Hi,
New member here and first post! So I have been struggling with this disorder for about 9 years. It started in high school when some random girl had asked me where the washroom was. However, when having eye contact, I noticed that her eyes were very strange as she was staring to upwards as oppose to me. Shortly after giving her the directions, I started thinking about which eye to look at and that's when everything went down hill afterwards in my life.
I couldn't understand this lingering concept of looking at which eye when both eyes are looking at you. It made things really weird for me, even today I can't really make any eye contact with people. I lost my ex-girlfriend, dropped out of university, now I'm in my late 20's without a job, no diploma or anything. But most importantly, is how I would want to go back to how I was before, how it was so natural for me to make eye contact and I was able to stare at people for hours if I wanted to. But now it's like people will notice if I'm not looking at them presumably I'll be staring at their non-dominant eye.
So in my 9 years of struggle, I kind of had some experiments tested with my parents and so I figured I could share this to those who are also in the same boat as I.
The truth is, we can't look at both eyes at the same time. Only one eye will make this connection. However, we can 'technically' look at both eyes only at a further distance at our vision of eye contact will be a lot easier since the distance makes their eyes to be closer.
For example, when you look from afar and speak with someone, you're gazing at their face so essentially you're making eye contact with the exception that you're not directly looking at one eye, you're looking at both.
Now, at a closer distance, where things will become confusing. It's usually within hugging distance where things will get a bit more awkward as you're forced to stare at one eye to make the connection. Now I must stress this word 'connection' because it signals us that you are indeed looking at us and that you're listening at the same time. It wouldn't make sense if you're looking at the ground or the sky while talking to someone, it'll seem like the person doesn't even care at all right? So eye contact is absolutely important in regards to socialising.
Another theory I had come across with is that when we make eye contact up close, it's vital to understand that which eye we look at means we are paying attention to them. You can tell when someone is looking at a bird, or when someone is staring at your shirt and that's why it's so important especially in communicating with one another, to make eye contact.
There are 2 cases in which I made a diagram:
imgur.com/a/l29p2
First case is how we look at each other in the same eye, either the left or right.
The second case is how we look each other in the opposite.
To me, I still don't quite understand this all very well but to my experience, I have suffered a lot more awkwardness in case 2 while in case 1, it seemed more natural and correct. I have asked my family members to tell me which eye they are looking at when I'm up close with them and it will most often end up in case 1. I have often ended up with case 2 frequently since I'm at the stage where I still can't tell which eye to look at because to me, it seems both eyes are the same. I have a really hard time especially when having eye contact with people who have lazy eyes and wider spread apart eyes. I don't want to miss the opportunities in life where meeting amazing people but only to have poor eye contact to get in the way of our friendship.
I hope with the help of various communities, that I'm able to gather as much information and to have a much better understanding of all this and a conclusion for this once and for all!
22 Aug 2016, 7:55 pm
