Why don't we keep eye contact?

Post Reply New Topic

Hey all. My wife asked me tonight during a conversation, why I mostly don't keep eye contact while we talk. I gave it a little thought, and knowing it was an aspergers trait I reminded her that this was a well known fact for people like myself. But she asked me again why I do it. I gave it some thought and I suppose its something to do with the difficulty in reading her body language if I hold eye contact. Perhaps my mind is locking up when I realize I have no clue what she's thinking or feeling while she is being silent listening to me, and then I freeze and lose track of what I was saying. That's one theory anyway. There definitely is something uncomfortable with holding eye contact with people and I'm not sure exactly what it is and now I'm curious what mechanism is causing this uncomfortable feeling.

Truth is, I'm not sure what the real reason is for not keeping eye contact, so I thought I'd pose the question to the community here and see if we can come up with the real reason behind the behavior.

Thanks!

I always feel like I'm doing it wrong when I make eye contact. Not really sure HOW you can "do it wrong", though - maybe I'm just subconsciously used to getting these subtle social cues wrong and having some sort of negative consequences.

When I look someone in the eye and they look at me it's like they can read my mind. It's just this really strong emotion so I can't do it. I always forget to as well. At first I didn't know that it made me feel that way because I rarely looked a person in the eye, but it kind of makes me never wanting to look them in the eye now.
I can look my good friends in the eye though or a loved one. Sometimes it's a good feeling, most of the times it's not.

I think two things when I look in peoples' eyes:

1. Boredom; I get bored making eye contact. You're looking at someone's eyes...very exciting.

2. Once you make the eye contact, it's like if you start looking at something else, they'll notice it, and you're screwed.

Plus I focus so much on the eye contact, I usually forget what I'm thinking. Only occasionally does it actually work to my benefit.

In my case, I'd retort with:

Why don't you stare at the sun?

i have already posted in an other thread about this, but i can add a reason i forgot to say there.
one reason i do not look at peoples eyes is because they do not change. i do not look at things for long after i have seen what they look like. eyes do not change shape or color, so there is no need to watch them.

if someone was talking with their mouth obscured from my view and i was deaf, there is no way i could tell what the person was talking about while watching their eyes.

eyes convey no information to me that would add to the meaning of their words.

i read once that it elicits a fear response in the amygdla of autistics but not in most other people.
this makes sense to me

My Interpretation:

Eyes tell 50% or more in a conversation between 2 connected people while words only mean 7% of the whole.

ASS people have 1 track minds, which are great at focusing on 1 thing and receive shedloads of information like that.

When we are talking and look into someone's eyes, we see the same as NT's do, but have no way of understanding it, giving us an overload of information we can't even begin to interpret.

In other words, when looking into someone's eyes, we get overloaded with information, shifting our focus to what the eyes are saying, leaving us unable to keep track of what we were saying. The second effect of this is that the overflow of information we can't understand gives us extreme anxiety.

It makes me feel uncomfortable most of the time, so I avoid it. I'm not sure why really.

I dislike doing it as it feels as if I'm "spying" on the other person and that as soon as they look back it feels as if I've been caught doing it. I have no idea why, just know that it is. This is yet another reason I wear mirrored sunglasses so I can glance at peoples eyes to see where they're looking, then I still glance away because I still feel massively uncomfortable, unless it's someone I know, trust, and they're talking to me.

It kind of sucks too, because I find eyes fascinating to look at, both in a scientific fashion, and in a more imaginary fashion.

I find eye contact difficult to understand.

I force myself to do it, but I know I need to look away every now and then or what I'm doing is having a staring contest with the person I'm talking to. I have no idea how well I'm doing it.

I give eye contact, though only because I've been taught that that's what you're supposed to do in social situations to show that you're listening, that you're paying attention, etc, etc. I found it extremely hard at first, and there's still times that I can't give it.

Eye contact just makes me feel generally uncomfortable, vulnerable, and I just really don't like people looking at me. Eye contact just doesn't seem right or natural to me, but I can't explain WHY I feel this. And then if I give eye contact, I find myself concentrating on that so much that I completely lose track of what people are saying, and it's like, "Sorry, what? I wasn't paying attention."

And plus I'm a nosey git, and like to look at what's going on around me.

I think, basically, because we didn't learn to.

And, along with that, "keeping eye contact" isn't as simple as that wording makes it sound. Because it's keeping eye contact for the right length of time. Keeping eye contact too long is staring, which most of the time isn't appropriate.

So, it's a matter of learning, on a subconscious, innate, level, that we should make eye contact, and for how long, and the whole pattern of it in a conversation. We can't do it if we haven't learned it.