Eyes Wide Open: What Your Eyes Reveal About Attraction

(Posted on Wednesday, June 25, 2025)

Your eyes don’t lie. When you like someone, you’re drawn to them. Your gaze lingers, and your pupils widen, taking in as much of them as you can. No matter how hard you try to play it cool, this subtle shift happens within a fraction of a second. Attraction is not just about chemistry; it comes down to biology.

The anatomy of the eye is more complex than it may seem at first glance. Light enters through the pupil and travels to the back of the eye, where light-sensitive cells convert it into electrical signals that can be sent to the brain.

Tiny muscles in the iris, the colored part of your eye, control how much light enters. When these muscles contract, your pupil dilates and gets bigger. When they relax, the opening shrinks. This reflex allows your eyes to adjust automatically, with help from the autonomic nervous system.

The autonomic nervous system regulates functions around your body that you don’t have to think about, like breathing or keeping your heart beating. Deep in the brain, the hypothalamus acts as the control center. In low light, the hypothalamus triggers the release of norepinephrine, a chemical messenger that stimulates your body’s “fight or flight” response. This is your brain’s way of preparing you to react. As your heart rate and breathing start to increase, your pupils also get bigger. Bigger pupils let in more light, which helps your eyes focus and see more clearly.

The same thing happens when you are aroused. You know the feeling—your heartbeat races, you breathe a little faster, and a rush of adrenaline runs through your body. Even before you can put the feeling into words, your nervous system is gearing up for intimacy.

A simple look can feel magnetic. When you see an attractive person, your pupils automatically dilate. Who you find attractive is ingrained into your biology. A recent meta-analysis reviewed over 30 studies comparing pupil dilation in straight, gay, and bisexual men and women. What they found was that your pupils react differently depending on who you are attracted to.

Using infrared eye tracking systems and specialized pupillometer devices, subtle changes in pupil size can be detected. Men, more so than women, show a greater response to erotic imagery. The pupils of straight men dilate more when looking at women, while gay men respond more to men. Bisexual men react to both men and women. In the early stages of arousal, pupil dilation seems to align with sexual orientation.

For women, this pattern is less straightforward. While the responses of lesbians align with their preferences, there is more variation in how the pupils of straight women react to the opposite or same gender. It is possible that any kind of sexual cue triggers an automatic physical response in women, not necessarily out of desire but as the body’s way to prepare for a potential sexual encounter.

Increased pupil size can also make you appear more attractive. People tend to rate faces with slightly larger pupils as more appealing. It is a subtle sign that someone may be interested, even when you do not consciously notice why.

Our eyes are more than tools for seeing. They reflect what we are feeling. However, it is only one piece of the puzzle. Dilated pupils do not always mean that someone is interested in you. If you want to know if someone likes you, just ask.