How did you know I was looking at you???

In My Humble Opinion
1

Inspired by this thread.

I frequently experience a slight variance of this. I enjoy me some good ol’ fashioned people watching. It’s a hobby…and probably contributes to my introversion. :slight_smile: I don’t make a habit of staring at people in a creepy way, but:

I’ll be looking at someone, perhaps the driver of another vehicle while I’m sitting in the passenger seat of my own vehicle on the highway, sometimes sitting in a public restaurant, or standing in line at the movies. Not for long mind you, only a second, maybe three. This person will damn near every time look right into my eyes! It’s like they’re saying “I realize you’re looking at me. Stop it. You’re not supposed to know I’m here.” Am I in the matrix? :smiley:

It doesn’t seem to matter if they’re black, white, man, woman, tall, fat, anything. Although I do notice that really old people with that “all is lost and I am waiting to die” look on their faces don’t seem to respond…maybe it’s because they don’t care?

So what’s happening here? Anyone else notice this? Am I creepy? And I immediately reject the imminent onslaught of “confirmation bias!” hand-wavers. Even if it were only the times when it happens that I remember…it’s still strange how somebody would look up at exactly the perfect angle required to make immediate eye contact with me. And people driving have no damn reason to look 90 degrees to their left, across three lanes of traffic, while travelling at 70 mph, when they’re not even switching lanes! Right into my eyes! Not at my car, not at the sunset behind me, right into my eyes! And exactly when I’m looking at them…thinking to myself, hey, look at that guy, he’s got a cool hat/hair/picks his nose/whatever.

2

My theory is that you can see eyes on you out of your peripheral vision, and it sends a signal to the brain to make you turn your head and look.

I don’t know how this would apply if someone is staring at the back of your head.

3

I think we have more than the five senses, so it’s like a kind of radar or something, hence “eyes in the back of their heads.” Necessary for survival. And have you noticed that even in pitch black darkness, once there’s light again, people have somehow gravitated toward each other?

4

It’s usually the hysterical laughing, or the vomiting…

5

Reject it all you want but it’s plain old confirmation bias combined with the fact that all people tend to look around a lot in crowds, in traffic, etc., and to scan rooms. If you look at anyone long enough they’ll probably sweep their line of vision across you.

6

To expand on what **Dio **said, with which I agree completely …

And, if they happen to scan their eyes near you, their subconscious processing of their peripheral vision WILL notice that you’re looking right at them. And that will automatically direct their attention directly back to you.

It’s Animal Survival 101 to know every predator in the area which is looking at you. As well as everybody else from your species.

7

It’s also normal and instinctive, when you look at a person, to look at their face. So when somebody appears to turn and look you in the eye, it’s because it’s normal, fidgety behavior for people to look around at the faces of other people around them in idle situations.

8

All I know is that I got busted big time looking at a woman once, and guess who she was?

Cary Grant’s wife!

This was in 1985 and I was attending one of his An Evening With Cary Grant performances. I was seated in the balcony somewhat to the left of center, and prior to the beginning of festivities I noticed a woman sitting two seats from the aisle with no one next to her. I wondered who she was because she was beautifully turned out, gorgeous black dress, diamond necklace, flawless skin. In other words, she didn’t look like someone who’d be sitting there alone. Pretty soon a stocky, cop-looking kind of guy came and sat with her for a while, and then he got up and left, leaving her on her own again.

I was curious to see what she looked like, because from above, behind and to her left she was gorgeous and I wanted to see if her face matched. Anyway, I was looking at her for about the fifteenth time through the pair of binoculars I’d brought for the occasion, when suddenly she turned in her seat, turned her head up and looked right up through the barrels of my binoculars and into my eyes. It was astounding! It was like she knew exactly where to look. She didn’t hesitate, didn’t look around a little first, nothing. She just turned half way around in her seat, cast her head up and looked right through the barrels of my binoculars.

Naturally I immediately began scanning the room to try to make it look like I wasn’t zeroed in on her, but I don’t think it worked. Anyway, she turned back around and didn’t move for the remainder of the show, and the aisle seat next to her remained empty.

At the end of the show, while the organizers were thanking Grant onstage and presenting him with a beautiful pair of cufflinks, they mentioned that his beautiful wife was in the audience and suggested that he bring her onstage to meet the audience. Yep, it was the same woman I’d been ogling! I was mortified! But at least I got to see what she looked like, and it was worth the wait!

