Random eye contact questions

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Really struggle with eye contact. Feels like they can see into my soul.

Problem is I am very aware I struggle with it so try to make eye contact, a second after doing it I then panic and look down at the floor, then start wondering about what a weirdo I look by string at the floor. By this point the other person has finished asking me their question and I haven't heard a word of it!

My preferred response would be to pull out an optician's scope and make as if to start doing an eye examination on them. But as I've never had one handy, my next best option would be to just say something like "No. I'll explain why if you've got a few minutes."

It might be worth trying to look sideways instead. Looking down seems to get interpreted as furtiveness, for reasons I don't understand. But I think sideways is relatively acceptable. Another thing I like is closing the eyes. With a little luck, they'll see it as a sign that you're focussing on what they're saying, which is exactly what it is of course.

I dont make eye contact because not only does it feel unnatural but i can pt hear a person if im looking at their face. Note i said face, i cant look at a person at all while talking to someone. Not their forehead,not their nose, not really their mouth. To me its the same as the face. Ive tried mouth and forehead but it worked for a little but i cant even keep focus and forget that i need to maintain eye contact.

I didnt know eye contact was a thing until my dad sat me down one day and explained it to me and said that i need to look at people when i talk to them because its polite. I didnt know i had to.

I've got by quite well by limiting my eye contact to shooting the occasional glance at people. If it's mainly a neurotypical thing, maybe it's better to not do much eye contact, so that we don't end up with too many NTs in our lives?

My dad said it goes beyond just making friends, if you appear normal you get better treatment and it makes people see you as well put together, which may be crucial when getting a job. Same goes for keeping clean clothes and hair.

And for the record, i sorta need "NTs" in my life, without them i would not be very well off. After all it was NTs who raised me and taught me everything i know. My sister is non autistic and without her i would be way less socially developed.

Here's the thing: in a neurotypical brain, there's a feedback loop from sight to expression that works automatically and works fast, inside the half second or more it takes us to manufacture a response.

That's what makes eye contact work for them. That's the foundation for "theory of mind"

Forms early, somewhere between birth and two or three. Brain growth is path dependent so once it's missing it stays missing. Absolutely fundamental to the neurotypical way of being.

Well, you have to go your own way of course. All I can say is, I didn't do badly without bothering too much with eye contact. I passed a couple of job interviews. Obviously, if there are NTs in your life and things are working out with them, it makes no sense to remove them and I wasn't suggesting you should. I'm just saying that it might be futile to try too hard to do the full NT eye contact thing, and that if it does turn out not to work, that might not be such a bad thing. Filtering out most NTs from my life has probably saved me from a lot of pain.

I look at people's mouth and if they are not really paying attention, they think it is eye contact.