To what extent are you meant to make eye contact?

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I find it hard to look at people while I'm talking to them. Making eye contact makes me feel uncomfortable and sometimes when I try if feels as if might be staring too much.

My question is, how often and to what extent are you meant to make eye contact? Are you meant to make eye contact with people whenever you or they are speaking the whole way through or just glance at them? Are you meant to look at them right in the eyes or just look in their direction?

I know that lots of AS people have difficulty with eye contact but the funny thing is that a NT friend of mine who is actually very social says that eye contact too much makes her feel uncomfortable.

These might seem like silly questions but any tips would be good x

Generally, I try to reciprocate eye contact depending on the person I'm speaking to. When looking at a person, I try to shift my attention every couple seconds between one eye, forehead, etc. If it's a girl I fancy, I try to look into her eyes a little longer (in hopes that my green assets suck her in )

That said, I would imagine that people prefer too little eye contact to too much (the latter usually creeps people out, especially me ). There are also certain situations where I make the bare minimum amount, such as driving.

I wouldn't sweat about this too much, the fact that you're aware of this stuff and trying to address it will do a lot of the heavy lifting for you

I don't usually look directly in people's eyes I look at them or their face but not in the eyes that makes me feel weird!

I've recently gotten better with eye contact.. i.e. I don't make a conscious effort to maintain eye contact instead I listen to what they have to say.. just kind of look at the whole picture while looking at them.

I find eye contact uncomfortable and unnatural, so I just do the minimum necessary to maintain the conversation, and even so, I have to think about it all the time to get it right.

If there's someone that I want to get rid of, I've found that extended, intense eye contact usually does the trick.

Basically, NTs seem to read my avoiding eye contact a lot as 'submissive' or 'shy', and my making extended eye contact as 'aggressive'. When I'm bored with the conversation, I'll play eye contact games. People are amazingly sensitive to where your eyes are when they're talking to you.

It's always something that I have to consciously monitor or I get it wrong.

I remember reading some facts about this!

If you are just friends, then 40% of the time.

If you want to be "more", then 60 to 70%

I read somewhere it's around 1/3 eye contact/no eye contact usually.

People usually are fine if I give .7 seconds of eye contact when I finish a verbal 'paragraph'. It seems like you are supposed to give more eye contact when listening than talking - at around a 3/1 listening/talking ratio. I can never figure out when the appropriate time for eye contact is when listening though - usually I wait for their voice to raise in volume, usually when they do this it seems to be the que for you to look at them.

"And we went to the mall, it was so hot." or whatever. Just a couple of words or a sentence that is louder than the rest.

Okay, thank you to everybody for the replies. I probably don't make nearly enough eye contact as I barely do at all but I guess I'll try to make it a little more, just not too much