NT Question about Eye Contact

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I'm wondering if anyone can give me a more revealing answer to the question of why it's so difficult to maintain eye contact than my 17 year-old son was able to when I asked him. His response: "I dunno, it's just hard."

I *know* it's hard, which is why we developed strategies for looking near the eyes but not making actual contact, and it's probably why we end up having a lot of important conversations in the car, where eye contact isn't necessary.

But I'd really like to understand better WHY it's so hard.

It varies... for some examples it can be scary, uncomfortable, painful, distracting, making it more difficult to listen to what people are saying.

Distracting is big. I need to really concentrate on the words the other person is using or what words I am trying to find. If I focus on the eyes I can't focus on the words.

The more I trust somebody, the more easier it is for me to give them eye contact.

I remember at a conference I went to, Dr. Ami Klin from Yale, showed this really interested research where they'd tracked the eye movement of NT's and Aspies while they watched this really dramatic scene with lots of conflict from the movie "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" The NT's were tracking the eyes and the arm movements the Aspie's were watching the mouths, and therefore missing quite a bit of the big picture of what was going on. My son was much younger then, but it really explained a lot to me of why he was missing social cues.

I understand the distracting thing, especially if you have auditory processing issues going on. But I guess what I'm trying to understand is the WHY of how it's scary and painful to look someone in the eye, or is that too amorphous to explain?

How about information overload--or the overabundance of confusing information?

How about listening to English in one ear and Greek in the other, at the same time?

That's interesting. Yeah. I've often wondered because my son will look me in the eye for a reasonable period of time. Except when he's lying, or is afraid to bring up a subject. Then he'll avoid eye contact and beat around the bush for ages till he finally gets to what he wants to talk about!

With me you get a choice. I can give you eye contact and not understand half of what you say. Or, if I don't have to think about my eyes I can give you my full attention. All I can tell you is it's not were my eyes want to be. The whole time I'm making eye contact. I am repeating over and over. '' keep looking at their eyes. keep looking at their eyes".
I have trained myself to do it for those rare occasions where it is necessary ( job interview, talking with cops, ect). But it would be very frustrating if I had to do it with my family and friends. I think NT's get some form of feedback from it. I don't. So when I am with friends and family I don't wan't to pretend .

I agree with lots of the above: way too distracting. If I'm focused on someone's eyes, I'm *focused*, and I can't comprehend his words. (I hear them, but I don't understand them. They don't sink in.) It requires so much conscious effort.

Also -- and this is a big one for me -- it just feels way too "personal." I'm not quite sure how to elaborate on this one. Maybe like this: you know that uncomfortable feeling you get when someone is giving you way too much personal information and detail about something? That recoiling feeling of, "whoa, I really don't know you well enough for you to be telling me all that." Well, it's kind of like that. Too "intimate" maybe? As if I'm trying to stare directly into you -- and you into me. It feels very invasive. And, for me, it really doesn't matter how well I know you. I'm almost more comfortable looking strangers directly in the eye. Wonder why?

My boss came into my office yesterday to give me some instructions before he left on vacation. I forced myself to make eye contact with him, as uncomfortable as that is for me. I did it. And now I have the image of his eyes burned into my memory, and I've forgotten (if I ever heard) what he had to say.

when you look into someone's eyes it's like you're looking right into their souls and they're looking right into yours. It's kinda terrifying. Personally, i can't make eye contact for more than two seconds because it's so scarry.

Well, would you be scared of making eye contact with a bear or a wolf? The eye of Sauron? A lot my discomfort with it is being their "target", like having a laser-sight or bullseye painted on me.

As for pain, that's more of a sensory issue, afaik, though it could be related.

It adds another set of variables to conversation that unconsciously one wants to avoid. Additionally, there is much less motivation to make eye contact, it means less to me I find unless I am actually trying to analyze someone, and that is tiring.

This is a good opportunity to type about something cool I saw on television. It was a dating class. Students had to practice standing in front of other students and look them in the eye for a certain length of time. Doing this is supposed to make you more comfortable with it.

There was a good post not so long ago:
http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt141071.html

It's like putting your hand over a fire, better not do it for too long

I never even noticed I did this until my psycologist pointed it out to me. I'd noticed other traits in myself, which is why I decided to get diagnosed. I'd been seeing her for a while for other reasons, and when I brought up the possibility of AS with her, she instantly said, "I've noticed you don't make eye contact." I thought about it and realized she's right...I could tell you exactly what is on the shelf behind her chair, but not what color her eyes are! After a bit more reflection, I remember how my younger brother would tell me that when I was talking near a reflective surface, I talked to my reflection instead of the person I was conversing with. He's right and he's wrong. I wasn't watching myself, but I was avoiding eye contact.

It does not come naturally to me to look someone in the eye; like Cockney Rebel says, the better I know someone, the easier it is. I can maintain eye contact with my parents, my husband, and my dog, but pretty much no one else. Some people find it offensive, some aren't really bothered by it. However, because it is my natural inclination to look elsewhere than someone's eyes, I find it very distracting and awkward to look someone in the eye. I have a hard time understanding or paying attention to what someone is saying if I watch their eyes; I function better if I watch the other person's mouth. In addition. I've never figured out how long you look someone in the eye, so people will think I'm staring. A high school classmate accused me of "staring" at her in science class. In college, a woman who thought I was always staring at her confronted me about it. In both cases, I had no idea what they were talking about, but I felt really bad! (I still think I was more looking near them, than at them...for example, the girl in high school sat across the room from me; if I studied the shelf over her head, she thought I was staring at her.)

It's possible that if I'd been diagnosed as a child, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy could have helped me develop skills that would make it possible to understand someone while meeting their eyes, and how long to hold someone's eyes without staring. Instead, I grew up with this avoidance as a natural part of me, something I was completely unaware of. Now I know I do it, but it's just too hard to meet someone's eyes and let my brain function fully at the same time!

Someone just came into my office to talk casually, so I decided to sort of half pay attention to where my eyes were focused during the conversation. Here is a VERY rough estimate as I remember it. I'm pretty sure mutual eye contact was only about 1% (tense!); my looking at his eyes while he was looking away (a very safe feeling) was about 5%; my looking at his lips moving was about 50%; and the balance was split between looking out the window (90 degrees away from him), at the wall to the side of him, at the ground, at something on my desk, etc.