Watch that eye contact!

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That is exactly how I feel!! !! If I look at my closest friend in the eye it's enjoyable, even though it fills me with that panicky feeling it's like an adrenaline rush and I'm about to jump off a building, I can't get enough of it. But with most people I avoid it for the exact same reason that it's like looking down a 7 story building.

Do you not see the double standard inherent in your post? When you stare at, "three little girls," there is nothing in it, but when a guy is looking at you, he has some improper purpose.

If looks could harm topic

I do the elevator thing in public. I avoid regarding people at all, and focus on anything else.

As for zoing out, I look at the floor. Interesting textures, colours, etc.

What double standard? I was referring to me as an Aspie looking at young girls and not realizing it. Not a NT gay guy who is staring at me. If a guy is staring at me, it can only one thing: trouble. He's looking for trouble. He's probably a robber or someone who wants to fight me for no reason.
If a tall gay is staring at me, I sure as hell going to get nervous. I simply don't want it.
Only the other hand, if I'm in a big city like Chicago or New York, I'm look at everyone who's around me. Teenagers, juvenile kids, old men and women, everyone! Why? Because of pickpockets, murders and thieves. If anyone on this forum don't do that, then you're asking for trouble with capital T. You don't have to stare but give quick glances because someone may follow you. Especially if you just came from the ATM machine.

With respect, I disagree.

Who's to say the person looking at you is an NT?

Even if he is NT, what's to say he isn't saying, "that person has an interesting face, I would like to see if I can sketch that"? After all there are more artists out t here than there are robbers.

I can think of dozens of things that a guy staring at you might be thinking that means something other than trouble. Even a man who finds you attractive doesn't mean trouble--it just means that he finds you attractive. Do you intend to sexually assault every woman that you find sexually attractive? Of course not. So why do you suppose that every gay man who thinks that you are attractive has an improper intention?

If you go around expecting trouble around every corner, how are you going to manage to go through life? It seems to me rather sad that you have circumscribed your life in this way.

I am supposed to use eye contact at work also, but it makes me feel really vulnerable and uncomfortable. I have got used to looking at their mouth, its easier to tell people that you are a little hard of hearing and have to read lips then go into anything else. Also I have noticed that if you look at their nose they do not even notice a difference.

Wow, just...wow.

That level of paranoia is perfectly fine for a child, in order to keep them from running out into traffic, or going home with a stranger. I can also understand a healthy dose of paranoia in adults, but come on. Not every kid and their grandmother walking down the street is out to harm you. You sound like the mother of a girl I knew in college, who put her daughter on birth control before sending her to "the big city of Chico, California" (which is actually a tiny city in the middle of nowhere) because she was afraid her daughter would be raped.

The sad thing is that by being suspicious of, and essentially scared of, everyone who passes you on the street, it's more likely to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. The simple fact that you're nervous and suspicious of everyone who walks past you makes you look like a victim to the few people who actually would commit those crimes.

This is coming from a guy who has a bone disease that makes my bones break like glass (Osteogenesis Imperfecta type 1, the same thing Samuel L. Jackson's character had in Unbreakable). One quick punch is all it would take for someone to break my jaw, or a few ribs. Hell, if someone shoved me backwards, I'd break a wrist or arm just by trying to catch myself. Yet, I typically go to 2-4 concerts a month in Hollywood, with no worries. As I'm walking to my car at 1 in the morning, of course I'm going to be aware of my surroundings and watch for warning signs, but I don't assume that every single person who happens to look at me is "looking for trouble."

With eye contact, I thought that you had to look at the object you were talking about when talking to others.

I wasn't taught any other way.

I was surrounded by people at home who communicated in this way.
They don't look at people hardly in the eye for more than a few seconds before looking at another object. They focussed on a task or object, so their gaze was on that task or object.

This is why I think that inadvertent focussing on physical objects gets misinterpreted as being "asocial" or having "lack of eye contact". I don't think this is really fair if the person wasn't explicitly told or was unaware that they were doing anything wrong. Also, what if looking at objects and eyes scanning the physical environment is like a natural reflex or some genetically built in behaviour that can't be helped?

When you grow up, you tend to take after those closest to you.
If they tell you that there's "nothing wrong with you" and they have similar traits to you, you tend to believe them and don't think that their ways of viewing the world are "abnormal" or "wrong".

This is why it came as a great shock when I left my house.
I saw the world as being full of matter and objects to look at, whilst most other people saw a world filled with people.

You can also look at a person's ear.