NT Question about Eye Contact

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Various reasons for me.

1. I just forget. I don't get all that much information from people's eyes, so my brain doesn't have eye contact filed away as important.

2. My attention is rather single-channel in nature, so I find it difficult to both focus on what someone's saying and look into their eyes.

3. I find it difficult to focus my visual attention. Spending a lot of time looking in one spot is difficult. I have the same issue with watching television.

4. It hurts. It feels something like looking into the sun.

5. It feels confrontational.

6. When people look into my eyes, it feels as though they are demanding some sort of an emotional response that I can't give or trying to force a connection that isn't really there- it feels like forced intimacy. Imagine if everyone you met expected you to passionately embrace them; that's what the expectation of eye contact feels like to me.

I hate holding continuous eye contact with someone, but I've always been okay with occasional contact during a conversation because I realise that it lets the person know you're still paying attention to them. I don't like making extended eye contact because I feel like I'm intruding on the person's... inside space? And I feel like they're intruding on mine. Any eye contact longer than probably a few seconds feels kind of threatening to me. The only times I can make kind of long eye contact with someone is if we've been talking about something really deeply or intensely and come up with an idea or conclusion or something exciting and... XD Like... having a bonding moment? But I can't make ANY eye contact in close proximity. Eye contact after a joke is okay too, I don't mind it when people are laughing. I just hate that... intense concentrated gaze of I AM LISTENING TO YOU AND LOOKING INTO YOUR EYES. Also, I actually hate having another person's face close to mine. Perhaps it's the same way that animals are? Eye contact feels like you're being scrutinized or challenged or... something... I don't know. It makes me feel like they're thinking about ME too hard while saying other words and I end up having a hard time paying attention to what they're saying and have to look away. I get more nervous and look around and move my hands a lot and end up looking really suspicious so it's better if I just don't try to make extended eye contact.

Here's another who finds it too personal. I can look at someone's face for ages if they're speaking to a group that I happen to be in, such as a church congregation. The odd glance in my direction is just that... they happen to look left or right.

In conversation, eye contact feels too intimate and personal. Part of it is, I think, that I'm not sure what they want of me. People have so many expectations and they don't share them. So what is that look about? Forget it, refuse delivery.

I've always found that having people looking right at me makes me feel like Sam Gamgee did when the Fellowship arrived in Lothlorien and met the Lady Galadriel... she looked at each of them in turn and when they discussed it later, Sam was asked why he blushed and looked away, and he said that it had made him feel like "he hadn't got no clothes on." Totally. That's just how it makes me feel. It's almost like they're rubbing their hands all over me. Needless to say, huggy people freak me out more.

I can only make eye contact with people I really trust... and that just means I can stare into their eyes longer before I feel panic. For me it has nothing to do with how well I know someone. For example... I've only known my therapist for 2 years and I can make solid eye contact with her for 10 second intervals before looking aside and then glancing right back. I've known my father for as long as I've been alive and I can't make more than 2 second glances toward his eyes with a long delay before I try looking back towards his eyes. I don't know why but it scares me too much. There's too much about eye contact that scares me. It feels very confrontational and upsetting unless I truly trust the person I'm speaking to. Sometimes I kinda feel like a dog. If you've ever tried to stare into their eyes... after so long their eyes shoot somewhere else almost out of fear. I guess that's also a point to make... I simply can't make eye contact with humans... but I can have staring contests with random dogs

Heh... I tried to think about that logically. Most humans aren't always upset with you when they want eye contact. Alot of the time they are just trying to get a closer connection with eye contact. Having a staring contest with a dog is a direct challenge. Dogs tend to growl, snarl, and bark in response and I just smile and laugh inside. I'm confused with myself now

For some, the ability to read faces might be impaired. THerefore, the brain automatically makes the eyes look elsewhere. Research has shown that there are neurons whose sole function is to interpret visual information from faces. Perhaps these systems are impaired in people with AS. All I know is that it is extremely difficult for me to maintain eye contact with people I am not familiar with.

I get confused and lost in conversation when I'm looking at eyes. I start focusing on their eye color and patterns, that's the only way I can look at eyes without getting to worried. The issue is that I start focusing on the colors and patterns and not the conversation at hand.

I don't like looking at eyes in general. I feel a bit scared sometimes and insecure. It just doesn't feel right.

Caveat: I don't have an official diagnosis.

I tend to ignore eye contact. I remember as a kid trying to make eye contact and being annoying that I could not look into both eyes at once. Being unable to decide on which eye to look into, the left or right, I settled on looking between the eyes or at the nose. Then I started looking at the mouth because it was fascinating to see how lips move.

I also find that when I talk, I often only really care about what I'm saying, thinking, and hearing. What I see is irrelevant to the conversation, so I don't pay attention to what my eyes are doing. A habit I used to have but don't do as much now was to intentionally let my eyes go out of focus. Maybe it looked like I was looking someone in the eyes, but really all I saw was a big blur, which made it easier to put my mind on more important things.

I was recently shown in an asperger's book that if you'd like to have a fair conversation do so in candle light. I liked the idea.

I look down or away often to help me hear and reply.

I was with my brother today and I noticed we naturally hardly ever looked at each others eyes. It doesn't seem to be needed.

It seems to me I can often do eye contact alright, I do have gaze avoidance along with the deer in the headlights, but I've been watching how other people talk on tv and elsewhere and I can't even comprehend sustained direct eye contact while talking. I seem to watch the mouths a lot on tv, but I look at the face and eyes as well.

I don't really know how my eye contact is, this was one point I raised when I said I wasn't sure that Asperger's was the right diagnosis* for me (but I said I didn't think I was too literal and my mom said, "You are the poster child for taking things literally!" but she didn't say anything about eye contact because we got talking about me being too literal) but I've noticed that if I force myself to look someone in the eye, I feel flustered.

I think it's because of these reasons:

1. I get caught up in the color. Eyes are unique in color, it's kind of like a fingerprint, I see everyone having different shades and different features to their eyes. I actually love some photographs and old films because the eyes stand out and I just love the colors that appear.

2. I feel intrusive. There's so much out there about the eyes being "the window to the soul" and I don't want to intrude.

3. I feel like I'm staring at them and I get uncomfortable because I don't know if they think I'm staring or not.

But these are my personal reasons, I don't know how it is for everyone.

*I don't have an official diagnosis, but I couldn't think of another word that would fit in that sentence.

I can relate to all the reasons given.
If I'm listening to someone, I find it too distracting to look them in the eyes and then I don't really hear what they are saying. I need to be able to visualize what they are saying to me and to do this I need to block out all other visual input, taking notes helps or if they are illustrating what they are saying I can look at their illustration and take it in OK.
If I am the one talking, I'm usually already feeling self conscious and vulnerable and the act of looking someone in the eyes can tip things over into "too intimate". I agree that with some of the posters - with people I am closest to and trust it is somewhat easier to maintain eye contact.
I find that even if I try to look at the face of someone talking to me I get distracted by all the details on their face: facial hair, imperfections, lip shape, teeth, nasal hairs and so on and can totally miss things and that's embarassing.
I believe that due to the fact that I don't get so much of the non-verbal cues I have to concentrate that much harder on what is given verbally, it's like in these situations I have to shut down one sense in order for my auditory processing to occur properly.