Eye Contact Causes Autistic Reaction in NTs?

Post Reply New Topic

As I mentioned in Teasing as a Joke, my eyes don't communicate very much emotionally. I don't make much eye contact; but, when I do, NTs often look away! Is my Asperger's infectious now? Does the lack of emotion make my eyes intimidating to look at? My eyes also tend to be hidden under the shadow of my brow (see The Evil Eye). Without direct lighting on my face, my eyes just appear as a dark shadow on my face. I have noticed my eyes look a bit different when I'm laughing or smiling (when not faked), but I rarely achieve enough emotional arousal for my face to change autonomously; so my smiles, laughs, frowns, and looks of disappointment are more for the convenience of my interlocutor to verify to them that I understand them than anything.

Its normal for NTs to make eye contact, break, make, break, make, break, ect during the course of a conversation.

If its a conversation of equals, people kinda automatically take turns breaking off eye contact. If its not bewteen equals, the "lessor" party breaks more often. Some people are more dominant and therefore tend to not break as often as normal. Others do so more often.

How long between breaking contacts depends on many things...one of which is the confort level between the parties.

It sounds to me like your experince was, well, normal NT behavior.

BeeBee

They break off eye contact and look way off to the side as soon as I glance directly at them. I've noticed many people do this. Afterwards, they tend to make very little eye contact with me.

I've noticed this too. First, they'll try to make eye contact with me but I'll look away because of anxiety/whatever. Then I'll try to make eye contact with them (to make up for my previous rudeness) and they'll very obviously avoid eye contact!! And do it for the rest of the conversation!! I don't understand it at all.

It's because it is natural and usually friendly with them. It makes them uncomfortable when someone is forcing it. It seems like a catch 22 situation to me.

I just stare at people.... Its really fun to watch them try and avoid it DEATH RAY EYEZ!

I think there is less eye contact between NAs and anyone basically who are strangers. I tend to have more general face contact with those I know and am very familiar with and I have noticed the same amongst NAs. So if I were to stare or make very purposeful eye contact even for a somewhat brief period with an NA, they are likely to look away uncomfortably.

That's what makes it so damm funny. THey say we're wierd because we don't make eye contact much, we realize even if we're being warm and conversational we still give em the creeps and scare the hell out of em with it, and they wonder what's wrong with us still for not making eye contact...couldn't be a matter of courtesy or just trying to keep the peace could it?

About 2 or 3 years ago I had some waitress who even hung otu with me and my friends maybe 2 or 3 years previous, going on abotu how far beyond messed up it was that I didn't even look at women. Well, at least when I'm at work, I have way too many of those "Oh my god! What a disgusting creepy loser! He must want me!" types who think they know all that just by looking at me and vibing me up for like 5 seconds. I've mentioned that effect on other AS sites and people got offended like theres no way that could happen unless I was literally doing something to them - no, I wish that was the case. pretty much normal social skills, I'm getting the idea that its still almost impossible to act completely normal with AS just because society won't let you. I dont' mean to sound like a whiner or like I'm one of those people looking for a handout from society on acceptance, I just hate feeling like I could put 200% in trying to meet people half way and the second they see I'm different they won't even go 5%.

I'm with you tech. I really tried for a while. Nothing quite measures up.
It's not really their fault though. They only know one way to relate to people it seems like. If you can't do that then they don't know how to deal with you.

I think a lot of us have probably tried this eye contact thing and seen it fail miserably. It is just something that you can't really control conciously without it seeming creepy.

I think you said it in a nutshell with that. Social skills or not, if your rhythm, style, or underlying perspective is different (even if it makes perfect sense and you aren't abrasive about it), internal thought conformity seems to be what matters most.