In lgate.org, "Helen
Miles" wrote:

| Unlike dogs, eye contact is not a dominance signal. Rather, it is a
| signal of friendship, as it is in humans.

| Sorry, but I beg to differ. In cats eye contact is a threat. If you
| [stare] at a cat you are deliberately intimidating it. In the wild,
| a dominant cat will stare at a rival, and what will then usually
| happen is that the subordinate will drop eye contact and turn away.

This is my understanding too. I don't know where Orchid got her
information, but it contradicts everything I've found and read. For
instance, Pam Johnson-Bennett, in _Think Like A Cat_, writes (p.25):

: Avoiding eye contact is one method a submissive cat uses to try to
: prevent a violent confrontation with another cat. An aggressive
: cat will make direct eye contact.

Anitra Frazier, in _The New Natural Cat_, writes about "cat kisses",
which consists of *blinking* slowly at cats as a calming signal. I've
seen this work many times with ferals: when they lose the bugeyed stare
and blink back, they are also visibly more relaxed.

For humans, the natural tendency is to stare at things that interest us.
This is how we quite unwittingly spoil initial contacts with cats: they
would much rather not have a bunch of large creatures gawking at them.

| That's why cats are attracted to people who don't like cats - the
| lack od eye contact signals a lack of threat and the cat then feels
| it is safe to approach.

Thus the canonical story of the cat jumping into the lap of the one
person in the room who didn't like cats - everyone else stared at the
cat at some point and gave it the wrong signal! ;-)

| If you are trying to make friends with a cat, you should always look
| away or to one side. Eye contact is threatening.

You can combine this by turning back to the cat and blinking slowly.
The payoff is getting the cat to blink back at you! :-)