How to Host an Eye Gazing Party By Michael Ellsberg, founder of www.EyeGazingParties.

com Question: What is a free, fun, easy way to meet lots of new people, learn more about eye contact than you could imagine, and help others have a profound, moving experience? Answer: Organize and host your own Eye Gazing Party!

Since 2005, Ive hosted my own Eye Gazing Parties, and have been featured in major media around the globe as Ive done them (see www.eyegazingparties.com). Now, Im busy promoting my book about eye contact, The Power of Eye Contact, coming out from HarperCollins in April 2010, so Im not going to be hosting them much myself anymore. Instead, I am sending out this guide for free, to encourage YOU to use the concept to spread Eye Gazing Parties to YOUR own community. Feel free to charge for the parties or notyou can keep all the money for yourself. Teaching others how to host these parties is my offering to the world and Im not expecting any money out of it. (All I ask isId appreciate it if you would credit me as the originator of the concept, and link to www.eyegazingparties.com in your promotional material/sites/announcements about your party.) And when you do organize one, email events@eyegazingparties.com and Ill announce your party on our blog! One more thingbecause Im so busy with the book, I unfortunately wont be available to answer specific questions on how to host Eye Gazing Parties. Ive tried to

make this guide as comprehensive as possible. If anything is not clear, I invite you to use your creativity and come up with the answer/solution that works best for you. Get creative and inventiveI know youve got everything you need within you to make your Eye Gazing Party great.

Step 1: Select the Format If you think you want to host your own Eye Gazing Party, you should first think about a few key questions that will determine what your party is like and how you go about organizing it:

For Your Friends Only, or Open to the Public Do you want to host a small, intimate Eye Gazing Party for your immediate social circle, or a larger event that is publicized more widely, open to friends and strangers alike?

Free or Money-Making The first several eye gazing parties I held were free. I figured, the idea was so foreign to people, just getting to show up was hoping for a lot! So I decided not to add any financial disincentives to attending. Later, I did charge for the parties, usually $10 or $15. After paying for space rentals and snacks, I was often left with only $100 for having organized and hosted the party. Given that I would often put twenty hours or more into organizing one party, if I was doing it just for the money, I would have been better off just flipping burgers.

3 Seriously, I dont think hosting an Eye Gazing Party to make money makes sense,

hour-for-hour. Do it to build community, to make new friends, to learn about eye contact, to help people have deep experiences of their ownbut if youre in it for the money, Id just take a job stocking shelves at Wal-Mart instead: youll make about as much money on an hourly basis! But, if you want to charge, go ahead, I wont stop you!

Dating or Friendship Is the purpose of your party to help singles meet each other (as most of my Eye Gazing Parties have been), or to create general fellowship and friendship among a group? This has a huge impact on the format of the party, and who will show up. Most of my parties have been for hetero singles in their twenties and thirties, which draws a crowd typical of the urban hetero singles scene. (To my knowledge, there have yet to be any gay or lesbian Eye Gazing Parties, but I hope some readers will take the lead!) These parties involve gazing only into the eyes of people of the opposite sex. For many straight men in particular, this is a bottom-line, price-of-admission pointmost hetero guys are not interested in nor open to gazing into another mans eyes. However, at various personal growth events and workshops, I have lead nondating eye gazing parties, where everyone gazes with everyonemen with women, women with women, and men with menin the spirit of connection, communitybuilding, and togetherness. It is beautiful to experiencebut not surprisingly, the market for this kind of experience is limited to the most open-minded and un-selfconscious.

Once you have thought about these questions, you can go about organizing the party. The main things to think about, pre-party, are venue, and getting the word out.

