Yes, I’m checking you out. And let’s be honest, it’s a win-win: I get to check you out and you get to be checked out by me. Thank you, and you’re welcome.
Now, when I say “checking you out,” I’m not referring to the salivating stares I see here in New York City, the kind where the guy will stop in the middle of the street and gawk and audibly “Oh, baby!” and almost get hit by a bus. I’m not talking about “eye f***ing,” and I’m also not talking about how that term is not only gross but also misleading, because it seems to imply an impossible kind of intercourse. Nope, definitely not talking about that.
All guys stare, and not all guys are creeps. Take Woody Allen for instance! OK, bad example.
For the most part, the closest college guys come to that kind of dropped-jaw ogling is a drive-by stare followed by a drunken catcall from the backseat of a sober pledge’s Explorer. More often, though, a campus checkout involves a guy sneaking a peek with an unsuccessful attempt at discreetness, before darting his eyes to anything besides you and then, after arriving at a safe distance, murmuring a lustful comment to a friend who nods and/or bites his fist in agreement.
A married friend of mine told me that he literally doesn’t notice other women, even the most attractive ones. I’m not saying he’s lying, but I am saying that even though he’s a former college defensive end, his wife would destroy him if he said otherwise.
College guys, though, can come clean: we check girls out all the time or, more accurately, every time. As a girl, you’re accustomed to receiving a brief inspection during a head-on encounter, but even when you’re studying or eating or elliptical-ing, guys near and far are taking notice of the capris hugging your calves and the subtle tan line left by your anklet and the cleavage formed between the top of your flats and your toes. (OK, even if I’m the only one with a minor foot fetish—and I’m not—you get the point.)
Yes, we’re checking you out all the time, but not just because we’re attracted to your face or physique or metatarsals (but still, yum!). The precursor to attraction is curiosity, a natural impulse caused strictly by the fact that our eyes are open and that things—including you—are moving, which causes the visceral “Hey, there’s a squirrel!” reaction. You could just as easily replace “squirrel” with “raccoon” or “mongoose” or “TriDelt.”
Then, beyond attraction is what Emory Women’s Studies Professor Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, author of the fascinating Staring: How We Look, calls an “unavoidable consequence of empathy” between “starer” and “staree.” When a guy checks out a girl, he’s subconsciously observing more than her physicality. He’s noticing her presence, her energy, her body language and thereby gaining insight into her mood and her character. She notices back, and they engage in an unspoken social interaction. Guys, if your girlfriend accuses you of staring at that TriDelt, just say you were checking out her personality, and you’ll only be kind of lying. Plus, it’s better than other excuses: who would believe you saw a mongoose on the quad?
Eye f***ing tends to dehumanize and staring tends to stigmatize, but the so-called “male gaze” may not have the male-dominant, misogynistic implications the literature in your liberal arts classes tends to suggest. As one of my professors offered, “Objectification is really hot.” (English majors FTW!)
There’s a fine line between attraction and objectification, between desire and having to tuck that coy erection into your belt buckle. No one wants to be dehumanized, but everyone wants to be noticed.
So, both parties are thrust into a perpetual tug of war. The starer is pulled both by the neurological impulses that tell us to stare and the social expectations that tell us it’s creepy to don sunglasses and way-too-thoroughly survey the springtime pasture of sun-kissed, bikini-clad coeds. The staree, on the other hand, is yanked by the desire to stand out and garner attention versus the desire to fit in and avoid marginalization. It’s a confusing pull of biological and social contradictions, and it generally leaves us cross-eyed.
The reality is, checking people out is natural. We all do it, many times outside the hetero-normative narrative, hence why guys check out other guys’ bods in the gym and why girls check out other girls’ clothes, shoes, hair, jewelry, makeup, sunglasses, attitude, tan (real or fake or real fake), sorority tote, other handbag (real or fake or $300), socioeconomic status, lip gloss, pre-birth control to post-birth control cup size differential, teeth, boyfriend, nail polish, knee bone connected to the ankle bone connected to the “She obvs went to the Sperry sale at Nordstrom” bone—everywhere, all the time.
It’s normal, so let’s rid ourselves of the shame, girls for wanting too much attention and guys for giving it. Isn’t a fleeting glance worth the exchange of curiosity, attraction, and empathy from those around you? What we’re all saying is, I want you to want me, I need you to need me, I’d love you to put that Cheap Trick song on the next mix CD you burn me.
If you’ve got it, flaunt it. And if you flaunt it, someone will want it. In the meantime, you keep walking, and I’ll sit right here. Thank you, and you’re welcome.
Source: http://unrealitymag.com/index.php/2010/09/01/caught-staring/