Miss Don't Be Weird.

How to Keep Eye Contact

By Mallory Guymon

Toddlers do it when they’re avoiding punishment, students do it when they ‘re avoiding giving the answer, and adults do it when they’re avoiding confrontation. What are their doing? Avoiding eye contact.

Many assumptions gather around those who avoid eye contact. It’s assumed that if one avoids eye contact they are nervous, insecure or lying. Keeping a visual connection can make someone feel uncomfortable in general but it may not indicate any of the previous.

You walk down the street, across campus or even around the house. Do you look up at a passerby? If you do, people may call you aggressive, romantic or just plain creepy. Having unbalanced eye contact can cause tense situations. For instance, maintaining eye contact with a gorilla can raise their temper and cause serious rage and danger.

Maintaining eye contact can be a taboo subject for the common person but for a celebrity, it’s a routine. Both Barbra Streisand and Michael Jordan have a habit of forcing hotel workers to turn and face the wall when they enter a room, goes the tale. Some even say Nicole Kidman insists her makeup artist refrains from making eye contact. Recently, musical artist Katy Perry’s tour rider indicated in the section covering her driver’s behavior that the chauffeur is to “not to start a conversation with the client or stare.”

Source: kyliecox.tumblr.com via Rachel on Pinterest

To determine an amount of adequate eye contact depends on the situation. For example, if you were being interviewed for a new job, eye contact would be important throughout your interview. Continuous eye contact is not necessary but sincere eye contact with the hiring manager can establish an unconscious trust.  

  

If you were resolving a complication with a friend or spouse, eye contact could determine the whole mood. Avoiding eye contact with your spouse as you discuss a close friend of the opposite sex that you have, could lead them to believe that your behavior is untrue. Listening to a friend vent about their bad day or bad boyfriend may not require the same sincere eye contact.

There are situations where it is not necessary or critical to a relationship. Walking down the street and looking at your feet or talking on the phone is not seen as offensive to most individuals. It is especially not required to look someone in the eye when you are driving and having a conversation with him or her—that’s just dangerous and illogical.

There is no doubt that eye contact is important to have but it can be determined per situation. Now, you look me in the eye and tell me you don’t believe that. 

Miss Controversial

Whatever You Do, Don’t Vote

By Mallory Guymon

In the 2008, Senator Barak Obama won the United States presidential election by almost 200 electoral votes. Out of all of those votes, your voted didn’t matter.

Whatever you do, don’t vote.

As we approach the 2012 election, don’t go to the polls. Every moment that you watch a debate, listen to radio commentary and read a Wall Street Journal article, consider it wasted time you will never get back. Don’t watch, listen or read that garbage. Your vote doesn’t matter.

There were more voters during the 2008 election since the 1968 election where republicans voted President Richard Nixon into office. We all know how that turned out. And President Bill Clinton? Do we even have to mention that political office? History has shown us that your vote will make things worse.

If you go to the grocery store and they don’t have what you want on your list, do you end up buying unneeded items? This is like voting. If none of the opponents fit you political views, don’t vote for them and end up buying an unneeded item. People who are apathetic to voting are told to not complain about the resulting president but, one could say they would complain more if they did vote for the candidate and were let down by the candidates bad decisions.

Why be forced to choose between the lesser of two evils? If you have a molded banana peel and tray of soggy bread to choose from, would you? No, you wouldn’t. It would seem illogical—like voting.

When you give your vote, you give your freedom. We live in a country with freedoms that no other country will ever experience. Political activist claim that voting is a freedom but, in reality, we are forced to choose someone who will make our choices for us. We lose our personal accountability by giving it to someone else when we vote and, that is a freedom we can’t afford to give away. If voting is a right, it is also a right to not vote.

Forerunners also declare that our vote for them will make us equal. So we get in line in front of a person who was convinced by their parents, spouse, teacher or friend to vote and make a difference, even though they aren’t aware of the views of any of the candidates, that person ends up negating my vote and confirms that the process is a waste of time.

Don’t trust that your vote will matter and don’t trust that your chosen candidate will deliver. They will say what you have to hear to lure you to the polls. They don’t owe you anything and in turn, you don’t owe them anything. For example, President Obama promised to cut national debt and ended up spending more than he promised to save. If you voted him in office, way to go. 

When you go to the polls this November, choose to stay in bed instead. Do you want to make things worse for our country? With the majority of registered voters heading to the polls last year, we saw what happened and I suggest we learn from history.

Whatever you do, don’t vote this November. Don’t vote.