How to Avoid Awkward Eye Contact

By Lianna Hursh College campuses are breeding grounds for uncomfortable run-ins. For whatever twisted reason, we always manage to cross paths with the one person we want to see the absolute least, at the worst times possible. Drunkenly profess your love for the hot guy at the bar you don’t know, and you are bound to see him in CVS the next day while browsing the “feminine products” aisle.

Don’t get me wrong, I do feel for Helen Keller. The girl had it rough. Then again, there are moments when I find myself trapped in a truly awkward eye contact situation and I think, just for a split second, “That bitch was lucky.”

There’s good news and bad news regarding this issue. The bad news is that these encounters are absolutely unavoidable—hundo percent. The good news, however, is that if you master the following techniques, you can successfully avoid eye contact in just about every awkward situation.

If you’re taking notes, highlight, bold, and fucking star this first point. Your cell phone is your best friend. That piece of technology can get you out of almost any awkward run-in, especially while walking past someone. If you don’t want to make eye contact, just open up a text to a nonexistent person and type your name twenty-three times until the dreaded moment has passed. Crisis averted.

Another useful tactic is to have food on you at all times. Eating is an effective way to appear distracted when you don’t want to acknowledge someone’s existence. Plus, now you can justify eating that chocolate bar that’s been living in your backpack the past two weeks—and I heard calories don’t count if they’re saving you from disaster.

Lastly, throw on some shades. When you have sunglasses on, you could literally look at a person’s pelvic area in passing and they would not know—so you’re pretty much Clark Kent. There is no possible way to make eye contact with someone while glass covers your eyeballs. Oh yeah, and if you’re a normal, semi-functional human being unlike myself, you could also just say hi. Good luck with that, I guess.