Eye contact

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my ability to make eye contact varies. i've been scolded and "corrected" many times in my life for not looking at people when talking with them, so i've trained myself to maintain what might be an "acceptable" level. i still find myself looking around the person or people i'm talking with, looking at their eyelids, looking at their chin, and occasionally glimpsing into their eyes and looking around my surroundings. a good deal of the time i can't last long. sometimes i can do better than others. with close friends, i'm more comfortable, and sometimes if i feel an affinity towards a person not close to me, or they're saying something captivating, i will find myself not looking away as much.
most days i wear lightly tinted glasses in public places to feel more protected...and because of fluorescent lighting bothers me...
at my worst, i can't even look myself in the eye while looking in the mirror, or can't look into a camera lens even if i'm taking a self-picture.

friends have told me that people are so unaccustomed to me looking in their eyes that when i do, they feel uncomfortable as if my eyes "are piercing their souls" or i'm "looking right through them". they've actually used those phrases! i somewhat understand, and find it quite amusing, to be honest. my eyes are not a common color and the rings around my irises is bold, giving them a more intense appearance.

i'd like to know how others deal with maintaining eye contact, if at all possible. do you try? have you all but given up bothering to try?

also, i'm going to my first appointment with the psychologist that i've been referred to in a few days. perhaps it might be silly of me, but i'm worried a little bit that if i'm having a day when i am better able to hold eye contact or if i feel comfortable enough with him to be able to do so, will he consider that i've no problem with it at all and it help sway his opinion?

I can do eye contact somewhat but I cant talk and maintain eye contact I always look away at something when I speak.

My NT friend is very interested in Asperger's because of his involvement with me and he gave me some suggestions on how I could appear to make eye contact with people and he taught me how to do it. He said to simply look at his eyebrows/forehead and it would appear as though I was basically making eye contact.

I often have trouble making eye contact while speaking. I'm not sure why.

Really! Isn't the eye contact thing simply the most unreasonable thing in the World? To me it's almost like a physical touch which defies reason. I'm 53 years old and have been working on this since birth.

The worst thing about not looking people in the eye is that people will think you're dishonest. I know you're probably not dishonest, but to them, you look it and it's up to you to not look it.

I've mostly gotten through so far by doing alternative things. LeeAnderson's technique of looking at a person's eyebrows/forehead is a favorite of mine. (Never look at a person's nose.) I also use alternative focus points in many conversations. Like, I'll point across the room at my subject and we'll all look that way while we're discussing. Something on a paper is also a good focus point.

However, somewhere in my 30's I began to look people in the eye like a kid dancing on the edge of a cliff. It was a little thrilling. After the first few times I realized I could do this and survive. I did it more and more, probably creeped a few people out because I've gotten the piercing soul comments, too, but it is what it is. We all have to deal with stuff, eh?

These days, I like my solitude but enjoy being able to engage with others on occasion. I'm glad for the ability. Practice.

OP, I really wouldn't worry about it being a problem at your appointment,if i were you. Apparently the symptom isn't even so much that aspies don't look people in the eye, as that they just get the level of eye contact wrong(so including staring at peoples' eyes.

Why DO people look in each others' eyes when talking? Anyone have any ideas as to how it started in the first place?

So they can "read" facial expression in their peripheral vision.

More on eye contact here:

http://insideperspectives.wordpress.com ... -language/

For me it's both I don't think to look people in the eye/don't know how long to do it and the fact that eye contact can feel really uncomfortable.

This is exactly what I do.

I tend to avoid eye contact in general except when I have a teacher who is teaching me. Then I focus on maintaining eye contact maybe a little too much perhaps to the point of staring. When someone is mad or scolding me for something I look down at the ground or just anywhere except their eyes. One time my dad was talking to me about grades or something (hardly remember now) and I was looking 180 degrees from him. I didn't really notice or care until he asked me to look at him. Anyone else strongly avoid eye contact when someone is mad or reprimanding them?

I tend to avoid eye contact unless my attention is completely somewhere else and I'm not paying any attention to what I'm looking at. In those cases, I think that the resulting eye contact is a rather creepy stare.

This happens a lot at restaurants. Instead of looking at the people at the table, I'm listening to them but my eyes are looking past or between them without me paying attention at what is behind them. For some reason, if there are people behind them, I'm more likely to be looking straight at one of the people in the background.

At other times, I'm glancing around their face avoiding their eyes. I really hate this with many people because it means that if they are talking with food in their mouth, I see this and find it really objectionable. Watching someone talking with their mouth open and food in it is one reason, but not the only reason, that I really prefer to take my food back home or to the office and eat in private.

What I do is I briefly look in the general direction of the eyes and then look away. I do this throughout the conversation and no one ever complains.

Very interesting article. Thanks
Interesting bit on eye contact and perception of aggression. Interesting that military officers and NCOs don't ( in my experience)tolerate eye contact from lower ranking personnel -viewing it as threatening or insubordination (or was that just me? )

I've read/heard somewhere that "eye contact" doesn't mean literally looking someone in the eyes, but rather, you look around their eyebrows or the "third eye," and you're supposed to cycle between looking in that region and down to the corners of their mouth for "proper" eye contact... I don't know if that's true or not, but I told a friend of mine at work about it before he went into an interview(because he was complaining about sucking at interviewing), and he apparently tried it and then got the job. What I want to know, though, is if you're not actually supposed to look a person in the eyes, then why the hell is it called EYE CONTACT? What is contact? 2 things touching/meeting/hitting each other, right? Like, football is a contact sport because you are supposed to make contact with the other players. You are supposed to run into them and tackle them and plow thru them and whatnot... But somehow eye contact does NOT mean looking someone in the eyes... Bah!

I don't ALWAYS look away when I talk to people, but I do it a lot, and whenever I try to look at people's eyes, it feels awkward. For some reason, it's like if I'm looking at them, I can't think about what I'm trying to say as easily. Also, several of the supposed indicators that someone is lying are things I do when I'm trying to recall information from the deep dark part of my brain.

i have learned to 'fake' it, i indeed look a a persons eyelids or nosebridge (well, i aim my eyes there, my real vision is in close-periferal, but that's a different story).
with this method, expecially the nosebridge tactic, i appear to make great to perfect eye-contact, including the switching between left eye, right eye and no eye that seems to be normal amongst neurotypicals; this is becouse they actually see the side of my eyes, so i appear to be matching and copying whatever they do, while i can keep my eyes stationary and therefor have no need to think about eyecontact, which in turn helps a lot in my social skills, i have more energy and concentration for all other things

I struggle with eye contact and spent a lot of time forcing it. But naturally I look about 45 degrees away and towards the floor from the other person.