Eye Contact - Why Do I Confuse Other People?

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I try to make appropriate eye contact, in fact I think about it all the time, when I'm speaking to someone. It's distracting, but I try. Anyway, I was speaking with a mum in the playground today and I was making appropriate amounts of eye contact. As I said something, my eyes focused on something in the distance and I may have nodded my head slightly, unintentionally. As a result, she looked behind her, as if she was expecting to see something connected to what I was talking about (which would have been unlikely given the topic). I felt quite embarrassed. I've noticed people looking behind them when I've been talking to them on a few occasions. When people speak to me and their gaze drifts to something else, I don't ever look to see what they're looking at, unless they've pointed it out to me or they've stopped talking and they're obviously looking at something of interest. I just know that people, even NTs, don't make constant eye contact when they speak and I accept it. What am I doing wrong? Does this happen to anyone else on WP?

Happens to me occasionally. There must be a very specific formula (involving conversational topic of the second, intensity of speech, how long you've already been maintaining unbroken eye contact with them) that decides when it is appropriate to shift your gaze away and for whatever reason at that moment of conversation it was weird by NT standards to do so so she looked behind her to try to figure out what was what.

I have as much trouble with knowing how to make appropriate eye contact as you and think about it every second I'm looking at someone while I'm talking to them. I have no clue.

My gaze drifts off onto other things even when I'm trying hard to make appropriate eye contact, and I've had people actually ask me what I'm looking at before.