Eye contact and smiling

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Do you feel like smiling when keeping eye contact? I, for one, struggle to refrain from smiling when it's inappropriate e.g. when talking to a man about a serious issue. I usually come across as flirty without trying to.

I've always felt weird about eye contact - it's one of things leading to my self-diagnosis of asperger's.

But smiling I either don't think about or try not to worry about. Pretty sure I look weird in photos when smiling ...

Smiling is an awkward thing for me. When people are being grave, serious, or upset is when I want to smile the most, and I'm not even sure why. But I always struggle to refrain from smiling at someone who's crying, and it makes me come off looking really, really insensitive, which normally isn't the case. I have very high empathy for those kinds of situations. Eye contact is another matter. I can't look at someone's face while I'm speaking because it disrupts my mental direction, but I focus most on someone's face in order to listen to them. Otherwise I get easily distracted and only catch half of what they say to me. My wife is always reminding me to look at the camera when I'm teaching an online class.

I don't keep eye contact, mostly I just forget to, and when I remember I only do it very briefly, for fear of overdoing it I think. I only seem to smile in response to humour or when I hear something that pleases me. Mostly I just try not to frown too much in the presence of others, unless I dislike them. I certainly don't usually feel like smiling just because I happen to be looking at somebody. Might be a bit different with people I find really amusing though. And come to think of it, I've been known to briefly grin at people, usually in a humorous situation or a tense situation where I'm seeking to break the tension. I don't know what signal that sends, but AFAIK it's not done any harm yet. It's complicated, I don't think I've described it very well.

I don't make eye contact, and I only smile when I'm actually happy.

Hm, sometimes. Then they'll be like, "What's so funny!?"

Hospitalities industry; I had to learn to do this :s

I used to smile inappropriately, but I've since managed to control it. Now I'm able to "talk" with my face...Not including words from my mouth.

I find it natural to smile and say hi and all that, - but I have noticed, that my eye contact really consists of few and small glimpses, while I study the face most of the time - and I have to look away, when thinking of an answer.

I don't like eye contact. I try to keep it brief, because it distracts me. I found out I naturally tend to look at other parts of the faces, like mouth, neck, nose. It's natural. I read autistic people tend to do this a lot, like NTs and people on the spectrum look at things differently and focus on different things. I also read people on the spectrum tend to look at the center of images (see a picture, or tv screen), which is something I found out I do and I had no clue it was related to autism.