The pupils of your crush tell you everything you need to know

You order a bottle of wine, take a first bite of one or another delicious appetizer, and stare deeply into her/his/their eyes. Whoa, stop here for a moment, because this point says more about your relational status than you might suspect.

Of course, you must have stared like a lovesick teenager into the eyes of your beloved at some point. Who hasn't? But the size of the pupils reveals a lot about how a person sees you. To love forever, the cutest on earth or not? Fun detail: it doesn't only work in the realm of romantic relationships, but also at work, within your family, and among friends. That pupil reveals a lot.

Professor of cognitive psychology Mariska Kret researched our eye pupils (among other things at Lowlands, how nice is that) and what turns out? If you like someone or the other is crazy about you, you take on each other's pupil size. So it's hard to notice yourself, unless you switch on the selfie mode of your phone in the meantime, but an attentive observer can see if your pupil sizes are attuned to each other. ‘The effect is unmistakable,’ Kret tells NRC. That sounds like solid evidence.

It's nothing strange, because we humans constantly mirror each other. So it can be that you used to resemble your father or mother more, but now you have traits of your partner. Professor Kret sees it as the body folding to the shape of the other, in that way you understand everything better and can even predict a little what that person is going to do. What exceptional beings we are. And how beautifully Kret explains this: the folding of your body.

What's nice about this research is that it is not fully focused on how attractive you initially find someone. It was purely about all those other demonstrable factors. Think of body posture, facial expressions, and for example, heart rate and movements of the pupil. The research shows that people who like each other follow each other, in this case, for example, in pupil size, but also in heart rate.

What you need to do now? Make sure you are in an environment that is not too brightly lit and let that partner in crime of yours walk past the table. If you are at the same level in terms of pupil size with your partner, then it could very well be great and cozy between you.

Source: NRC