Watching People?s Eyes

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First of all, I do not consider myself an avid people watcher. With that being said, when I walk around or stand in an open space (say a shopping mall), I will occasionally look at people who are relatively far away (say beyond 15-20 feet) and watch their eyes. I am not certain why. Maybe to see what they are looking at. Maybe to see if they are looking at me. When I was younger, I especially liked looking at the eyes of attractive members of the opposite sex from afar.

Then, if they returned the glance, I would immediately avert my eyes. And look somewhere else. And never look back again.

I was wondering if this (watching other people?s eyes) is common for humans. I ask mostly, because I rarely notice others looking into my eyes from afar.

Also, I was wondering if others in this forum did this as well.

As a note, when I am actually conversing with someone, if I am looking towards that person, I will mostly look at their mouth. I am not trying to read lips. It?s just easier to focus, listen and think (about what I need to say next, in the discussion).

I do it a lot, but there is a high probability of that being caused by my paranoidic feelings. I want to feel secure in the environment I'm in so therefor I start analyze other people by trying to indentify their expressions even though it's very unpredictable.

Also sometimes I do it because it's comfortable to look at that particular spot, as if I'm brain dead for a second.

Apparently humans can accurately determine 213 different emotions from just the eyes alone and I don't believe for a second that aspies can do any less.

To have evolved to discern 213 (! !) different emotional states has to mean that virtually everybody has virtually always done it.

BTW I kinda do the very same as you with 'watching' people, including looking away and never looking back. It's kinda weird imo.

Better than them looking at me...

Ugh. I sure as hell can't. I have a serious problem with looking at eyes. I try to avoid it because either the insane flow of information that makes no sense to me (those 213 emotions, I'm sure x_x) is totally overwhelming or I can't do anything but visually stim on the complexity of irises. I have ridiculous, beyond 20/20 vision, so sometimes pretty things with intense detail (eyeballs!) are really distracting sources of visual stimming.