Step 2: Choose a Venue Now its time to choose a venue for your party. What type of venue you select for the party depends a lot on your answers to some of the questions above. If you want to host an Eye Gazing Party for 10-15 of your friends, then your living room will do just fine. If you want to invite the public, I would recommend against doing in your living room, for obvious reasons. And if you want to have more than about fifteen people, Id recommend finding a larger venue, unless you are blessed with a huge living room! If you decide to host the party outside of your home, you have several options for securing space:

A Bar or Club When I was planning the first-ever Eye Gazing Party, I walked down Second Avenue in the East Village of New York City, stopping at various bars to see if they would host it for free. The pitch was always the same: Im hosting a singles event called Eye Gazing Parties, sort of like speed dating, but its all based on eye contact. I want to bring in twenty to thirty drink-hungry singles early on an off night, say six or seven P.M. on a Monday or Tuesday night. Would you have a space we could use for a few hours?

5 Without missing a beat, four bars in a row offered me a private party room to use

for these purposes. Think of it from their perspective. How else are they going to get thirty thirsty singles through their doors at 6 P.M. on a Monday night? Its a bonanza for them. One of the bars even offered to shut the entire bar down to the public and turn the whole night into a private party space for us! Here are a few important considerations to keep in mind when hunting around for a bar or club space: 1. Absolutely, positively, the space must be private to your event. Whether its a private backroom to the bar, or the whole bar is shut down to the public for your benefit, you do NOT want random people walking through the space. Eye gazing is already a vulnerable thing for people to do doing. Its all the more difficult if there are a bunch of random spectators and gawkers in the room. Everyone in the room except the bartender and the organizers should be participating in the eye gazing themselves. 2. You want a space with a good sound system. Music is an important part of the gazing experience, and also eases some of the initial nervousness and tension in the room. (See Appendix for suggestions on gazing music.) Ideally, the space also has a mic. If the crowd is above twenty or so people, giving instructions without a mic becomes less and less effective (although it can be done.) If the space has a mic input but no mic, you can buy a basic mic and cable over the Internet for under thirty dollars. 3. The more hip or trendy the bar is, the more likely youll be able to get lots of people the party. If its a choice between that trendy bar that always has the line outside

of it and the beautiful people packed inside, and your local neighborhood sports pub, take the former. 4. The space should have room for at least twenty. That means that, for a hetero singles Eye Gazing Party, each person would gaze with ten people in the night. Any less feels too small. How much is too big? The second Eye Gazing Party ever had about seventy people. Obviously, not everyone gazed with everyone. Theres a trade-off involved. It was exhilarating to have so many people gazing in the same room, and the after-gazing mingling was incredible. But a lot of people said they would have liked to be able to gaze with everyone, even if that meant a smaller party. Its up to you. The bigger the party, the more exciting it is, but anywhere beyond thirty people total and people are not going to be able to gaze with everyone in attendance. My own view is, the bigger the better. If you dont get to gaze with someone you wanted to meet, then walk up to him or her after the gazing and say hi! Its still better that he or she was there and you get a chance to meetif it was a smaller party he or she might not have been there at all.

A Yoga Studio, Dance Center or Workshop Space If a bar or club really isnt your scene, or if youre having trouble locating a suitable one, there are other options available to you. Yoga or dance studios, for example, are often very open to hosting any kind of events that have a spiritual flavor to them. They are of course more open to renting the space out after hours, when the studio is no longer in use for regular classes. Theyll be

 happy at the idea of 20-30 new people walking through their doors and learning about their space and their offerings. They will probably charge for the use of their space, but often the charge is quite reasonable, say $25 an hour. If you go three hours, thats $75, which can easily be recouped from modest entry fees ($5-$10) from the participants. Sometimes, they will

also list your event on their official schedule and their website, and/or send a notice about your event out to their list, which can easily double attendance in one swoop. These types of spaces also usually have great sound systems. Another factor to think about with yoga and dance studios is drinks. Ive found that having drinks available noticeably improves the party, for the obvious reason that a drink or two calms the nerves and makes gazing a lot less fearful, but also because drinks in general add to the social atmosphere of the event, and the bar area serves as a great mingling spot before and after the gazing. Yoga and dance studios are often quite polarized on this issue. With some, the owners started the studio in the first place because they wanted to create an atmosphere of fun and bonding, and they see how drinks at a party fosters that atmosphere. Some, howeverparticularly yoga proprietorsare extremely high-minded on this issue and would get offended if you even dared suggest that wine or beer be brought onto their hallowed ground. So tread delicately on this issue. However, if possible, having wine and beer for sale, or given away free as part of admission (to comply with local liquor licensing laws), can noticeably increase the openness and joviality of the event.

