Eye contact

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Do people find their lack of eye contact is variable? I feel like i do struggle to maintain eye contact especially with strangers but with people i know its easier

I can look into the eyes of people forever and a day.
I have had to modify my behaviour.
NTs, in particular, have a problem with someone staring, especially women.

From my perspective,
I am simply "drinking" in what I am seeing and making an assessment.
This isn't appreciated by women generally and I have had a number of women getting pissed off with me.
Stupidly I expect them to know that I don't mean any harm.
I think this is where my lack of "Theory of mind" lets me down.

I have learnt to focus on not looking at people in general.
A bit ironic when you consider I am autistic.

For me it’s length of time before eyes become “creepy” that is variable.
By “creepy” I mean it feels like I’m staring into a cold dead abyss that threatens to consume my mind.

I wear sunglasses a lot of the time to prevent random people from seeing my eyes: I feel “safer” that way.

People I’ve known all/most of my life (parents, grandmother, siblings) don’t bother me so much: I don’t do eye contact beyond a fleeting skim across and away, but I don’t mind the idea of them seeing my eyes.

I do eye contact with Mrs K, but it starts to feel weird after a few divisions of a minute and I have to look away.

I did take peyote once, almost twenty years ago now, I spent an unmeasured period of time staring into people’s eyes observing all the patterns made by the flecks of colour in their irises.

It's variable for me too. When I catch myself, I try to focus on something near the eyes (something behind the person, for example) that makes them think I'm looking at their eyes when I'm not.

Making eye contact causes me discomfort some reason that I'm not really sure of, so I don't do it with other adults unless they're some sort of authority over me. I can make proper eye contact with people I'm romantically close to though, and also with small children and animals.

Here's a funny, somewhat related thing. I didn't learn that you're not supposed to just stare at people in the eyes until recently, and that you're supposed to glance away from them occasionally when making eye contact. Whenever eye contact was explained to me that was never clarified, and people would just tell me to "look at/stare them in the eyes". Oops...

I've learned to maintain brief eye contact with people generally speaking. I used to have an issue staring and glaring into people's eyes for uncomfortable(for them) lengths of time.

Weird. I haven't thought about this in a while now. That issue definitely faded away, together with the social anxiety.. It makes me suspecting that it's more related to the social anxiety.

Anyway.. So yes, it is variable.
Some people stare more cause they're trying to read me and that's uncomfortable. (At that point, the sunglasses are a great solution).
I usually don't look people in the eyes when I'm explaining something. I don't care if it's socially accepted or not. It is the way it is.
If I just have to give a performance à la NT, there's no problem keeping up the eye-contact. If it turns out being a longer conversation, it gets more tiring and less important for me or the social norms.
The longer/better I know someone, the easier it gets.