Eye Contact

Post Reply New Topic

I only ever give eye contact that lasts for more than a few seconds when:
1. When I am emotional about the topic of conversation and wish to look convincing
2.When I am lying to someone and want them to believe me
3.When I am infatuated with a person and wish to attract their attention
4.When the person to whom I am giving eye contact is an individual to whom I am very close.

Eye contact really varies for me.

I don't seem to have a lot of natural inclination toward it, and do have some aversion, especially because it keeps me from understanding what someone is saying.

On the occasion I remember falling in love with someone, though, for some reason staring into her eyes was not threatening or unpleasant at all. Although we didn't talk, just stared.

Also sometimes it's less threatening in certain situations. I used to know an autistic man who communicated mainly through eye contact and gesture (no speech) and he wasn't threatening. Nor is, usually, my current support staff (in fact I stare at her face a lot to study her facial expressions).

I can make eye contact for a prolonged time if I am very angry.

I have sometimes stared at my eyes in the mirror and that doesn't bother me as much.

I had a psychologist use a very old form of behavior mod on me to make eye contact: This was the technique where you bang someone on the leg until they look at you and stop banging as hard or as much when they are looking at your eyes. This means that I am sometimes afraid not to make eye contact.

But apparently I don't make a lot of it overall. And it certainly takes away from comprehension rather than adding to it, most of the time (especially since concentric circles can make me blank out for awhile).

I notice that light eyes are normally worse than dark eyes.

I'm begining to get the grasp of it, but it is still work. Social skills in general still aren't good, but I am making progress with each day.

[/quote]I ususally focus on the mouth, after all, thats where the sound is comig from

opps

I used to be really bad about it but i've got slowly better with time, i still have my moments though where i can't seem to look into people's eyes without freaking out and quickly glancing away.

My eye contact is simply atrocious. It's so hard and overwhelming, either I listen to the conversation or I try to make eye contact and utterly ignore what is being said.

Ditto here.

I'm aware that my pattern of eye contact isn't standard. I'm aware that when talking to a person, I'm pretty much looking in their eyes the whole time. I don't think I'm staring, it doesn't feel like staring to me, but maybe the other person feels differently.

I'm also aware of avoiding eye contact sometimes, that is, I look away a lot when talking to someone of the opposite sex. The more of a chance I have with the girl, the more I'd like to go out with them and the more exciting and stimulating I find the girl... the more I look away - pretty much involuntarily, but due simply to the whole effort needed on my part doing something that doesn't come naturally.

I don't get the signifiance of eye contact, really. I very occasionly manage it and one such success, I think is worth telling about it:
I said something to someone, they told me to look them in the eye and say that. I did so, I think I kinda freaked them out there.

I until really recently had a big big problem with it. but now i have startagy which is slowly becomeing defult.

look for 6 secounds at thier forhead.... look away fr 3, then see if they are looking of they are look for another 6 if not wait 3 then reevaluate.

i a bit of a program but it can work somtimes.

jammie

My eye contact is lousy, but I'm working on it.
It's very energy draining for me.

It's suffocating, it actually makes me feel like the person is closing in on me and I can't breathe. I mostly talk to people at work so I find excuses to write a note or fidget with a pen or refer to the computer screen while talking so I don't have to think about eye contact. When I do try to hold eye contact I don't think I'm doing it right because the person tends to look away. So if one of us is going to do it, it may as well be me.

I do the micro-glances thing, where I look at a person for a second and then look elsewhere. At least, that's what I default to. I've been painstakingly training myself to have better eye-contact, though, and I am getting much better. I still hate it, and it's still difficult, but it's smoothed the way for me a lot socially, so it's worth the effort.

Normally I have no problem looking people in the eyes, however on a few occasions in 1-on-1 situations with the other person doing most of the talking in a lecturing sort of manner (frex if the other person is a professional of some sort being paid to give me advice), and where it has been prolonged, it has become too intense and made me feel a bit nauseous to continue looking in the eyes, and made my vision go a bit weird in a way that is difficult to describe but I will say a sort of concentric circles effect around the persons head, with the vision being less clear further away from their face. And then I become very self-conscious of my eye contact which makes it worse. Also, possibly being hungry makes me more susceptible to it. But this has only happened on a few occasions.

Anyone experienced similar?