We all know dating – and first dates especially! – can be a complete minefield. What to wear, what to say and how to act are all competing for your mental space, and throw in anxiety and excitement and you’ve got a recipe for a total mess. Trying to read between the lines and suss out what your date is looking for in a relationship can be equally as hard.
Well, what if we told you there was one essential clue that you can look for to spot if your date is lying? After all, 72% of men are said to lie on a first date, so it’s good to know how to spot a fibber. To help, new research from Vision Direct has revealed a quick hack you can use to tell if your date is telling porkies.
Body language expert, Traci Brown, helped create a tool called The Blinking Test, which enables people to discover what their blinking could be saying without them intending to. As part of the test, they explored how you may be able to tell how your date is going by their blinking.
She explains how to spot red flags and tell if someone is seriously lying:
“Firstly, you’ll want to pay attention to how the person is blinking when they have nothing to lie about. Then when deception is at play, you may notice it quickly changes. Typically, if their blinking changes it will get less rapid during the lie and then increase dramatically right after the lie is told.”
They’re just not that into you: Blinking a lot and no eye contact
If your date is blinking a lot, coupled with minimal eye contact and a closed body posture, this could be a sign that there isn’t any chemistry being felt by them and your first date may be your last. This is probably not the result you’ll be hoping for, but is easy to pick up on.
They’re lying: Eyes wide open followed by rapid blinks
Gazing into the other person’s eyes without breaking contact could very well be perceived as romantic, but Traci says unbroken eye contact may not be as romantic as we think: “When a person lies, they tend to look like they are really focused and there’s not much blinking involved as they are concentrating on the details of a lie.
“Liars are focused on getting the story straight which means that the cognitive part of the brain pays less attention to the eye blink rate - instead liars tend to blink after the lie was told.”
If you want to see what your blinking says about you, you can try The Blinking Test by Vision Direct.