 Space Donated By a Church, College, Workplace, or Other Organization Youre Affiliated With Finally, if you are a member of a university or church community, you probably have access to tons of free or low-cost meeting space. Talk to the event coordinator, and tell them youre creating an event that will foster community within your group. They will almost certainly be interested in helping out. Its even possible that your workplace

will donate space for a small gathering after hours. With these options, of course, alcohol becomes problematic, but hey, Rumi and Shams didnt need drinks while they were gazing, so neither do we!

Layout You have several options for the space layout of the event. Make sure the space you select has room for the option that you like best. (Or, in reverse, you choose the space layout based on what works with the venue youve already chosen.) The options are: 1. Two rows This works best for hetero singles parties, where people are pairing up for the gazes man/woman, with no same-sex pairings. Simply align two rows of chairsor one row of tables with chairs/benches on either side. Men get on one side, women on the other. Usually, the men move down one position after each gaze, and one man moves to the front of the line when he gets to the end.

9 If you have an imbalance in gendersmore men than women or vice versathen

a few of the overrepresented gender will have to sit and not gaze during each session. Id encourage them to sit where they are and not leave their place in the line, otherwise it becomes totally disorganized. Anyone can sit quietly and listen to music for a turn or two! 2. The Snake This format works well for general community-building events, in which everyone gazes with everyone (men, women, it doesnt matter!). It also works for samesex dating events. Have people stand or sit in two circles. The outer circle faces in, and the inner circle faces out, so people are facing each other. (You can also arrange chairs this way beforehand.) People in the outer circle move one position to the right after each gaze. When you have two circles, though, theres a problem: no one gets to gaze with their fellow party-mates in the same circle theyre in, only the people in the other circle. So to solve this problem, were going to add one twist to the layout. This is where The Snake comes in. One person from the entire group will volunteer to be the switcher. After everyone from the outer circle rotates 1 position to the right, this person (whether he or she is on the inside or outside circle) switches positions with his or her partner, so she now has the same partner, but they are each in the opposite circle as before. This is the only person who switches circles each time, and he or she does so after every gaze. This way, whenever you get to the switcher (and ONLY then) you get to

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switch which circle youre in as well, and thus youll get to gaze with everyone, in both circles. So does the switcher. Voila!

3. Free-For-All This works well if you have a huge number of people relative to the amount of space (or chairs) you have, if you dont know beforehand how many people are coming, if there are going to be people coming and going in the middle, if you dont want to bother with RSVPs or guests lists, or if theres a large discrepancy between the genders at a hetero singles event. Basically, like it sounds, its a free-for-all. Everyone is in a crowd, and pairs up standing. Once theyre paired up, they can remain standing, or sit down on the floor (if the floor is at all nice, not if its a nasty bar floor though! . After each gaze, they find a new partner within the crowdno lines, no rows, no circles. Free for all! This format can work welland its a lot of fun. Youll need to be sure to keep control of people talking in-between the gazes. Constantly remind people to remain silent as they find a new partner, otherwise it will turn into complete chaos.

Any of these layout formats can work wellit all depends on how much space you have, how many seats you have, how many people are coming, the vibe you want to create, etc. Choose a layout that works best for your situation, and experiment for yourself as well. With some trial and error and some creativity youll figure out which format works best for you.

