Jaclynn and I are hanging out today. We have some beers, and are stopping at a coffee shop for espresso before dinner.
This will be my first eye contact during which I am not sober.
While we're waiting for our drinks, I scope out the patrons of the shop, looking for my next participant. I see a girl sitting at a nearby table. I point to her and tell Jaclynn that she's the one.
My intention is to approach her after we have our drinks, so we continue to wait and talk. Suddenly, the girl at the table is standing up and walking towards me. She says that she heard me say something about beards, and shows me what she has just pulled up on her phone: some kind of beard picture.
I'm not sure exactly what I say. Probably something like "you got to me before I got to you!" and I tell her to sit down because we're going to do an experiment.
I give her the pitch. She consents. She asks why we're doing it. I tell her we'll talk about it after.
We begin making eye contact. Immediately I feel relaxed and at ease. Making eye contact with her is easy and pleasant. I like looking at her eyes. We smile.
The timer beeps. For the first time, I ask my participant what they felt during the eye contact. She tells me she felt very relaxed.
Jaclynn comes over with our espressos and pulls up a chair. I address her earlier question ("why"?) and talk about what motivates the experiment. I ask if I can use her name and photograph on the blog, an she says "yes!" We exchange names. Her name is Bronwyn. We start chatting. Bronwyn's friend comes over and joins us. Her name is Alexis. We talk for a while longer. This is the longest post-experiment conversation I've had with a LMEC stranger, and it's great!
Before we forget, I take Bronwyn's photograph.
Instead of giving her the standard LMEC leave-behind (I ran out of pre-made cards a few days ago) I tell her the blog URL and she writes it down in her notebook.
I give her my number and tell her I'd like to hang out again. This is another first for a LMEC interaction.
Jaclynn and I are hungry, so we get up to leave. I exchange hugs with Alexis and Bronwyn and we head out into the night.