[If applicable] Why do you find eye contact difficult?

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it's like two souls tongue kissing.. it's too much

My gf is on about me all the time now that I don't look (enough) when we talk. I give eye contact for a good 3 seconds and anything more than that and I feel like as if I'm paying more attention to just staring than listening. I also noticed they are trying to stare me and my gf out when saying hello to us at the Habilitation center when we are introduced to some new person. I have said hello to people before and I know these people are overdoing it. I think the eyes start to tickle a little bit such as when you get shy. I often feel I can come across as a smarter person when I can look the other way while talking. I just find words better that way.

I have absolutely no problem with eye contact...
I have had to learn to tone it down...

incidents of creepy following, by crazy stalker types

other; would-be gurus intimidation techniques, (like doomprophets, hell and karma for you not me-types)
and other ego-maniacs & salespersons technique too

first time i noticed another opinion on the matter when i had children, other mothers say "look me in the eyes" to their kids, i was really surprised by their openly torturous threats

oh that's normal? i never knew

I'm with fire monkey. I'd be okay if I knew there were no judgements or consequences attached. If I could lock people in a stare or look totally away or just freely look as it occurs to me I'd be fine. But never knowing what the hidden meaning I am conveying is anxiety provoking. There is a natural dance with eye contact for NTs and I will never figure it out.

Things I've noticed about eye contact...

Now that I'm more at peace with myself I do look at people more but I realise I tend to look at their general face and to them it doesn't count as eye contact... I have to decide to look at their eyeballs and I never do it right.

People's previously unexplained negative reactions to me are almost always because I undervalue and underdo eye contact and small talk... So bizarre. I don't understand this.

First time I clicked that I may indeed be autistic was while watching a YouTube of an autistic describing her experience with eye context... I thought... Wow... I have something in common with autistic people.

When I wasn't so happy with myself as a young adult I remember thinking I didn't want to look at people not only because I didn't know when I should but because I was afraid that they would know everything about me if they could see my eyes... I did know that wasn't true on some level but it was a paranoid fear.

I got a complex when I was 6 because I stared at a girl in my class and when she noticed she made her eyes really big and that was frightening. After that I really couldn't look at people's eyes for a very long time.

I can't do NT eye contact rhythms due my difficulty with multi-tasking. I can't pay attention to the the actual verbal content of what a person is saying and look at the person's eyes at the same time (unless the topic of conversation just happens to be the physical appearance of the other person's eyes).

Indeed it's hard for me to pay attention to a conversation while at the same time paying attention to any visual stimulus not directly relevant to the topic of conversation. So I can't do the trick of looking at someone's forehead instead of their eyes, either.

So I usually just make brief eye contact at the very beginning of a conversation and only very occasionally thereafter, if at all.

Depending on the context, it's either very very intimate or a direct challenge. The latter one has caused problems for me a few times (way back now) when an aggressor has taken my breaking eye contact in an effort not to escalate to violence as a sign of weakness and moved in harder. Generally didn't end well for them.

I don't have any intuitive feel for what would be an appropriate amount of eye contact, and it in any case feels very uncomfortable and intrusive. I think if I tried to make eye contact, my entire attention and thought processing would become dominated by thinking about how long I should maintain eye contact, when is it OK to look away, when should I look into the person's eyes again, and so on. I have gone for so many years without using eye contact that I just don't want even to think of trying it.

Yes; I looked in vain for an answer to tick regarding attention and sensory integration, as they're my primary problems with eye-contact too; though I do also find it a little unnerving. It took me a long time to realise that my natural behaviour when I'm trying to concentrate on what someone is saying often looks to them like complete disinterest - I point one ear directly at the sound source and defocus my eyes, looking in whatever direction there is least distraction. Attempting to mask this by forcing myself to do eye-contact is a huge distraction and draws away processing power that I need to be using for language comprehension and production, so is a far from ideal solution.

I can make eye contact but am not sure how long to look, so I tend to look away after a few seconds. I don't like being looked at because it makes me worry the person is judging me.

There are several things. Starting eye contact is like asking for attention. Some people especially women get upset because of it. You may get the feelings of your opposite. For this you are expected to check the emotions of your opposite. You are expected to do it at least a short time once you are shaking hands or people may not trust you afterwards. You get immediately if somebody hates you. If you look emotionless it may count as being aggressive. Many women get in touch afterwards without looking back but I don't know what causes them to be that way. Some women may crush while doing it especially if you smile and feel good. May be it's one of the reasons that women prevent eye contact to men. Once you are talking about things that you have mentally to focus on then it's sometimes to distracting. It's mostly not a problem towards nice people which you can really trust.
I once wrote a little bit about how am I doing it during communication:
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=368901&start=30#p8054848

I just feel more vulnerable when I make eye contact. I fake it all the time anyway. I have always worked with kids, and it is somehow easier to make eye contact with them. Maybe they just don't make me feel as vulnerable...

I put "Other" as I don't really know. I believe it may have something to do with prosoprognosia. I seem to naturally have difficulty looking directly at people other then a brief glance while I am talking to them. My problem is, if I stare at people when they are not talking and I am not talking, and I really spend time to examine their face I can usually remember them. But to do this takes a while. I would be staring at every bit of your face to try to find something that my mind can latch onto. Sometimes it does and sometimes it does not.
But in a normal socializing type of enviroment there is no way I could do this. I would probably be arrested! Also, I find I can't look directly while in a conversation. The words would go in one ear and out the other and I would get my words jumbed if I tried to speak. I may be able do it to people I know really well, but other people... I had a someone who was annoyed at me once and said "Look at me when I am talking to you!" And insisted I make eye contact. You know though they had raised their voice I couldn't fathom out what they were saying which made them more annoyed!
I do tend to have invented a way where I turn my ead towards people but I look to the left or the right of them. This makes them feel I am in the conversation and am polite (As long as they have not noticed!) without makingnit obvious that I am not looking at them. I am very good at it too! Unless everyone is just being polite and does not say anything?

While not painful, it is physically uncomfortable. The longer I do it the more uncomfortable it gets. Then there are the multitasking deficits mentions earlier.

Remembers me to something. Two weeks ago a guy wanted to shake my hand but didn't dare to look at me and looked away to the ground. First I thought that he was one of the islamistic s**theads like there are many in Germany now. I told him that he should look into my eyes while he takes my hand. He did and I got that he was honest with it and he seemed to be totally OK. But I never had to say something like this to any other guy before and it's rather strange that just I had to say that he has to do it.

I voted 4 options and the other reason is it feels like an invasion of personal space. I don't do eye contact on demand and I noticed you have to earn it from me. I have always been this way.