 Step 3: Choosing a Date and Time Hand in hand with choosing a space goes choosing a date and time. Theres no point in securing a great space if they dont have any convenient dates and times available for the next six months! Ive found that Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights work best, for two reasons. One, these are the off nights that venues such as bars and clubs are mostly

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likely to let you use their space for free. Second, its actually easier to get people to come out on these nights rather than other nights. Why? Because for most people, an Eye Gazing Party is an unproven proposition. They really dont know what to expect. Most people dont want to gamble their precious weekend nights on something that, as far as they know, could be a total dud. (Of course, we know that the party will rock, but were looking at if from the strangers perspective here.) Just getting them to come to something as whacked-out as a party where you stare into strangers eyes is enough to ask of them; asking them to also devote a weekend night, when there are ten other sure things they could go to, may be hoping for too much. So, I recommend against holding Eye Gazing Parties on Friday and Saturday nights, and also the unofficial weekend night of Thursdays. Sundays are great, because they still feel somewhat like a weekend night, but really they arent, and Ive found people are willing to gamble a bit with their Sunday nights. However, a lot of bars and clubs dont view Sunday nights as off-nights, so you might have a harder time getting the space.

12 But hey, dont let me discourage you from trying to hold an Eye Gazing Party on

a weekend night. If you try it and it works brilliantly, let me know and Ill need to adjust my opinion on this point. Ive also experimented a lot with start times. Ive found that 7:00 PM is an ideal start time. Any earlier and people dont have enough time to get there from work and grab a bite beforehand. But the whole party goes about three and a half hours (more on the precise time flow of the party below), so any later and it starts to feel late for weeknight (at least for working adults.) Whatever night you choose, it should be 2-3 weeks out from the present date. Any earlier and it will be too short notice and no one will come. Any farther out and people will forget about it and youll lose momentum.

Step 4: The Invitation Here comes the fun part! Deciding on whom to invite, and where to promote, will depend a lot on how big you want the party, whether you want strangers, whether you are doing a dating/singles Eye Gazing Party, or a general community-building party where everyone will gaze with everyone. The first place to start, obviously, is your immediate social circle. Usually by sending out an email to all your friends, and encouraging them to invite their friends, you can get 20-30 people right away, which is plenty for a great eye gazing party. (For the first Eye Gazing Party ever, in December 2005, I sent an invite out to ten or fifteen

 friends, encouraging them to invite their friends, and we ended up with twenty-three people, which is a great amount.)

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Ive had many drafts of emails Ive sent out, but heres the one Ive found works the best (references to me and my site are of course optional, but I do appreciate the shout-out!). This is for a singles-oriented party. Obviously, change age and gender where to tailor it to whatever demographic youre going for: Eye Gazing Party Date, Time Place For single women and men in their 20s and 30s $10 "New York's hottest dating trend" --Elle Magazine The eyes are the window into the soul, so it's a lot easier to have a mesmerizing conversation with someone new after you've spent two minutes looking into his or her eyes. That is the simple idea behind Eye Gazing Parties. Banal chit-chat about employment status, the location of your apartment, or where you're from is not a great way to spark a captivating connection with an alluring new person. Eye contact is. Here's how it works: An even number of singles meet in an attractive space over drinks and world beats. After a fun mini-lesson in the art of eye contact, the group splits into pairs, and each pair spends two minutes looking into each other's eyes, no talking, with inviting beats in the background. The pairs switch up every two minutes, for a total of around half an hour. Then there is a party afterwards, with drinks flowing and luscious beats vibing. The eye gazing has an electrifying effect on the party; simply put, two minutes of eye contact is

 the Cadillac of ice-breakers. Come try out the exciting new way to meet single souls! Eye Gazing Parties (www.eyegazingparties.com) were founded by Michael Ellsberg in NYC in 2005, and have been covered by the New York

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Times, CNN, Good Morning America, and major media around the world. People who attend them report having profound experiences with many new and exciting people at each event. If you would like to attend, please RSVP to yourname@email.com. I will send you the address. Please only RSVP if you are set on attending, as the success of these parties depends on maintaining an even balance between men and women, and cancellations or no-shows throw this balance off. Feel free to invite your friends--have them RSVP directly to me and have them mention your name.

