Why don't people with aspergers look people in the eye?

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I avoid eye contact lest anybody get the false impression that I'm interested in what they say. I am not.

A big asssumption that all Aspies avoid eye contact. Even in the movie Mozart and the whale...Mozart looked often at the Whale. When I was young I would waver or be shy...or cast my eyes to the ground...but I am an extrovert...so I can look in the eyes now with less trepidation.

I also think it's why we are often accused of having an intense stare. It's the fact we are open and honest and when we look at people we look at them from this viewpoint ie we have nothing to hide and hence it's an honest full-on look. Whereas NTs spend most of their time being false, evasive and lying, so it's hardly any wonder they can't deal with the sheer openness and honesty of our look - they feel far too scrutinised! I think we sense their predatory nature through their eyes and that's another reason we don't like looking in their eyes ie we often fear them/are wary of them as they can read our unease/social ineptitude far too well and get the psychological upper hand over us easily as a result.

It feels uncomfortable. Also I know I am supposed to look people in the eyes because not looking someone in the eyes is considered untrustworthy. But I don't know how long is long enough so it adds to my discomfort.

I tend to look all over the room, at the person's hair, clothes, hands, but chiefly their mouth because I understand better when I can see what they are saying.

It just doesn't feel natural. It's really distracting and makes me uncomfortable and I easily lose my train of thought.

I can't look and speak at the same time.

I look people in the eyes. As a matter of fact it is extremely distracting when the person I am addressing doesn't respond in kind. I don't mind it, but I do fish for eye contact when I listening to somebody respond.

Let me ask you this, guys. Do you and your friends look each other in the eyes when talking? (Think around a dinner table for example.)

I was trained to look people in the eye. I can do it while they are talking (lip/facial read) Still look down or away when I talk. That would require one too many synapses.

Honestly I think I unnerve people now - "It's impolite to stare"

Also, makes any conversation 1-on-1 for me - focus on one person. It is impossible to handle a 3+ conversational group - I can't look 3 people in the eye.

I can handle too much data, as long as it is the same subject. If you add data from somewhere else, you get the elephant-mouse effect inside my mind.

i am not interested in eyes much.
once you have seen an eye, then you have seen all eyes.
why do they have so much importance?
they all are similar in shape and there are a variety of eye colors, but i am not interested.
they can look where they look but they have nothing to do with what interests me.

I can't do the eye contact thing.. I involuntarily blink and look away. It's completely automatic. I always put it down to the number of times I was shouted at for 'staring' as a child.

OTOH I never really saw the big deal.. Eyes are pretty uninteresting really.. They're brown or blue or some shade inbetween.. Some are big some small.. But I really don't get the window to the soul bit. Window to the retina maybe..

It's too distracting and uncomfortable to me

It tends to feel like my focus of attention is yanked away from inside my head (where I am focusing on thinking and what to say, or listening to the other person) and outside my body, making me unable to think about what I want to say, or listen to the other person.

Weeell... I do find it too intimate, too uncomfortable, as thought they're going to pounce on me (with unspecified intent). I also feel like I'm bothering people. I further feel that it creates awkwardness; from what I've seen, not even an NT maintains steady eye contact and I can't figure out when I'm suppose to look away and look back. And I think they may be uneasy because my eyebrows are almost invisible... Plus, I hate being stared at, so I try not to stare in return, both as a courtesy and because if I look at their eyes, I'm getting stared at!

But mostly I tend to be somewhat OCD and whatever I see in the day circles back and repeats in my head all evening, so if I have looked people in the face during the day, that's what's going to be before my eyes that night. This can really interfere with certain personal activities with my husband (similar to the reason I hate receiving bodywash as a gift, on a separate topic... I tend to think about the giver while I'm using a gift and well... y'know...); I don't need to see my kid's teacher staring at me at a time like that, even in memory.

I suppose it all boils down to having security and exposure issues. I even used to have nightmares about that when I first got married (a very rattling experience even for the NTs I expect) about having people walk in while I was using the bathroom (and no, my husband wasn't the sort to do that, so it was metaphorical).

I have read that the amygdala, the part of the brain that is involved with processes emotions and fear and the fight-or-flight response, has something to do with it. The amygdala has been shown to not function the same with people with ASD. Eye contact could cause the fight-or-flight response in people with ASD.

Here's a good article about it:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 151153.htm