Eyes are the window to the soul. An expression you’ve heard a million times – and honestly, I’ve always believed it.  

Don’t get me wrong, not in the dramatic “I can read your every thought through your pupils” kind of way, but in the simple, everyday sense. Eyes give you away. They are the ones who reveal the hesitation in your voice, the excitement you’re trying to downplay, the confidence you’re faking, the curiosity you don’t want to show. We like to pretend eye contact is simple: look, hold, look away. In reality, however, we all follow a set of unspoken rules we never agreed on but instinctively understand. And the thing about eye contact is that it’s never one-sided. The second you look at someone, you become aware they’re looking back – and the realization that it’s a two-way street is when things become interesting. 

Take, for example, the moment when a simple glance stops being casual, when two seconds feel like a decade and your brain quite literally forgets how to function. The kind of eye contact that only happens with a crush. It’s not about romance or butterflies turning your stomach into a playground. It’s about exposure. Looking at someone you like suddenly feels too revealing, as if they can see everything at once: your intentions, your insecurities, your attraction, your fear. It’s both beautiful and terrifying. You enjoy every bit of it, fighting with every fibre of your being to hold the gaze for a few milliseconds more, while at the same time feeling your knees getting weak and your eyes begging you to look away. It's a moment where you’re painfully aware of how completely thrown off you are, while the other person seems perfectly composed. 

But it doesn’t always feel like that. There are moments where that intensity simply isn’t there, where holding someone’s gaze barely stirs anything in you. Technically, you still feel exposed, but in a harmless way that doesn't set off any alarm bells. It’s exposure without consequence. You’re able to look someone straight in the eyes without feeling your thoughts scatter or your tongue start to tie. Your hands are steady and your heart rate doesn’t even flinch. Your gaze doesn’t give anything away – after all, there’s nothing to manage, nothing to hide. The ease of it makes the contrast impossible to miss: the same glance that overwhelms you in one context becomes effortless in another, as if your body instinctively knows when a moment matters and when it doesn’t. 

And then there’s the third kind of moment, one that sits somewhere in the middle. It’s the one that doesn’t completely overwhelm you but doesn’t leave you indifferent either. Someone’s eyes meet yours and, for a split second, the atmosphere shifts: the background noise quiets down, the packed club suddenly empties, and the music fades; the tram seems to switch to slow motion. There’s no deeper feeling to it – no questioning, no overthinking, no calculating – just pure curiosity with that strange little jolt of electricity that runs through your whole body for a split second. And, just as quickly as it appeared, the second is over. The murmur of the street creeps back in, the music in the club turns up as the crowd reappears around you, the tram speeds up again. All it ends up being is a tiny glitch, a brief slip out of autopilot, reminding you how easily human chemistry can spark out of nowhere.  

But eye contact isn’t always spontaneous or surprising, and it’s definitely not always about sparks. Often, it’s the exact opposite: a safe harbour, warm and comforting, sheltering you from the unpredictable whirlwind of everyday life. It’s the look you see in your parents as they soak up stories from your day, your friends as they listen to you rant about the same thing for a hundredth time, your partner as you chat over coffee on a lazy Sunday morning. It’s the soft and inviting sparkle in your loved ones’ eyes, reassuring you that you always have a place to return to. A look gentle as a hug, familiar as home. 

It’s funny how something as small as a glance can stretch a moment, erase a room full of people, slow a train down in its tracks, make your heart skip a beat or make your stomach turn. It manages to hold entire worlds: nerves, curiosity, recognition, comfort, all packed into a moment. And that’s the true magic of eye contact. It can carry every piece of you at once: the flustered parts, the steady parts, the ones that light up, and those that soften. It turns out you don’t need words to understand and be understood. Sometimes, all you need is for someone to look back.