How did you practice eye contact as a child?

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I'm pretty sure that I never really practiced it. At some point in my teen years people just started commenting that I've started doing it.

I did not practice eye contact. I did not seek eye contact. I did not know it was expected.

And, since I seldom looked directly at other people's eyes, I really didn't know they were looking at mine (though now I must assume they were!).

When I was young my parents told me it was polite to look at people when you're talking with them so I looked at people, not their eyes. And since I didn't tend to get really close to whoever I was talking with it may or may not have been clear to them how much I was or was not looking them in the eye.

The psychologist who diagnosed me obviously observed my behavior on this as part of her assessment process.

Other than that I can only think of a few situations in my past where someone would've had a professional interest in observing things such as my eye contact. And I only inferred this recently after learning about Autism...when I was 64.

I know I've probably told this story before, but I had an art teacher who would refuse to acknowledge my answers or questions until I gave him an appropriate amount of eye contact and he was very strict on this. Sometimes the others students would feel bad for me and when I was ignored, they would reiterate by saying "Lost_dragon said (answer)" to which he would respond "Well, she needs to do it properly, otherwise I'm not counting it".

Naturally I disliked this teacher. I also had another teacher, who taught science, that everyone was at least a little scared of. She had an intimidating presence. I found it difficult to look in her eyes. She had a habit of patronising me and one day I'd simply had enough of her nonsense. I'm not sure what exactly, but that day something clicked and I was no longer afraid of her or authority for that matter. At that moment, all I felt was frustration and I looked at her directly in the eyes and told her exactly what I thought of her. I criticised her teaching methods and I didn't even fear detention, I no longer cared.

Anyway, something about that interaction made me more comfortable with making eye contact. I think for me, my avoidance with eye contact was due to a fear of authority figures. Once I faced that fear head on, in the form of standing up to my teacher, the fear lost its power. However, if someone is avoiding eye contact with me, or look uncomfortable with the eye contact, I'll adjust accordingly and look at their shoulders or something instead. I don't mind if we make eye contact or not, I'll just base my behaviour on what the other person is doing.

Similar to me.

I was hit round the head really hard by a teacher when I was in school and ordered to look him in the eye when he's talking to me. Ever since then I look people directly in the eye. It's almost as though I command eye contact by just the way I do it.

My man (who is also shy of eye contact) tells me it's really intense but he also has told me that it helps him to make eye contact and he loves it because I look like I want to eat him up.

By the time I was getting my Autism Assessment I had done a little bit of research on the Internet so I knew lack of eye contact was a common trait. When getting my Assessment I tried, for the most part, to act naturally but knowing that eye contact was probably part of the assessment made me very self-conscious about it.

I did try some direct eye contact with the Psychologist. It was very uncomfortable for me and I could only do it for a few fleeting moments at a time. But I felt uncomfortable because eye contact with her felt too intimate. At some level my mind was protesting "What are you doing! You're a married man!!"

During my assessment I can remember doing good eye contact with the psychiatrist. However when I got my diagnosis and everything was written up it said that I have a "glib stare".

This was a long time ago and I have since learned to make my eye contact a lot more engaging now.

I knew I was supposed to make eye contact because teachers always commented on my lack of it, especially when I got in trouble, since they would accuse me of lying over it. I also found papers from when I was referred to be assessed at 6 that mention my lack of eye contact, so I guess everyone was aware of that issue early on. I eventually got really self conscious over it and I still am.

I was a nature wildlife wanderer from an early age. I noticed how strongly predators keyed on fast & furious predator-predator & predator-prey eye contact. So I tried it out, began at age 8, & noticed I had strong stress-fear reaction to all kinds of eye contact. So I explored them and settled on a breezy talking stylem of 1) looking all over the place, 2) looking only at mouths, 3) faking studious thinker staring-off gazing, 4) all kinds of distracting hand-body motions, 5) joking when it got too tense.

In military stalking we were taught to not stare at our targets cuz they would "sense it." I found similar comments in montain man stories of the early 1800's.

Maybe it's the bio foundation of "Aspie eyeing" stress?

Last bumped by ronglxy on 11 Nov 2021, 6:46 pm.