Eye contact

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I've gotten pretty good at maintaining eye contact while someone is talking to me even though I feel like I'm glaring at him or her. Yet I have a really hard time making eye contact while I am talking. My eyes kind of search around and I don't really focus on any point in particular. It's almost like I have to turn off my eyes to make my brain/mouth work.

I have gotten pretty good at eye contact over the years, but it took a lot of practice. Looking someone in the eye does not come naturally to me at all. I have to constantly concentrate on keeping my eyes on the eyes of the person with whom I am talking. Even so, I occasionally find myself looking around the room, and once again I have to find the eyes of the other conversationalist and focus on them. I am now working on looking back and forth between several people with whom I am speaking. I'm still having trouble with this one, but I'm making progress, I think. - LJS

Eye contact is hard for me as well, this is a problem because I am responsible for writing our customers up. I luckily have to wear bifocals to correct my vision. So if looking at someone between the eyes becomes difficult I just shift my glasses till the persons face becomes blurry or I look over the lens edge. Anything that keeps their face out of focus, and allows me to appear to look them in the eye.

For a long time, I wouldn't look at other people when I talked. If I was called on in class, I'd look down at my paper a lot or something, as if I had the answer written down somewhere, like in notes or something. This was pretty convincing. I'd only really look up at the end of whatever I was saying. I used to be really bad about being turned perpendicular to the person I was talking to, and I would occasionally move my eyes over to look at them out of the corners. As I got older, I learned it was imperative to look others in the eye so that they knew you were paying attention. And if I wanted to get a job, I'd have to be good at it in an interview. So, I'm pretty good at it now, because I've trained myself. But if I'm looking at someone while they are explaining something at length, I start to freak out a little. Their eyeballs look like olives that jiggle around a lot. I fixate on them and it becomes harder to do the "Uh huhs" and smiles and nods. I do it, but not without effort. I have to keep my mind from focusing only on the eyeballs.

One thing you should not do is direct your eyes at the person's chest, especially if they are a woman, even if you have no interest at all in what is there. XD I actually had to learn that when I was a kid.

I don't pay much attention to eye contact, but maybe I should in certain situations. I know I don't maintain it, because it takes conscious effort to do so and distracts me from whatever is being said by either of us.

I get a weird sensation running through my entire body when I look a person in the eyes long enough. The only kind of person I have noticed that I can almost stare in the eyes without having any sensation, is girls that I see as potential partners.

My theory is that eye contact, for me, is something that allows me to control the "distance" between me and others. Obviously, I want girls I see as potential partners as close as possible. Seeing that I don't really want anyone else than those girls close to me, that might be why I don't look anyone else in the eyes.

When I am at home I don't realy have to worry about it.

At work I pretend like I am busy doing something else. When I am ordering food or at the store I just don't look at people I have to deal with.

I suck at eye contact. I think i find it intimidating or somehting i dont really know but it makes me very uncomfortable and i get very nervous and anxious. Especialy when people deliberatly try to catch your eye because they know you have a problem with it!

I don't tend to make eye contact, and when I do it seems painful to maintain. I can make eye contact fairly easily with my mother, but most people I look at anything and everything else. I do use the "look at the bridge of their nose" trick for some degree of eye contact, but mostly I look for other things to focus on.

I recently had a couple of interviews, each a couple hours long (one being assistance with filling out SSI paperwork, one a mental health intake) and I concentrated almost exclusively on the paperwork, and not the person I was talking to. A lot of the time I don't even remember what I looked at or saw during a conversation if I don't stop to take note, I just remember the conversation itself. Like I can focus on talking and listening, or I can focus on seeing.

I tried looking at the bridge of the nose until one time when someone rubbed their nose and asked if they had something on their face.

I've been too afraid to do it since.


My best strategy has been defocussing my vision so that I see 3 or 4 eyes instead of 2. The effect is pleasantly dissociating.

Eye contact is still pretty difficult for me. I find I am better at it when the conversation is light hearted or about a special interest.

It's 27 years later and my mom still gets on me for this everyday!

Don't you just love parents who fail the grasp the concept of having an ASD? Or just have morons who think they can discipline the symptons out of you?