Eyebrows are counterfactual. Like shoes, you don’t notice eyebrows unless they are particularly right or tragically wrong. As someone who has spent many years in an intense relationship with his own intentional brows, I’ve come to realize that they are not trivial. Eyebrows matter. In a sense, eyebrows serve the face’s highest function — that of communication, intention, and more importantly seduction. Eyebrows show interest, engagement and understanding. Raising, furrowing or shifting them ever so slightly registers and interchanges attention.

Incidentally (or not), all of those attributes are important elements of expressive personalities. Expressive people are context-lover, storyteller, competitive, and exaggerator. Expressive personalities consider emotions as well as the facts. For them, respect stands higher than fairness, spirited is better than considerate, popular sits on higher ground than peaceful. Expressive people have an active role in conversations. They just don’t sit on the side and take notes. They can’t bear misunderstanding.

Expressions have some downsides. Expression inherently contests impassivity. Any measured behavior that requires absence of emotions contrasts expression. If you’re expressive, you can’t hide feelings and you’re in need of telling your story. That will eventually come back to haunt you. These days, such incongruities are all too common. Frequently, I blame my expressiveness on my eyebrows. But great eyebrows are not easy to come by, because you can’t have great eyebrows by just leaving them alone.