Indirect Eye Contact

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I was at the barber shop over the weekend and I realized something interesting.

I have always had problems with eye contact, and was yelled at by my father as a child for failing to make eye contact with people. I eventually learned to stare at the bridge of a person's nose during conversation as a coping mechanism.

However when my barber was cutting my hair while standing behind me, without thinking I looked directly into the eyes of the reflection in the mirror. I have also noticed that when someone is talking to a third person, I look directly into the speakers eyes.

Veddy Int'restin'.

I don't THINK I have ever tried the mirror thing. Haircuts would be the main time, and back when there WAS no mirror, and long ago I learned [partly because of my eye phobia] to keep my eyes closed or cast down at the barner's.

BUT - at the dentist I can and do watch the eyes [all you can see] as he focusses on my teeth.

As for three way conversation, I watch the speaker's face, but I think I still avoid the eyes.

unless the conversation is too emotive I watch the face - mouth, forehead [I need to be far enough eye phobia does bnot cick in], or [as last week] if something REALLY INTERESTING is being said [in which case I concentrate on the whole face.

I've never had any feedback on what it looks like to others.


Unless you count - one semester at the end I let my students have their head for a day of partying and entertainment. With skits. One student comes up to the front, puts on a tie [I was never without inb those days unless it was summer], and starts an imitation lecture, with his head down on his arms. Everyone laughed, myself included. I not infreqauently did things like that.

I go to a "relationships" group where we have to keep eye contact! I go bright red and fidget But yeah, If the conversation is extremely interesting, I sometimes find myself holding eye contact

At a barber I usually close my eyes. When I visited dentist as I was child, I preferred to look at the bright lamp above me. Now I prefer to close my eyes and concentrate on feelings of some another part of my body, usually hands, to forget, what they are doing with my teeth.
Rarely, when I need to make an eye contact, I look at some point behind the eyes, but many people don't like this.