Anyone's Autism Come with Good Eye Contact?

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My autism comes with good eye contact. Now when I say "good," I mean I make enough of it, and also it's not "uncomfortable," let alone painful or invasive, to hold eye contact. But I've always over-thought it and wondered what my eye contact was making the other person feel about me. It can be intense. When I'm the talker I need to look away some of the time because watching someone's face, let alone eyes, as I'm using cognitive bandwidth to explain something causes a distraction.

With all that said, though, all in all, I have pretty normal eye contact and never had to learn it. I don't force it. I just do it, like when someone starts talking to me or I start talking to someone. I was never told growing up to look people in the eye, so apparently, I did it plenty in childhood.

It's interesting that my autism comes with good eye contact. I don't know what I'd do if it didn't, as all throughout my life, I've found that I've had to repeatedly defend and assert myself. I'm clinically diagnosed with autism.

Anyone here who's always had good eye contact, even if you overthnk it or have been told you stare too much? I'm wanting to hear from "normal to over-doers" who did NOT have to learn it or practice it after being told, "You always avoid eye contact."

I don't mean those who are good at faking it (between the eyes, the forehead), but fellow Autistics who just never had any problems with this form of non-verbal communication.

Good eye contact or "normal" (NT) eye contact? Is that according to yourself or others? I thought I had wonderful eye contact until I had my ASD evaluation and it specifically commented on my unusual eye contact. Huh? Yeah, so making eye contact is not key, it's the rhythm. I stare when I listen and I look away often when I talk. Apparently that's not "normal" (NT) eye contact. My ASD daughter is the same, but my ADHD son will do the NT eye contact thing: "appropriate" 5 to 10-second holds with alternating 1-second look left ---or whatever it is. Oh, here is a definition: "People normally keep eye contact 50% of the time when talking and 70% of the time when listening. It's common to break eye contact every 4-5 seconds." Yeah, so my son does that. My daughter and I don't. We make eye contact, but it's not NT-like.

Eye contact can be learned, somewhat

If you are self-aware and have received specific feedback, then it would be less of an issue for you on that characteristic. I don't get lectured either, but I was constantly told (and am still told on occasion at age 50) that I was/am "cute" (I am hyper expressive). My ASD BFF however gives out "creepy" vibes (she is hypo expressive: flat affect). Probably in response to our "unusual" mannerisms and behavior, that includes 95% eye contact when listening. I love watching (staring at) toddlers b/c they stare back.

I usually look at people when they are talking to me (if I am facing them, and also depending on who it is and how intense the topic is) but look away when I am talking, because I have to think and looking at them is distracting. I think some people find that a bit off-putting.

Maybe I look at them too much? Not sure. Once I was with my therapist and I consciously decided to look away because I thought I might be staring, and she immediately said, "Are you okay?" because I guess my sudden looking away was weird and was interpreted by her as a sign of distress.

It's much better to talk to someone in the car because then you can't look at each other while one person is driving.

Also when I watch TV I look at people's mouths. If I consciously try to look at their eyes instead, I lose track of what they are saying.

Naturally I've never lacked eye contact, even as a baby my parents say I had normal eye contact.
Unconsciously I make eye contact but when out in public around strangers I suddenly become conscious of where I'm looking and I tend to force myself to avoid eye contact with strangers. But this is due to social anxiety and scopophobia (I have scopophobia with strangers unless I'm interacting with them, then eye contact becomes subconscious again because I can't talk or listen to someone properly without making eye contact).
Otherwise my eye contact is normal.

Interesting... I've never found eye contact to be a necessary component of communication. I don't need to see somebody's eyes to listen to them and I don't need to look at someone's eyes to convey a coherent message to them. I tend to have strong negative reactions to certain visual stimuli and someone else's eyes happen to be one of them. As a result, I rarely look at someone else's eyes. I've always wondered why there is so much fascination with eye contact when it comes to communicating with people.

I mean, I can also stare through your soul as an alternative to minimal eye contact.

I know I need eye contact to interact with others. When I had vertigo a few weeks ago I couldn't move my eyes otherwise I'd feel dizzy, so I had to sit and face forward and keep still. This obviously made eye contact with others in the room hard, and when they were talking to me or I was talking to them I kept automatically moving my eyes to look at their eyes without realising, which started the vertigo off again. It was so hard to consciously not make eye contact during conversations with other people in the room.

I don't have trouble with eye contact but I know I look at people too much, and I've had to train myself to look away more because people get nervous.

But usually I'm looking at people too much because I'm trying to anticipate what they are going to do, what they're thinking, what I should do and say etc. It's like an anxiety thing.

For the most part no, but with people that I trust and know well it is easier

My eye contact is average. It's not poor, but it's not great. It's in the middle.

iv always been able to make eye contact even when i was a child and i was nonverbal back then

im glad i do make eye contact because i work with the public

Not if I'm very overwhelmed by a single thing or not being able to deal with everything at once.

Because eye contact is also a quantity of processes that I have to manually deal with. So another load in the multi tasking bearing.

But since it's a quantative thing in my case...
This also meant that dealing with language and a lot of movement takes more processing than eye contact.

So if I don't have to speak and listen, I'll definably 'have better eye contact'.
If only I have a more constant multitasking load bearing though...

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Good point. I find that at work when I am organizing my thoughts I close my eyes. Especially if I am on a conference call and I don't want to look away, but the nine images of people in front of me is distracting. I could put a gentle focus behind the camera and look at that.