Animals often avoid eye contact, it's considered rude. Humans are a very touchy-talky-looky species. So yeah, it's freaky. I used to think I suffer from face-blindness (forgot the fancy name of it), then it occurred to me that I just straight up forget/avoid to look into people's eyes so I never even see their faces. Now I sometimes try to make a conscious effort to look at people's eyes - but how long is even appropriate?

Your story of the lemur reminds of staring into the eyes of a genet for probably about a century during a somewhat substance-enhanced camping trip. Can't say I was freaked out, rather honoured by the animal deciding to hang out with me for a while?

Odd, i find eye beautiful and mesmerising, i can stare at my cat's eye without feeling the freakiness you felt.

Face eggs

I don't normally look people in the eyes, but animals? I have no problem with it. The animals do, most of the time. Dogs, though, are like people and like eye contact. And I like looking into their big puppy eyes 🥺

That whole "eyes are the window to the soul" thing only makes sense to me if you include the rest of the face, though; eyes alone don't show expression. The eye brows and cheeks and mouth do.

c/im14andthisisdeep

What’ll really bake your noodle later on is that the eyes are not near the top of the head. Artists know this: if you look at someone, the eyes will be halfway between the chin and the top of the head.

I’ve wondered about this recently too. Eyes are only sensory organs. People can also do fine without them. So why are they so expressive?