Of course, feel free to tweak the invite however you like. Write an intro, change it around to fit the demographic or vibe you are aiming for. A couple of fine points about the invite though: 1. Ive found that the part at the end, about people only signing up if theyre set on attending, is important. If youre throwing a hetero singles party, every time the balance is off by one person, that means one person is sitting out each round (more on managing this below). At one early party I hosted, a raft of men cancelled at the last minute, leaving eight more women than men! This would have completely ruined the party (forcing eight women to sit out each gazing session.) I had to beg eight guy friends

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to go home that night to restore balance. (Believe me, that was a tough sell. There were some beautiful women at that partymany rounds of compensatory drinks were purchased for my friends later!) Thus, anything you can do out the outset to discourage people from signing up in a casual maybe-Ill-go-and-maybe-I-wont manner is useful. Second, the part about having friends of friends RSVP directly to you is extremely important from this perspective as well. Once youve got the number of invitees for your party under control, and you have the gender balance all worked out and even, the last thing you want is a group of five men or women showing up together at the last minute and saying, Oh, were friends of so-and-so and he told us about the party. Wed like to join. To further discourage this from happening, I also recommend the part about sending the specific address only once they RSVP. This will further screen out Johnny-come-latelys from showing up. Obviously, if youre holding a non-singles Eye Gazing Party, just for friends or for community-building, then you can adjust the language above to focus on community and togetherness rather than singles and dating. Either way, once they RSVP, send out the location details/directions, and also make it extremely clear to people that they need to be on timeonce the gazing starts, no one will be admitted late. 3. Id say this is the single most difficult part of organizing an Eye Gazing Party. Of course, if youre doing a gay or lesbian Eye Gazing Party, or a community-oriented one where everyone will gaze with everyone, men and women alike, then this is no problem. Just keep tabs on how many people in total have RSVPd, so you dont go over your space limits.

 However, if youre organizing a hetero singles party, which is the most popular format, then keeping the gender balance even is crucial. The simplest way to do this is to keep a list on Word document or an Excel spreadsheet. If you find, as you start getting responses, that one genders responses outstrip the others by five or more, send an email to all those peoplemen and

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womenwho have already RSVPd Yes, along the lines of the following: We have a great group of people signed up already for the Eye Gazing Party. However, the ladies have been a little more enthusiastic in signing up than the guys. So all of you, if you have any guy friends who might be interested, please invite them. Tell them theres a room full of attractive women waiting to gaze into their souls! Have them RSVP to yourname@email.com That usually does the trick. As you start reaching the space limitation of your party, you may find yourself with two or three more of one gender than the other. At that point, you will have to close the list to the overrepresented gender and start putting additional people from that gender on the waiting list.

Money If youre just doing a casual Eye Gazing Party in your living room for friends, charging people is cheesy. However, if youre hosting it a bar or other public place, charging is fine. Ive found that anywhere from $5-$15 works for the parties. Speed dating events often charge in the $35-$50 range. However, theres a much higher demand for speed dating than for eye gazingtheres just not that many people crazy enough to

 want to gaze into fifteen or more strangers eyes in one night! Ive tried to charge more than $15 before and didnt have much luck.

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Eye Gazing Parties are, above all, a labor of love. Seriously, if youre only doing it to make money, youd be better offhour for hourflipping burgers. A lot of work goes into them, and even if you charge $15, youre not going to come away feeling rich at the end of it. If you do decide to charge, you can either charge people at the door, or have them pre-pay via PayPal. Either way, youll want to recruit a person at the door to check people in, and collect money if youve gone the former route of having them pay at the door.

Step 5: The Party So, the day of the Eye Gazing Party has arrived. What will actually happen during the party? The schedule is pretty simple. Ill break it down piece by piece: 1. Mingling (30 minutes) 2. Welcome and Instructions (5 minutes) 3. First round of gazes (20 minutes) 4. Break for mingling (20 minutes) 5. Second round of gazes (20 minutes) 6. Mingling afterwards (1 hour or moreIve seen this part go on for 2 hours!

