Earlier this month, I asked how you’ve handled situations where the person you’re talking to seems distracted by your anatomy. A good friend of mine responded with this suggestion:
I’ve been meaning to write with my suggestion on how to handle someone looking at you, but not making eye contact, that you mentioned in a recent post. Rather than a witty comeback, I think you’re better off just sort of moving your head and upper body around, showing that you’re trying to catch his eye. I doubt he would say anything, but if he were, you could say any of “just trying to catch your eye” and/or “you looked like you had a far off gaze” or “wasn’t sure what you were looking at”. It’s neutral, direct, and won’t have any sort of repeatable element to it.
The non-repeatable element of this solution is brilliant. With other approaches that I’ve considered, my fear was that the partner would turn the encounter into a joke to share with the other partners and thus undermine my goal of being taken seriously.
