We made eye contact as I passed and she smiled a little smile.
I kept walking, about 3 meters, then stopped, pivoted, and walked back to her.
In response to my usual introduction, she tells me that she's usually pretty shy but will try it.
We begin making eye contact. Her chin quivers a little, as if she's trying to stifle a laugh. I break my "no talking" rule and tell her it's OK to laugh.
"I hope so," she says.
Her eyes move left and right quickly while we're gazing at each other. I wonder what she's thinking and feeling, what exactly she's looking at. I feel relaxed. This session is another in which we're standing up instead of the usual sitting down. Both of us are leaning against a wall.
The timer expires.
She asks me what I get out of this experiment. I like the wording of her question, it's not what people usually ask me. I answer her question, and at the end of my list of motivations/benefits I usually list writing practice, which segues in to mentioning this blog, and my request to use her name and photograph.
She consents! (But only if she can fix her hair. These terms are acceptable. We have a deal.)
She has an interesting name: Karsen-rae. I check the spelling and write it down in my notebook.
We talk about her name. It occurs to me that this experiment is helping me to remember names. We talk about her introversion and shyness and the difference between the two qualities. I ask her what she got out of the experience. She says it was interesting. I comment that I noticed her eyes moving back and forth during our session, and she tells me that she was looking at both of my eyes, and my glasses, and she considered if it was OK to look at my nose, too. She says that during the session she thought "oh shit, my eyes are moving way more than his!" She says that making eye contact with someone for more than a few seconds is intimate. I agree. She tells me that our eye contact made her want to make out with me. We talk about that. This is the second time that a partner in the experiment has said this to me. I wonder how many people have thought this and did not tell me?
We talk a bit more about various things, the circumstances of our meeting, what she's up to today. This is an unexpectedly pleasant conversation. I like that we're hanging out here talking for a while after our eye contact session. It occurs to me during our talk that I don't know how old Karsen is, but I believe she is the youngest person with whom I've done LMEC.
I wish her well and head back to my office.
P.S. Karsen, please let me know if I got the spelling, capitalization, and hyphenation of "Karsen-rae" correct or not. (Specifically the "-rae" part!) Just want to triple check!