Where to keep my eyes when I'm walking.

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I'm so lost as to where I'm supposed to keep my eyes when I walk down a street or a hallway. I used to let them dance from person to person looking for people I know or recognize. I've felt this often creeps people out when they catch me looking at them and they don't know me. I would stare at the ground, but I feel this would look weird/creepy as well. As a result, I've taken to looking straight ahead of me, or sometimes over the person in front of me's shoulder if there is a person in front f me and I want to avoid staring at them. However, this has the result of me walking straight past people I know without even noticing them. It makes me look awkward or rude or standoffish when this happens.

So how do most people manage it. I feel NT's can simply spot there friends from a mile a way without looking at (and creeping out) a million strangers in the process. Do I just have really bad peripheral vision or something? I don't get it :/

I have always just looked at the floor.

I've always looked down too, though I'm trying to train my self to keep them up and looking around.

I have this same problem; my method is just to avoid their eyes...it's easier said than done.

I always look at the ground when I walk because I like to see where I am stepping. If I do not, I start swerving or get easily distracted.

I also look down.

I was told years ago not to look down as it looks like I'm depressed.

Mostly I do what the OP does.. just jump from person to person (or interesting object, if there aren't many people). I always thought that was normal!

when I was living in Manhattan a few years ago I picked up the trick of completely ignoring people, since you pretty much have to in the city. I just pretend I'm in New York again when I feel like looking at the ground is awkward and I don't know anybody.

I try to smile briefly when I accidentally make eye contact too long. I have trouble remembering who people are sometimes and never remember names, so the smile is either a neutral "I'm harmless/friendly" thing or a "hey I recognize you! say hi if you want to!" depending on how the other person takes it. I do so especially when women see me looking at them, so I don't look like I was undressing them with my eyes or whatever. I'm gay, so it's especially ridiculous, but I'm always paranoid women who don't know me will think I'm checking them out or am a rapist or something. I've noticed that sometimes (like walking across campus at night, me behind a woman, nobody else around) women are scared and look over their shoulders/walk faster (I am not especially creepy, just a 6 foot tall male stranger), so I try to be as disarming and obviously gay as possible in those situations. of course, I try the opposite around guys because I live in Arkansas and don't want to get beat up. mixed crowds, the end result is the NYC-style ignore everyone.

I like days that I can wear sunglasses. It doesn't totally solve the problem. but it helps.

Met someone from my childhood neighborhood. Didn't recognize him but he recognized me. lol

He said whenever he saw me walking around the old neighborhood, I had my eyes cast down on the sidewalk.

His words got me thinking. And I began to train myself to take a quick glance at the sidewalk in front of me (because of my tendency to trip easily lol -- gotta see potential tripping spots!) and then to also look around me. This technique of scanning later aided me when I got into road bicycling and also later into motorcycling. So whether on foot, on two wheels or four wheels, I let my eyes do what they ought to do: see forward and peripherally instead of tunnelly.

We humans have a near 180º field of vision range and we Aspies can use it to our advantage instead of just staring at the ground in front of us.

NTs are better at spotting people they know because they are good with making eye contact, and are more able to observe everybody around them without worrying too much about it. The reason why I can't seem to spot people I know is not because of faceblindness but because of struggling to meet everybody's eyes as I pass. I tend to look anywhere but at people's faces. I can even feel myself concentrating too much on avoiding eye contact with strangers, but I don't know how to stop myself. I'm just so afraid to catch somebody staring at me, and I'm sure people can pick up on that and accuse me of being either unfriendly or really nervous, which just makes things worse. But then I get my counsellor telling me that if I don't like seeing people look at me, then don't look at them. So I don't really know how to solve the issue. I just wish I could scan everybody's eyes automatically without concentrating too much on it.

Best to look ahead if there are cars that might run over you,at my house I look at the ground a lot,snakes a plenty here.

I keep mine firmly on my feet, looking slightly ahead to get a better judgement of foot placement and distance. I find that my walking pattern can sway like a drunk person, slowed speech don't help that It's bad enough with climbing stairs, foot misplacement have put me in hospital that required surgery.

I either look down, which is my fav, or I look at store fronts, shop signs, trees, cars etc or if I am feeling very uncomfortable I look at my phone as if to see if I have a text. As somebody else said, the best is to look down in order to calculate walking and not trip etc I walk pretty OK but I am always afraid of tripping and falling down plus sometimes the ground seems to be moving or changing texture for me, I forget what this is called. If that happens I might stagger for one step.