Maintaining eye contact

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Also, it's not impossible for me to confuse maintaining eye contact with unnecessary staring.

Depends on my mood or the situation...
If I am feeling down I'll make little to no eye contact (usually I am even more prone to nervousness so I avoid situations that would put me there).
If I am my usual self I maintain eye contact for about three seconds before I look away (for a few seconds) then back to eye contact. It makes me nervous when I feel like I might be staring (or their eye contact makes me uncomfortable), I must look away to calm myself. If the person is attractive to me this situation is even tougher. Overall, I am decent enough at maintaining eye contact but surely an observant person would take note of my eccentricities. It is also a drain of energy to constantly be cognizant of this struggle, and the many other struggles such as trying to read a person, trying to suppress nervousness, trying to effectively articulate my thoughts on the spot to avoid miscommunication (or err... perceived miscommunication as I replay/over-analyze the events later in my mind), all while hoping nothing happens that would cause me sensory overload (like my personal space being invaded or unexpected physical contact). Socializing takes so much energy, surprisingly I manage (probably due to the circumstances being in my favor, ie: not too much going on around me, or being in a laid back environment).

I was not even aware 1. I was not making eye contact 2.That I was supposed to make eye contact until I was about 40. When I first started started to consciously try and do it it was like their was this invisible hand forcing me to look down. It has gotten a lot easier over the years and sometimes it even comes naturally. But days that I am tired, stressed distracted I still "forget" to do it. Also sometimes when I am dong it I wonder if I am overcompensating and staring.

As I was writing this I came to the realization that my issue is not just eye contact but facial contact. If I am having a problem looking someone in the eye looking at thier nose or ears does not ease my discomfort.

I discovered there are two ways to break-off or elude eye contact-

*lower one's eyes to the ground until the other person passes
*cut-off gaze by sharply swinging eyes to the left or right, depending upon the direction of your movement

the first one marks one as lower-status, while the 2nd one is cruel. the only kind thing is to keep eye contact and smile at the other person, which if that person has issues may be seen as aggressive. so if one lacks the social graces in the first places one just cannot seem to win.

Also, there was study that showed less accurate on thinking task (answering question or solving simple problem) when maintaining eye contact while thinking. I don't think that NTs maintain constnat eye contact, most of them shift their eyes around a lot while conversing. I do know someone who maintains very strong eye contact almost all of the time. Also, prof told me that autistics were measured to have greater durations of eye contact compared to NTs in some expt (may be unpublished), but not sure if it was face2face interaction or other setup.

My mom used to tell people about the time I looked deeply into my 13 years older brother's eyes when I was a toddler and screamed as if I had peered into the abyss of hell. Apparently it unsettled my brother quite a bit. For most of my life this was just a puzzling family story. Now I wonder if it was an Aspie thing.