Eye contact - NT vs ND

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I dont get this eye contact thing. I’ve recently discovered i’m an aspie and i’m just exploring what is concidered «normal».

I usually look at peoples mouth, hair, nose, shoulder, or something completely different when speaking to people.

I thought this was normal? Is this really an aspie thing?

Where do you look in a conversation, and what does NTs do? Do they stare right into each others eyes for the whole conversation?

I think its especially hard having eye contact with people i dont know, but also with people i do i know, i have to «remind» myself to look them in the eyes now and then.

No one has complained for my entire life, so i can’t see how this is very different from what NTs does?

i generally dont make eye contact. it is very uncomfortable to me.

i dont look at people directly unless i know them very well. even then its not really something i do alot.

Before I was diagnosed, I knew I tended to divert my eyes, as you described, nose, mouth, ear, hair, shoulders, up to the side away from the person, etc...

Then I heard, and read, that eye contact was important. It's tricky. If I don't make eye contact, I'll look like I'm hiding something. If I make eye contact, it can be unnerving for them. It's balance that I find hard to feel natural doing. I try to make eye contact without feeling like I'm drilling a hole into their soul.

I was 53, maybe 54, when I was diagnosed being on the spectrum. Making eye contact was something I learned in high school.

I don't even face people when I speak to them. I turn my head or more commonly my whole body in another direction. I've been told about my poor eye contact my whole life but it just never felt right. I've never tried to fake it by looking at any part of the other person.

There's a difference between looking at a person's face and staring them in the eyes.

I'm an Aspie without eye problems one on one. Having a conversation with an autistic who has to look anywhere except at me is incredibly distracting and unnerving (I've done this a few times in my life before I knew I was on the spectrum).

I do look away from someone I'm talking to while trying to think of something specific - usually a blank wall or ceiling or floor. Or even shut my eyes briefly. I need to minimize the visual sensory input while doing a deep memory search. However, while ADHD surely makes it worse, I'm pretty sure most people do that to some extent.

What gives me trouble is talking to a group of people. Who am I supposed to be looking at?

If there's two of you and one of you asked a question do I completely ignore the other person while answering it?

If I'm sitting at a table and I'm talking about something that pertains to everyone there, who do I look at? I avoid this issue whenever possible by sitting at the end of the table so I'm looking down the length of the table at everyone.

If I'm giving a presentation who should I look at? I find myself often doing "radar sweeps" of the audience until I'm so wrapped up in what I'm saying that I am no longer consciously aware of where I'm looking.

I can look at someone's eyes when they are talking to me (depending on who they are and whether we are close or if it's a stranger, in which case I am less likely to look at them) but I look away when I am talking because otherwise I lose track of what I'm saying.

But I notice that when I watch TV I usually look at mouths and if I consciously try to look at eyes I lose track of what is being said.

I tend to look at mouths if I look at them at all. I find it odd people are so bent on looking at each other's eyeballs. Words come out of mouths, so in my mind, it makes sense to look there. Besides, I often struggle to pull words out of background noise, so trying to lip read helps me sometimes.

Really though eye contact feels really personal, intimate, even base or inappropriate to me, so I don't do it with most people ever.

But yeah, this is an autistic thing. Most (nt) people do make eye contact. It's not so much that they actually stare at each other's eyes, despite it seeming that way. They have a balancing act of sorts where they don't look too long (becomes creepy if they do that), and they don't avert the gaze too long (shows disinterest or something like that). They know how to do that stuff intuitively.

It almost seems like an NT thing to seek out eye contact, when talking with someone. I can't help but feel their eyes boring into me sometimes. It often seems to me that they have an intent to hold unbroken eye contact, like staring, whereas I can only manage the occasional brief glance.

When I was a kid I'd occasionally get told "look at me when I'm talking to you", but nowadays people don't say anything about me looking off in completely different directions. My preference is to be in a situation where I can reasonably look away entirely, like when walking together.

I find making eye contact difficult with anyone and avoid it as much as I can, but with people I'm close to I force myself to occasionally look at their eyes. I don't quite know why. I get the sense that it helps them to feel a connection to me, and I feel like if I don't they might feel that I'm detached and uninterested/uncaring. I do always get this sense of disconnect if I'm having a conversation with someone while I'm looking away from them for the entirety of it, I imagine they feel it too, especially if they're looking at me. I don't like that feeling, but too much eye contact is too intense for me. It makes me feel vulnerable, and sometimes the emotion conveyed through someone's eyes is so intense that I have to look away. I kind of hate that fact, especially when it comes to kids because they can be so expressive, and I want to meet that genuine emotion with genuine reception and an appropriate reaction, but instead I look away as if I were looking at the sun. I worry that they'll perceive that as some kind of negative judgement or that they're being "too much" just by being their genuine selves. It's upsetting that I can't seem to help it. It makes me feel a bit broken.

