theory about eye contact

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Yes, I agree with this. When I look in someone's eyes I feel like a rabbit standing frozen in the headlights of an oncoming car. It's a prey animal response.

I don't feel like I am getting any information about people from their eyes, so I don't feel invasive. Or rather, I am getting information, but I can't process any of it. So I'm still ignorant as to their inner feelings or whatever. Thus, it's not about privacy for me.

well she's starving, what do you expect?

I didn't put the two things together.

I have two feelings toward eye contact. The main reason I do not like it is because it feels threatening. Secondly, to a lesser extent, it also feels private and I do not want someone to invade my privacy, nor do I wish to invade theirs.

So I do agree with you to an extent, OP.

yes, although i suppose you could say that threatening is a form of invading someone's privacy, of imposing yourself on their mental space, so to speak. it is a trespass either way, in my opinion.

I hate eye contact just because it feels awkward to look in someone's eyes, and when I do look into someone's eyes, all they see is me staring, not eye contact.

Eye contact comes off on me as multiple things. Though I think a rule for how I judge it is that the intimidation factor of eye contact correlates with how intimidating the person is to my knowledge. My parents find me to be rude, so when they stare at me I become frustrated. With friends and those I respect I can tolerate it, and lock on as equal.

Whether you are on the spectrum or NT, eye contact can be uncomfortable for most. Simply put people with autism have a more extreme stress response and it varies with individuals. I make contact at times and look at people's faces during conversation.

At times it is uncomfortable and awkward for me to maintain eye contact. I loose my thoughts, feel stressed, stare and become somewhat dysfunctional. Anxiety at its worst!

Hmm... I don't think your avator looks threatening at all. It looks like you're deep in thought or feeling shy.

I also hate looking at my own picture. I don't even have the guts to put my face online. Just feels weird.

when i was younger i could not look at peoples' faces. These days at 46, i still cannot look into the eyes - except my son's - but i do look at the face and at the teeth and mouth. i also have that aspie stare thing sometimes.

I didn't get "threatening" at all, so it may depend a fair amount on the individual. That photo to me looks ... well the angle is unusual, but if I had to put an emotion to it, I'd say you look "interested" in something. The smile is very faint though imo. It's enough to make me think "is she smiling?" - not quite enough to make me think "she's smiling."

I was under the impression "ret*d" was the official / correct term... it's part of the name of the government's mental health org -- Mental Health / Mental Retardation (MHMR). I think people take offense primarily when it's shortened to "ret*d" and used gratuitously as a pejorative, rather than being used in context to mean what it's supposed to mean (which I believe is below 70 IQ or something like that).

I never equated my discomfort with eye contact with any kind of privacy that I recall... but I know that it was a lot more uncomfortable when I was much younger. For many years now my biggest issue with eye-contact is that it feels strange and unusual to me and I worry that I'm not doing it correctly. I wonder how it is that the subconscious nudge to tell NTs when and how to make it works -- what it feels like to have that conditioning. It's very much the same way that you might be concerned about say taking a trip to a foreign country and making some dumb outsider mistake regarding their customs. For me these days it's mostly about not wanting to displease the other person. Though it's certainly possible that the sort of privacy issue might have been part of my discomfort when I was younger.

My husband told me that when I look him in the eye my sight seems too intense.
I really hate looking at the eyes.

I think that since eyes reflect light and aspies are too sensitive to lights, hence the problem.
that's just my own theory.


By the way,
Your eyes look like if you were being sarcastic at the moment they took the picture.

I don't like eye contact partly because of what I see in their eyes. Yes, it is personal and feels rude to see soemthign as personal as what's in their eyes, but also, sometimes I see a lot of bad/creepy/scary stuff in there, which is even more disconcerting if the mouth is smiling, eek!

For me eye contact can be distracting. I think I have some
auditory processing problems at times, and if I'm looking
at someone's expressions at the same time I am listening to them, I
lose track of what they're saying. Too much info coming in at once.
Also I think sometimes I'm worried about whether I'm giving them
the right expressions. If I'm not looking at them, it's not such a problem.