Ever since then I’ve firmly believed what I had only suspected before, and that is that for some reason, under the right circumstances, we can feel it when someone is looking at us. I know it doesn’t make sense, but I think that we’ve somehow developed a sensitivity to the photon energy directed our way by a constant gaze. I don’t how many times in my life it’s happened that I would start looking at someone and they almost immediately turn to look my way, but it’s a lot. Still, I thought there could be some other explanation. But getting busted like I did by Cary Grant’s wife (this was the only time she moved her head through the whole show, btw, never even looking from side to side) has convinced me for all time that human beings have at least some ability to sense it whenever someone is staring at them.

Must be some kind of photon thing. :wink:

9

I can feel it when someone’s looking at me. It’s impossible to describe, but it’s a physical sensation. Even if I’m sure I’m alone, but someone has snuck in without me seeing them or is looking at me through a window, I can feel a gaze if it’s sustained, and will look round to see who’s looking at me. Strangely, I don’t feel it when I’m standing in front of dozens of students and they’re all looking at me while I teach, though it’s not dependent on not knowing the person’s there. I also feel it if someone is drawing me, for instance, and that has happened when I’m in front of a class - somehow this physical sensation was responding to the difference between the 29 students who were just watching me teach, and the one who was drawing me.

Weird but true.

10

Barbara HArris: http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnmcnab/3426503293/

11

Some so-called “new science” research is being done on this. Ducks barrage of Doper scorn If you are genuinely interested, check out Rupert Sheldrake’s
The Sense of Being Stared At.
http://www.sheldrake.org/Research/staring/index.html

12

Or Colin A. Ross’s “The Electrophysiological Basis of Evil Eye Belief”

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/123310535/PDFSTART

13

I’ve looked at people many times without them noticing. I’ve also been noticed before, but much less often. I do not believe that people–or at least most people–can tell when they are being looked at, and that being noticed is random.

14

I also love to people watch, but I almost never get ‘caught’…

15

Yep, that’s her. And believe it or not she looked even more beautiful in person.

16

The reaction - looking at the person looking at you - isn’t automatic, or at least it can be overridden. I’ve had female friends get mad at me because I “don’t even notice how many guys stare” at me but they’re wrong. I do notice, and it’s not just men who stare. I usually don’t react to it because it’s happened all my life: naturally red hair is unusual enough at a 1-2% occurrence that it simply draws the eye, and that’s all there is to it. I’ve learned to ignore being looked at to avoid becoming insanely self-conscious.

17

You remember the hits, but forget the misses.

Keep a tally. Mark down every single time you stare at somebody. Don’t just remember when they look back. Mark it down and jot down if they look back at you or not. In one day stare at 25 people. How many stare back at you? When you actually record it you will find that its not what you think.

18

Not that I don’t appreciate your intentions, but I know how to evaluate confirmation bias.

I am no suggesting that people ALWAYS look back at me. I am saying it is friggin uncanny how when they do, they look right into my eyes…and do so in a way that would not be explained by “random crowd scanning” or anything else. And there’s always a look on their face of either “Don’t look at me” or “I see you looking at me, what gives?”.

Like I said, it freaks me out most when it happens while driving. I mean really…why are people looking back at me? I’m not driving, I’m passenging…and these people who look back are usually driving, and there’s no other reason for them to look back at me. Not a fancy car, not any erratic driving maneuvers. Just me looking at them. And bam! Right into my eyes…

Or when I’m in line somewhere. The average looking girl across the room, with the nifty looking hat. The one obviously absorbed by their phone. Why would that person look up? When they aren’t habitually doing so as if they were awaiting someone (I’ve been watching, remember?).

I’m just saying, and there are obviously a few who agree with me, that this is strange. Strange I tell you!

19

Yes, it happens exactly in a way that can be explained by normal, mundane crowd scanning, and the natural tendency to look other people in the face.

If people look back at you when they’re driving, it’s probably because they notice you staring at them in their rear view mirrors. You don’t have magic powers, if that’s what you think.

20

I’ve read the results of at least one rigorous test of this phenomenon and the results were no different than random chance. I wish I could link but it was probably a decade ago and a quick google didn’t pull it up.