I make good eye contact.

My eye contact is poor.

I'm with you Anonyma - I think eye contact is another one of these over-analysed things by so called experts or NTs.

In another thread I mentioned I wasn't happy how a doctor I was seeing about an injury pointed out that she could see asp in me and asked did I want help on it, when I was happy enough with life how it was.

When I asked her what made her think that after only seeing me for 5 minutes......the answer was......I was lacking eye contact

What a load of rubbish! (to put it politely)

Yes if I'm answering a question that I'm not well prepared for e.g. being questioned by the doctor, or in an area that I've not got loads of knowledge in, then yes I do look away while trying to think of my reply and might still be looking away if trying to think more about my answer at the same time as giving an answer.

You see some contestants do that on TV quiz shows.......I don't see anything unusual in that.
The other day as a one-off I watched my sister as she was answering someone else and she did the same.
If you google this trait, the first dozen results all say it is normal.

If I know what I'm talking about and I'm not having to be cautious what I say, then I do look at the person but don't look them in the eye - just look at their face in general. This is surely the "normal" behaviour, otherwise why would job interview books have to tell everyone to make an effort to look their interviewers eye to eye?


So yes I think it's a load of rubbish to say that temporarily looking away while talking/thinking of an answer is a sign of asp.

Perhaps it's because eye contact is a purely physical thing, not a meaningful and instinctive thing.


To make the act of eye contact itself meaningful requires a lot of multiple tasks at once, not meant to be done consciously; simultaneously expressively and receptively.

NTs often demand eye contact as a form of expression. Always seem to give this hype about a person's character and intentions.

But never taught it as a form of reception. This is the 'mind reading practice' that is being bragged about; a form of pattern recognition via body language.

Yet that itself has it's own prerequisites; one, not having the tunnel like vision 'focus' but make the visual processing a bit 'whole-face/body'.

So yeah, this may imply other things needed under the processing like stress management and sensory filtering...
Not to mention lacking certain comorbidities like attention span issues and visio processing issues.

Another is coordinating it with hearing tone, seeing actions...
Which was supposedly subjects, particularly those ones are the closest to, especially during childhood have this more 'open' subjects whenever parents or caregivers interact with children.

That's the stage where one is supposed to learn another prerequisite; "knowing where to look".
Practiced, it can be a habit of processes; kinda like reading.


Knowing when and how to look while looking at the eyes is 'mimicry' or socialization in expression.
So this may also mean relative to culture because it's like the language and historical contexts itself.

Knowing what message is being sent nonverbally is socialization in reception.
This may not even be relative to culture like the act of hearing and seeing itself but who knows?

Why oh why it's emphasized on the former when the expression or the action itself truly meant nothing?

Latter could've been useful and meaningful, but it's fricking overwhelming with a lot of obstacles before a proper attempt, let alone being good at it, and even more so sticking to it and 'mastering' it.

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I absolutely cannot make eye contact with others. Never been able to do it, it's just one of those things where if I'm forced to do it it's incredibly uncomfortable for me. Like genuinely.

1) When I watch TV, I make only little eye contact with characters as well as reporters or hosts when they're looking straight at the viewer. I also make little contact with people being interviewed and telling their story for docudramas or whatever. I find myself mostly looking at their noses, mouths, hairline, hair and BETWEEN their eyes.

2) In person, this changes. When I listen, I hold eye contact quite religiously. This doesn't mean I want to. If the listening prolonged, I feel that I HAVE to. On the other hand if it's back-and-forth conversation, eye contact feels more natural. In either case, it doesn't feel like some invasion into my soul or like I'm looking into a bright light or some other bizarre sensation that induces creepiness or fear.

3) When I talk, I can't hold eye contact longer than maybe 8 seconds because it becomes a distraction, and I feel more focused when my eyes are completely off the person.

4) I see eye contact as very valuable at establishing who's boss, who's in charge, who's confident and self-assured. I rely on eye contact to let people know my demeanor and where I stand on things, and to establish my Alpha. Avoiding eye contact sends the message one is insecure and easily controlled or pushed around -- WHETHER OR NOT that's true. It comes across as being scared or skittish.

5) Thus, I fully understand the value of eye contact. Even though I don't maintain it when I talk, I DO give it at the end or intermittently as I speak, which keeps the other person interested, and makes me come across as more convincing.

Anyone here familiar with the experiment by shark scientists in which a diver is surrounded by big sharks; every time one approaches he turns towards it and it kind of swims off. But then when there got to be too many sharks, he couldn't keep up with the eye contact, so he attached a huge pair of eyes to the BACK of his head. The sharks immediately increased their distance from him.

Self-defense experts say to give GOOD eye contact in precarious situations so as not to come across as "prey."