Forcing Eye Contact.

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Not exactly damaging, they could learn to fake eye contact for job interviews and meeting people so that would make them atleast a little bit more succesful in social interactions. You don't force it on them of course, but encouraging won't hurt.

Usually I do, especially during conversations. Since I want to look as though I am paying attention to what the person is telling me, though I become rather anxious from it.

I fake it most of the time unless it's a person I'm comfortable with. Though, if it's a grave/confrontational conversation, I still can't help myself looking down or away from them.

I force myself to make eye contact and pretend to be distracted by something else when I feel like staring elsewhere. I do that because when I was younger I was insulted for not making eye-contact (I didn't realized I did that at the time) or accused of "staring" when I tried to make eye-contact.
Many people also told me that avoiding eye-contact meant you were lying or in love with someone and I wouldn't like my friends to think that I'm in love with them because they'd probably let me down.
Others think that it's because you're afraid of them or think they are superior to you, which is why I try to make eye-contact when I debate with someone, I don't want them to think that my arguments aren't reliable because I don't look at them.

I still don't know whether everyone feel that way when someone doesn't make eye-contact or not, I don't feel like asking everybody about what it means for them, but I never found that abnormal before being beaten by other kids for that.

I struggle with eye contact sometimes. I've gotten used to it around people I know really well, but complete strangers are another story entirely. When I try to make eye contact, I make the common mistake of not paying attention to what that person is saying. It just feels awkward and icky for me to force eye contact, so I usually stare off in another direction or at a different part of the face of who I'm talking to.

Forcing yourself to make eye contact?

A damn good idea.

My first job was a grocery bagger, and obviously I knew from the start that I needed to do it to keep my job, so from day 1 that's what I did, with each single person out of hundreds per day. Give that a couple months and you'll be like a natural.

i sometimes force myself to look at people's faces, but usually default to looking at the mouth.

found out recently that it is generally interpreted as a sign of attraction though.

good to keep in mind for others who do this too ..

I just look in the general direction of their face, without focusing on eyes.

Personally, I have thought the same thing. I don't know about the statistics, but I have considered that all major advances in technology have been made by people like us.

It is our world. "We "created it, and they just live in it; and yet, we are the ones being forced to fit into it.

I am decidedly against eye contact.

There was this exercise in my public speaking class in which every student had to stand in front of the class, one at a time, and speak about a random subject. We had to make eye contact with every single student in the class at least three times before we were allowed to sit down. Each student would hold up one finger for each contact made; and when all three had been made, he or she would lower the hand.

I don't even remember what my subject was; I forgot it immediately after I stood up. I ended saying random words and phrases; I am not sure I said any sentences at all, other than ,"This is harder than I though t it would be!"

I don't know how long it took me; it may have been 2 minutes, or it may have been a half an hour. Each eye contact lasted only a split-second; but then again so does a bee sting. There were 30 students 3 times each. That's 90 bee stings! The worst part is that I got to choose when each sting happened, but I new the faster I went the sooner it would be over. It was like a Band-Aid...a really long Band-Aid that runs the length of your entire body, so it's hard to pull off all at once.

Part of a way of faking eye contact is to look at there nose or mouth or maybe a skin blemish. My friend used to not make eye contact a whole lot because he was distracted by there skin blemishes. One thing I do is make brief stints of eye contact but i dont look at the persons eyes the whole time during the conversation. One thing, if you can desensatize yourself mentally to a persons eyes, you can look at them much similarly to how you might look at an object.

I can do most things mostly normal, but eye contact is for me the most difficult thing out.

I'm getting a bit long sighted, so I can't focus on things up close anyway, not that this make any difference. My sorta-girl friend used to constantly berated me to look her in the eyes. This is before I was diagnosed, so I had no explanation at this point in time. It felt like an intense pain stabbing into my soul. Oddly enough, I read in a book soon after this about Asperger’s, so this little encounter caused me to discover my Asperger condition.

I've been trying to practice looking people in the eyes. It's still very painful for me, but I can do it. What I do notice is my ability to hear them almost disappears. I can hear words being spoken, but they make no sense. I have to look away in order for the words to make sense. It's a real catch 22.

I can force eye-contact for a short amount of time, the longer the easier it is to be distracted though. I tend to look around the face or turn my ear towards people when they speak to better distance myself from distraction and focus on what they say. Sometimes people try to move/lean into my field of vision (such as my therapist) or ask me to look them in the eye specifically (usually authority figures, which seems odd as in the "animal" world it is generally a sign of challenge to look another in the eye).

I can never make eye contact directly unless someone tells me to...

I started making eye contact when talking to or listening other people a few years ago when I read that it was a good thing to do in these situations; which was something I noticed I rarely did. But then, there's a difference between looking in the eye and staring, and that what something else I had to pay attention to when talking or listening to others, because you can make people uncomfortable. Now that I've been doing this for some years I've learnt to handle this and other things related to body language, but I still have problems because when I focus on body language I don't listen to what others are saying...

Looking at someone's mouth is completely fine - I know people who do this and it looks like they are making perfect eye contact. Looking at the nose is a good idea too...I do not recommend "forcing" anyone to make eye contact as I know it can be really uncomfortable for ,many people on the spectrum. Go with what feels comfortable to you.

I don't make eye contact directly because 1) most of the time I can't make out what is in their mind through their eyes, 2) as a musician, I also suffer from stage fright from time to time. One of the tricks of the trade you get taught in voice, as well as drama, classes is to pick a spot on the back wall of your venue (whether it be a theater, bar, concert hall, outdoor venue, or church) and concentrate on that spot. With the way my eyesight has been going (it sucks to be a diabetic, as well as suffering myopia, astigmatism and possible cataracts) I have to look downward in order to see the music, as I'm lousy at memorization.

I guess I'm also lucky that I was never formally diagnosed as OCD, since musicians are expected to be perfect in live performance. The only way to perfect what you are working on is to keep going over that sequence of notes until it gets to be second nature. The alto soloist in my church choir always thought I was a bit OCD. I looked at her with thevwhat are you talking about look? You also majored in music in college, you know as well as I do About what it takes to learn a piece of music for public performance. We musicians and actors can thank the recording industry for developing that little trait.

As a musician, you always hear the old joke, which someone asked the great violinist Jascha Heifitz (I Think, although any classical musician that can make in venues like New York, Chicago, etc., will tell you the same thing) when he was walking down Broadway in NYC, someone asked him, how do you get to Carnegie Hall? He responded, "Practice, Practice, Practice!"