Steven Pinker

it gets a little, like, creepy and uncomfortable.

Oh, it absolutely does.

Okay, so, and I actually write about this.

So, what we call eye contact in ordinary conversation is it's a bit of a misnomer.

Your eyes kind of dance all over the face.

Yeah, all the time.

You spend a lot of time lip reading.

But it's the eyeball-to-eyeball stare.

That's really a, which is something different.

Now we're humans.

We're not, you know, we're not monkeys.

We're not gorillas.

And so eye contact doesn't have one meaning.

I mean, it can be seduction.

It can be threat, but more generally, it can be something that formerly was private knowledge is as of this moment, common knowledge, which is why we say things like, can you look me in the eye and say that?

Tell me the truth.

Basically, we're trying to interpret so many different things, and that's why you get uncomfortable.

And when you're embarrassed, you look down, you look away, you avoid making eye contact.

So what laughter does is it makes what used to be private knowledge, common knowledge, where it's some indignity or infirmity or weakness of some butt of the joke.

Now, that can be someone that you're trying to bring down