Eye contact

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I'm in the mood for self improvement, and this is an easy one to learn. What's the ideal amount of eye contact? Should you gave into the other persons eyes for about five seconds, then look away and look back, or is this too much eye contact? When they are looking away to you keep looking at them? Do you make eye contact when they say something important?

If you can get away with it, just be comfortable.

People respond best to eye-contact and non-verbal styles that closely match their own apparently. So if you can assess how much a person you are talking to looks at your face and away from it, and the approximate timing (for instance some people look more when listening to someone than when talking to them), and mimic that somewhat, this tends to work well.

you know what i find kinda funny? when i try to talk to nt's, they rarely look at ME. they'll just keep looking down or reading or staring at the tv or computer. but that's ok.

I've noticed lately that I only don't give eye contact if some is talking directly to me, but usually there's, say, two other people talking and giving eye contact to each other and its here when I look at people's eyes, as they talk to each other. It's sort of a way in I guess, a comfortable medium for they will notice you are paying attention occasionally while not give you much eye contact to yourself.

Oh Thanks! That's going to be an easy one to fix. And what about people who don't look at you? A lot of shop cashiers never make eye contact with me. Should I not look at them or just make normalish eye contact? I might come across as rude if I don't look at them

Sorry, but I actually struggle to know what to do with eye contact behavior unless the person I am interacting with "leads" with their own behavior. I tend to smile and make sure I look at them some of the time if I'm not too "thrown" as a result of not being able to model my "eye-contact" on an immediate environmental source (the other person).

Who knows how successful this is (aside from the person on the receiving end) because this mostly occurs in situations where you do not get tangible feedback; most shop keepers will serve you next time you come back unless you really offended them. Any positive or negative reaction in this context (a complete stranger engaged in a fairly routine and formulaic exchange) that might be occurring is too subtle for me to have yet picked up on.

In a focused one on one face to face conversation, look at them half the time, let your eyes wander the other half.
In most situations, far less to no eye contact with each person would make more sense.

Sounds about right I'll try that

EDIT: I found this in a book, maybe it'll be helpful to you all

• Eye contact is hard to get right because it is hard to tell whether you are giving someone too much eye contact or too little when they are talking to you.
• While people are not talking and when you are not talking to them, it is often best not to look at them. This is because people can usually see that you are looking at them out of the corner of their eyes and this may make them feel uncomfortable, in which case they might talk about you behind your back.
• To control your gaze might be difficult for you but it is by no means impossible.
• Also, pointing at people can make them suspicious and should be avoided or at least done very discreetly.
• When you are talking to someone or they are talking to you, you are expected to look at them, bearing in mind the following guidelines:
• To look at someone for less than one third of the time may be communicating that either you are shy (if you keep looking down) or you are dishonest (if you keep looking to the side).
• To look at someone for more than two thirds of the time may be communicating that either you like them (if you are looking at the face as a whole) or you are aggressive (if you are looking straight into their eyes).
• To look at someone for the whole time, giving steady and unbroken eye contact, can mean one of two things. Either you are challenging them (the aggressive gaze) or you fancy them (the intimate gaze). However, in other cultures (e.g. Mediterranean Europe), it can also symbolise companionship. For someone with autism it can be very difficult because first, we have to be sure that it IS appropriate. Also, fixed eye-contact can forcefully distract us when we try to talk.

Before I found out I have AS, I would cheat and just look at their nose or concentrate on their mouth. Sometimes I feel as though looking into the eyes can be seen as staring rather than reading. Now that people know, I can get away with it easier. Sometimes I will watch their mouth as they speak.

I look into their eyes as long as they do, unless the time they look into my eyes feels too short when compared to the time the average, confident person looks into my eyes.

I guess a good tip is wear sunglasses so they won't be able to notice whether you're giving them eye contact or not.

I usually just look at their face, not on any particualar feature, just at the same direction at their face so it looks like I'm giving them eye contact.

hmm. i gess im more of a eye gazer, with jerky movments from left to right.

even NT guys dont make eye contact either when they talk to one another girls make more eye contact and im a girl who hardly makes eye contact i sorta hate it

I have some info on this on my website (though not posted by me, but by a fellow Aspie)

Body Language: Eye Signals - Part One
Body Language: Eye Signals - Part Two