting someone, I choose to take the first step on the social battleground. I catch myself initiating the first eye contact, if I’m beaten I feel a strong presence and maybe the empath in me is feeling the vibration you’re sending my way (good or bad). If the force is strong with you.. I then may proceed with caution. It’s like our way of sniffing each other’s butts like dogs do. They pick up scents, we pick up vibes.

I made this eye contact pact at my long time job of 12 years! I believe it was in 2004 I began working there. I was ironically at dinner now in 2021, back at my old stomping grounds, after a soccer game with my teammate and her boyfriend. We had a fun bubbly server that instantly became my best friend and we just chatted away sharing our lives. After she walked off I mentioned, it’s always so strange how people can be drawn to me and open up so fast and overshare with me. Don’t get me wrong I truly love people and having these interactions. My friends boyfriend pointed out, “it’s because you engage with people and how you hold eye contact, I noticed it immediately last year when we met.” He said, “I was introduced to everyone and you’re the only one that looked up at me and took the time to catch my name.” Or something along those lines.

As always, these blogs are advice for my kid one day. He may not listen to me now. One day these may help him, give him insight or just be something to read that his crazy mom wrote. So, my advice here is… engage with humans! When you meet someone, make eye contact, catch their name, repeat it to lock it in, put your phone down, really enjoy humanity and the cool people in life you could be missing out on because you don’t take the opportunity to say hey, meet people, engage, make connections and make new friends!!!