Eye to Eye Contact

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Hmmm. A toughie. Like others I'm sure, I had a chronic problem maintaining eye contact when I was younger and still do. Several times friends and family would point out that most of the time I wouldn't look them in the eye and instead, watched their mouths when they spoke.

First, a question for all: Does it feel more natural for anyone to watch another person's mouth instead of their eyes when "direct, face to face" communication is necessary?

I always thought it was a little weird about myself growing up. I'd practice eye contact when watching TV with the characters to get better at it. You get better at it after a while through live (albeit sometimes painful, awkward, etc) interaction,. Though it's still a challenge to maintain "lengthy" eye contact for me.

I don't know that looking at any particular part of the face seems more "natural" to me when talking to someone, but what's most comfortable for me is to look away from the face entirely. I can understand what someone is saying better if I'm just listening without looking at them (looking into space or at something uninteresting).

When I was young I apparently didn't make much eye contact (usually looked down, unless there was something interesting to look at). I've since learned to make eye contact on purpose, especially as a way of emphasising a point or deliberately showing confidence. I was probably a teenager before I started to figure it out, though, and think even now I don't quite use eye contact the way most people do.

I think that there is nothing unnatural if you don't look at the opposite's eyes while talking. However, mostly people always keep eye contact for some reasons like: reading each other, showing that you're self-confident, strong and capable. I think usually when you look at the other's mouth, she/ he might think that you're thinking about something like kisses -_- or their mouths have some weird problems.
So in the end, even if you don't like looking at their eyes, try to do so to show that you're confident and have abilities (even if you're uncomfortable or worried). Most of the time, they will be pleased and believe in what you seem to be.

I look at people's noses and they don't realise! I used to look at people's mouths, but people would comment, although I preferred it as it aided me in understand what they're saying. I'm not sure why as I can hear perfectly fine. It's like when I watch TV, I like to have subtitles on too, but I don't know why...

Anyway, back to the point. I've asked people when I'm talking to them, where they think I'm looking, and they all say eyes .

I just cant make eye contact at all-it is uncomfortable for me while talking to someone.

Looking at mouths is very common in autistics. It's one of the most tell tale signs.

I feel very uncomfortable maintaining eye contact when I am the one speaking. If the other person is speaking I tend to watch their mouths and glance quickly at their eyes from time to time.

A lot of autistic people look more at the mouth than at the eyes. One theory is that it's to aid language comprehension - some autistics compensate for auditory issues by lipreading, often without even realizing that's what they're doing. Even NTs lipread a little, as shown by the McGurk effect (watching a video of someone saying 'ga' while the audio is 'ba' makes most people hear it as 'da').

I look at mouths... even on television.

A few times long ago when I had more daily contacts, "friends" have insisted that I look into their eyes without breaking away. I tear up in a minute and look away. And I feel like I am being quickly filled with helium.