Maintaining eye contact

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Sometimes its fine, but sometimes it feels like being eaten alive, as though I'm being absorbed by the other person. Does this ring true for other people?

defiantly ring true for me. I don't know why that is. I do know that it is a pleasurable act for NT's to do. I don't know why it hurts for aspies to do it. Some aspies don't feel anything at all.

if it is loving eye contact I swim in it, but if it is hateful it burns.

It's a huge issue for me and one of the main reasons I dreaded going to my old job and decided to go to grad school. In my old job I ended up filling in for my manager in a formal representative role from time to time, which meant meeting strangers (i.e. her business contacts) who I had to impress on her behalf. I wanted to run away every time. After those events I always felt completely drained of energy. It's a problem in my day-to-day life as well, but in everyday situations I just avoid it most times. It gets really awkward when I am intimate with someone. Dimmed lights or lights off is a must for me in those situations (also because I am very light sensitive as well).

Yes! When it's not downright unpleasant, I get drawn in, absorbed, almost hypnotized. I realize that I've stopped paying attention to what the person is saying, and that it's difficult to maintain attention; I'm just staring at the eyes.

creepy. I do it in interviews, because you're supposed to. I believe I end up knowing what the other is thinking. usually dont enjoy what the other is thinking, unless it's a girl, and her mind is in the gutter. I believe what they see is a reflective image. it is not me. it is whatever they think it is. creepy. I get a kik out of the people who think they are reading me loud and clear. not even if they have a gun to my head. since most cannot understand my way of thinking, it will remain creepy.

Is there any reason a zoomed in eye is your avatar?

I don't feel like I am being eaten alive or absorbed. I don't feel anything special.

this article does a bit of explaining about why eyecontact hurts for people on the spectrum.
in my personal case, i can maintain eyecontact with people i know and trust, and loving contact is something i even crave at times, but with (relative) strangers it will indeed hurt.

it is basically a trust issue: do i allow this person to 'see' my inner self. "the eyes are the window to the soul", literally for aspies, which is why it is uncomfortable to allow others to look into it.

For me it's really difficult to hold eye contact, I either stare at the ground or elsewhere but never in someones eyes. I always get told to "look at me when im talking to you" which is so hard. If I have to look at a person I seem to lose focus of what I was doing or saying. I look at a persons nose or mouth and never make proper eye contact, I can disguise it very well at times.

I feel like too much eye contact for me makes me feel nervous (though there's no real reason to be) so every so often I'll just look to the side or up or down.

its harder for me to understand what someone is saying when im looking at them, but sometimes, my eyesight kinda shuts off, and i can look in their direction and understand them.

NTs don't maintain eye contact either, but shift gaze often between eyes and other parts of faces and other places in environment. In expt, found only ~30% gaze is eyes.

Feels kinda like burrowing into someone's soul.

Yep. This. I don't think of myself has having trouble with eye contact (and can't think of being told that I do), but I do know that I often break eye contact and use other body language to convey that I'm still engaged and thinking (eyes angled upward towards nothing (rather than at a specific object), furrowed brow, nodding, pursed lips, tilted head). It makes me more uncomfortable (or perhaps I only notice it or feel I have to maintain it) with those who "outrank" me -- teachers, bosses, etc. In situations where I might be making less eye contact than I usually do, I also up my verbal markers of engagements -- I use affirmation and listening utterances, as well as asking clarifying questions -- so there is no doubt that I'm listening.

It's a weird kind of nervous that I feel. Maybe "twitchy" would be the right word -- if I do sustained eye contact (past my comfort level), I often have a much harder time staying engaged/tracking the conversation and managing other social performance (impulse control, fidgeting, verbal responses).

As for the article, I do think I look at their eyes more often when they aren't looking at mine (as was a suggested way to compensate). I also know there are cultural differences for where on the face people look when talking to another person. I can't share links yet, but a related article (though not the one I am thinking of) is found on Science Daily and titled "Caucasians and Asians Don't Examine Faces in the Same Way."

That's very interesting.