Part 1. Initial Mingling (30 minutes)

 Have someone at the door welcoming people, checking them in, and accepting payment if youve decided to charge. Since hosting an Eye Gazing Party requires everyone to participate at the same time, its crucial to allow this half-hour at the beginning to make sure everyones there, and also to warm people up. If there are drinks, this is a good time for people to grab a drink and meet fellow gazers.

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Part 2. Welcome and Instructions No more than 30 minutes after the start time on the invitation, close the door to newcomers. Clank a glass to get peoples attention, and encourage them to take their seats or positions, in accordance with the layout youve chosen (see the section Layout above.) Quite people down, and welcome them. Congratulate them on being crazy enough to try something like this! Tell them why you decided to organize this party. Ive got my own reasonsto bring people together, because its a fun and original way for people to meet each other, because eye gazing can be an incredibly powerful experiencebut you want this part to be authentic, so tell them why you decided to organize it. Then, give some basic instructions on how to gaze. Here are some pointers I like to share: A. Its going to be very very weird at first! Yes, you will laugh, yes, you will fidget. Thats OK and normal. Its not a staring contestyes you can blink or

 scratch your nose! But usually, all of the laughing dies down, I tell people, and within 1-2 gazes people get the hang of it and relax into it.

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B. Each gaze will be 2 minutes, and then well switch (explain the layout format youve selected.) Please dont talk during the gazes or during the switching. There will be plenty of time to talk during the break and after the party. We spend so much of our lives talking, talking, talking, lets allow ourselves the pleasure of communicating purely with our gazes for now. You will gaze with 8 people, then well take a break, then 7 more, for a total of 15 gazes tonight. C. Gaze at one of your partners eyes at a time. Of course, you can switch which eye you gaze with, but pick one at a timeif you try to gaze at both your partners eyes youll go cross-eyed! Try to keep a soft, gentle focus. A harsh, intense focus can strain your eyes and can feel too intense for your partner. D. Please, no touching, holding-hands, etc. Lets keep all our touch with our eyes! E. Try to keep a neutral facial expression. Usually, we associate direct eye contact either with hostility or seduction. Obviously, both of those will scare your partner. So just keep a neutral facial expression and let your eyes do the talking. F. Remember to breathe! Eye gazing is intensea lot of emotion can come up and many people react to this intensity by holding their breath, or breathing with shallow breaths. Instead, relax into the gaze and whatever emotions may be coming up by maintaining a steady, deep, slow breath. Part 3. First Set of Gazes

 Once youve made your introductory remarks, your welcome, and given all the instructions, its time to start gazing! This is what weve all been waiting for!

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Get people to quiet down once again (you will need to remind them to quiet down many times throughout the evening.) Tell them its about the start. Put on the first track (see the Appendix for some music recommendations.) And theyre off!

Guided Gazing For several years, I let people gaze with just the music, and no guidance on my part. This works well, and if its what youre most comfortable about, then go for it! However, for last year, Ive been experimenting with adding some guidance while people gaze. This only works if people are somewhat open-minded, and perhaps interested in spiritual contentif people are extremely cynical, or uber-hipsters, it may not work. Some people may find these kind of things extremely cheesy. Other crowds may love it. Think about it for your own crowd and see what works for you and your community. If your community is at all open to it, it can really deepen the gazing. Basically, I offer people different suggestions for what to think about while they gaze. Some of the suggestions include: Imagine what your partner most wants to be appreciated for. Look into their heart and think, What would this person most like to be seen for? What special talent or gift does her or she bring to the world that he or she is not often appreciated for? What gift would he or she most like to give to the world? And when youve figured that out, go ahead and, with your gaze, appreciate him or her for that!

