Do you make (normal) eye contact?

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I never used to look people in the eyes. I positively hated it. But then it was pointed out that most people looked others in the eyes so I force myself to do it now and ironically I have been told that I stare to much

I don't usually find eye contact distressing, I just never realised it was supposed to be important until I was rather set in my ways, so I tend to forget all about it. Nonetheless, I find some peoiple's eyes really nice to look at, and I like it when my eyes meet somebody else's and we're smiling at each other, even if it only lasts half a second.

I think I've mastered the basics but it's hard to tell because people don't usually come out with any feedback - I guess for them it's largely intuitive and unconscious, so if I got it wrong then they'd feel vaguely negative about me but wouldn't necessarily know why.

What I try to do is to look at their eyes when they're talking to me, asnd if they're doing their part right then they'll mostly be looking away from me while they talk to me, but they'll glance at me whenever they've just said something that they want to see my response to, and hopefully they'll also look at me when they've finished talking.....then we'll swap roles, I'll talk and they'll look at me. Now, because they're not looking at me very much when they're talking, I don't really have to look at them very much while I'm listening, because they won't notice, so I feel reasonably free to close my eyes etc. so that I can focus on what they're saying better - as long as I keep looking in their direction and making a few receptive noises and nods, I think I can get away with it.

Because the eye contact ritual is closely linked to the "to-and-fro" model of conversation, I see the whole business as a chance to apply gentle but constant pressure to improve on the quality of my conversations. I used to approach conversation as if I were giving a lecture, and any interjection from the listener would just annoy me and throw me off course. Then I read a book on education that said it's not very effective to just try to fill kids' heads with knowledge like they were passive vessels, and that you had to find out where the kid is at and to keep seeking feedback and tailoring the teaching dynamically according to what the student was indicating about his/her grasp of what you'd already said. I immediately saw the truth of that because I've often been taught by one-way lecturers, and it sucks. I realised that my conversational style sucked in the same way, so I saw the sense in trying to modify my approach.

I'm still not good at it - frankly I don't notice very many other people doing particularly well with their style either, so I feel like a groundbreaker. I think it's possible to compensate for eye contact problems to some extent - if you can prove you're listening well by the nature of your feedback, then I suspect a lot of people won't get too worried by eye contact. I've known a couple of people who always hid behind their hair during conversations, and both were very much my kind of conversationalist - they'd focus very well on what I was saying and they'd come out with intelligent and interesting comments about it, so we'd talk deeply one-to-one and it would feel great.

When I was a child, I wouldn't make eye contact with anyone, not even my mom. I wouldn't even look in people's general direction most of the time. I remember the counselor in elementary school telling me I was being rude by not making eye contact with her. Later, in Speech class in junior high, I kept getting points docked off my assignments because I wouldn't make eye contact with the audience while giving speeches.

Now I'm a lot better about eye contact. I can maintain it while people are talking to me, but I still can't do it while I'm talking to other people. I think it's because I'm afraid of seeing people's reactions to things that I say.

Eye contact causes me a great deal of discomfort. Over the years I have managed to train myself to do exactly as you do, looking at people's mouths when I talk to them. Even that makes me feel discomfort, but a discomfort that is tolerable.

I have found, though, that I can meet the eyes of people that I am very close to; family, girlfriends, the few close friends I have. The same is true of younger children which I can only assume is due to them being less 'threatening'. Is this true for anyone else?

Making eye contact is really hard for me. Even if I tell myself to maintain eye contact, I instinctly look away at some point of the conversation.

Like another person has said, its like staring into a bright light without blinking. I have trained myself to do it, but even now, I can't do it for long. I remember getting yelled at in school by teachers "You should never have done <that>. Now look me in the eye and tell me you didn't do it. I said look at me. Why can't you look me in the eye? Its because you really did it isn't it?"

Ironically, these days, if I'm looking someone in the eye, it takes so much concentration that I'm really not paying attention to what they are saying. When I'm looking at something else, now that is when I'm really listening.

Huh, funny that people have mentioned that for them it is like looking into a bright light. I once described it to my therapist this way:

"It's like trying to carry on a conversation while holding your hand onto a hot stove. Your entire body is screaming at you to take your hand off the stove, and it takes your full concentration to keep it there. Now imagine doing this while trying to follow and contribute to a conversation."

With (much) practice, I have improved greatly at making eye contact while the other person is talking, but I am still terrible at doing it while I am talking. It just takes too much of my processing power. The thing is, that I also tend to "shut off" my eyes while talking to someone, which I can't do when I am making eye contact. I know I do this, because people have commented at times about what I am "looking at" while I was not making eye contact (e.g. "I noticed you staring at my wall calendar"), when really, I wasn't looking at anything, at least in the sense of being conscious of what I was looking at. This is probably because my visual processing sucks and is too resource-heavy for my brain to manage while also trying to converse. So when I make eye contact, not only can I not "shut off" my eyes, but it also takes tremendous additional resources to maintain the eye contact.

Edit: Thank you to all the people who have provided explanations as to why eye contact is important. Some of them have been very interesting.

I didn't realize it was such a problem for me until someone at work mentioned it once.

It is more natural for me NOT to make eye contact for some reason. I'm better at it now, but it's not like I enjoy it.

I used to not, but I kept trying to, and consciously making sure I look away and look appropriately, and it got a lot easier. Some people it's hard with, and I still need to look away when having a hard-to-form thought, but I realised there actually is a lot to be told from eye contact, when you learn it.

Sometimes. No one has ever told me to look at them except for when I was a kid.