Eye contact while walking or driving together?

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For me, it's impossible to balance focusing on the way ahead and from time to time holding eye contact with the other person. I don't know how people do it. I've been severely criticized for this and found weird, but I can't for the life of me strike that balance.

Keep your eyes on the road and your hands upon the wheel.. tra la la.

Try not to kill yourself or anyone else just to adapt to a social "norm".
It's hard to adapt to social "norms" when your dead.


(and for guys that includes not staring at her boobz while your driving... sorry)

I'm pretty sure that anybody who criticizes you should shut up when you say "I'm trying to look where I'm going."

I can't look people in the eye when in the car or walking. Basically anyone next to me. Across from me, yes. Just not next to me.

I tend to look out windows or the windshield when driving, to look neutral.

Ya I also hardly ever look at people when walking or riding (I don't drive). I've never been criticized for it though. As someone else said. in this situation safety is more important than social norms so if it's hard to focus on driving and looking at someone you're talking to...don't look at them!

Do people really make eye contact with each other while one of them is driving? That doesn't sound like a good idear for the safety of eberryone on the road.

It is perfectly acceptable not to make eye contact while driving. It is one of the few social situations were eye contact is not required. I may look over at the passenger at a stop light, but it's not safe to be making eye contact while driving.

LOL I see others on this thread so far are no better than me at this delicate balancing.

I remember how worried I was when walking with my boss, because I know this makes NTs angry and anti-you, because it acts for them as a subliminal rejection message.

I can't even converse properly with people I'm walking with. Multi-tasking failure. I have to focus on navigating and avoiding collisions. I might be able to talk a bit, but listening goes straight out of the window. As for eye contact, I'd probably walk into a wall if I did that.

Maybe if the route was very familiar I'd stand a chance. I've often noticed that multi-tasking is possible as long as the tasks are well-known.

I wonder if it's a cultural difference. I never see people doing that here in the US, except perhaps when they've just made a big joke or point, or asked an important question. For the most part they just look ahead.

I talk better with people when I'm sitting or standing next to someone (as in driving or walking) as I do not feel obligated to try to make eye contact in those situations.

I just walked down a corridor or two with a friendly colleague who used to work in my place. He was alternating his gaze between my face and the corridor in front of him, giving each roughly the same attention, with a cycle time of about 3 seconds. I reciprocated reasonably well I think - I know that corridor and its collision blackspots very well, and it's much quieter and less risky than a road. He's French, don't know if that made a difference to his eye contact culture. I've always found continental people a tad more relaxed and warm than the English, as if they generally like people more.

The main problem was that I got so focussed on this idea of eye contact while walking, that I didn't deal very well with his social-grooming question - something like "is it fairly quiet in your workplace these days because of it being holiday time?" - I went onto auto-pilot (mouth ran ahead of brain) and said a few "errr....s" and something vague without really having looked at the question, though I think I got away with it.

Velocity is a factor. I used to know this lady who walked extremely quickly. I could keep up but couldn't talk at the same time, and I always seem to feel embarrassed when I'm with somebody I'm supposed to be friends with but don't talk with them.

Actually, when I've seen people walking and talking, they don't exactly make as much eye contact as they would when just standing or sitting. NTs don't have eyes like a fly, they have to look where they're going too, and if they are walking quick, they usually look ahead whilst talking, and just look at eachother occasionally. Sometimes people make more eye contact when dawdling along slowly.

I don't know how anyone can take their eyes off the road when driving. When I was talking to the bus-driver on this this morning, she didn't make much eye contact at all, the only time she did was when she had to stop at traffic lights, and that was just a half-a-second glance. These days the roads are very busy and you can't take your eyes off the road for a second, unless you are somewhere very quiet, or some long road without much hazards or other obstacles.

Sometimes they have to, to look in mirrors, read the speedometer, etc. I suppose if they can do that, it's just as easy to glance at a face.

I've never been comfy with having to glance behind me while riding a bike though. It takes a moment or two for my brain to latch onto the new picture and answer the question "is everything clear back there?" Probably only takes a second but that's a long time to be not looking ahead, and I often have to look forward again before I've acquired the data. I'm getting better though. I used to turn the handlebars in the same direction as my head turned......little brain decided that I wasn't looking where I was going, and tried to put it right.

In Driver's Ed, we were driving past a park with tennis courts and the teacher (a man) started going on about the short tennis dresses. I glanced over and of course, the wheel followed my eyes. I have to look where I'm going when I drive and when I walk.

Never seen any of my NT mates ever look me in the eye while there driving, there attention is on the road. Possibly when stopped. Will nod and do some responses though.