21 Imagine your gaze is surrounding your partner with human warmth, caring, and

love. Not necessarily romantic love, but the love we can all give to each other as fellow human beings. Imagine that caring melting his or her heart, allowing all his or her fear, stress and worry to fade away, into peacefulness and calm. Synchronize your breaths. And imagine that on the in-breath, you are taking in your partners caring and warmth for you as a human being. And on the out-breath, you are sharing your caring for him or her as a human being. Keep gazing with your breaths synchronized.

Again, some crowds might find these kind of exercises and guided visualizations extremely cheesy. But other crowdsespecially where Im from, San Franciscomight love them and feel they deepen the intensity of the gazing and the connections. So pick whatever is best for your crowd and vibe. If you do decided to guide your crowd through visualizations, do so with a slow, soft, calm, reassuring voice, which will relax people further, not a fast, sharp, harsh voice, which stresses people out.

Part 4. Break For Mingling Ive found that about 8 straight gazes is as much as anyone can do before feeling ansy. So, after 8 gazes, allow people to take a breakthey can get a drink, go to the rest room, stretch their legs, and talk with that cute gazer they just gazed with!

 IMPORTANT: If youre doing any seating layout other than free-for-all, you must remind people to remember where they were sitting, and whom they were sitting next to, so they can reconfigure in the same position after the break!

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I recommend the break last no longer than 20 minutesotherwise the energy of the party dissipates. Put on some hip, sexy music!

Part 5. Second Set of Gazes Clink a glass a people andunless youre doing the Free-For-All layout format have people get back into the same seating arrangement they were in before the break. Then, have them switch as theyve been doing so theyre gazing with someone new. Then put the music on and start the gazing again. You may want to keep guiding people as described above, or you may want to just allow them to gaze with only music. Either way, youll want to remind them to not talk during the gazing or the switching. After 7 more gazes, theyre done, and the gazing for the night is over on to. . .

Step 6. Mingling After the Gazing In some ways, this is where the fun of the party startsnow everyone has gazed with most everyone else, so they get to talk with whomever theyre interested in. Ive seen that people are way more open, friendly, willing to talk to strangers, and get into meaningful conversations, after theyve shared the gazing together! If possible, allow this part to go on as long as you can. . . people often want to talk and talk and talk with each other after the experience of gazing with so many people and

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meeting so many new friends in such an intense way. Make sure the music is hot and the drinks are flowing!

I hope this guide has been helpful in getting you started hosting Eye Gazing Parties. Please, take this as a starting point onlya lot of the magic comes when after youve hosted 2 or 3 events, and you get to see what works best for your crowd and community and what doesnt. A lot of this is learned by trial and error. But, even your first time will be amazing, Im sure. Theres nothing quite like peering deeply into the windows of the soul of 15 new people in a single evening!

Please email me your stories, photos, and event announcements to michael@eyegazingparties.com and Ill try to put as much of it on the blog as possible! (Due to volume of mail, I may not be able to answer all emails individually.)

Appendix: Music for Gazing The music you select should be hip, and sexy, but Id recommend against having it overly romantic, as that could make people feel uncomfortable. Jazz, electronica, world music, and latin are all popular for gazing. If youre going to have songs with lyrics, Id choose only lyrics in a foreign language, so it doesnt become distracting for people. Remember, the gazes are only 2 minutes, and most songs are more than 2 minutes. So youll have to keep an eye on time and turn down the volume, so you can tell people to switch, after 2 minutes. I recommend starting each gaze with a new song. Here are some songs I like for eye gazing:

 Ganapati by Susheela Raman, from album Salt Rain

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Candela by the Buena Vista Social Club, from album Buena Vista Social Club Maria Lando by Susana Baca, from the album Afro-Peruvian Classics Nuit Sur Les Champs-lyses (Take 1) by Miles Davis, from album Ascenseur Pour L'chafaud All the things you are [poema on guitar] by Baden Powell, from album Three Originals You can see I tend to like jazz, latin, and world music for gazingbut select whatever works best for your audience and crowd! Maybe its rock. Just make sure its hip and sexy! And happy gazing! Michael Ellsberg