People don't look at me?

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Something that's been bothering me quite a bit lately.

Whenever I'm outside and interacting with others, I notice that people prefer looking at anyone besides me when they speak, occasionally casting a quick glance on me when I take my turns. I'm not particularly ugly, and try to make eye contact and look at people, smile, react to what they say, etc. Any other variables I might be missing here that I'm failing to control? Aside from being disliked and/or unfamiliar.

I'd like to have the answers for you, but no one here has watched how you interact when these people refuse to look your way.

Hopefully you'll be able to ask someone you trust to watch a few times..... then they may be able to tell you if you're standing funny, wrong body language, dressed strangely, or whatever it may be that's making the NT's have to look away.

It's just not possible to guess which one of a billion reasons it could be, without ever having seen you in real life.... sorry

Over time I've become disgusted with NT's and no longer care if they like me or not. I've become quite aggressive in asking them, for example, "Why do I get the feeling that you're trying not to make eye contact when we speak?" Then THEY get to be uncomfortable, as they try to explain.... ha ha. Tables turned, fair play.

I can tolerate being disliked and understand why somebody would take this stance towards me, but confusion and uncertainty are two of the things I do not enjoy.

Asking somebody to pay attention or straight asking about it is a great idea; never thought of that.

Outside? Do you mean outdoors or outside of your home/family?

The reason I ask is when I read your original post; I assumed outdoors. If you do mean outdoors; this occurred to me:

When in a group, outdoors, I like to face the group facing away from the sun, if possible. It's uncomfortable to my eyes if I look towards the sun to make eye contact with someone. Is it possible that you're unconsciously always maneuvering yourself into a positions where folks are necessarily looking towards the sun in order to make eye contact? Thus they can only comfortably just make fleeting glances your way?

Last edited by MountainLaurel on 09 Mar 2013, 4:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Given that most Apies have difficulty with social cues, it isn't surprising to me that they might avoid picking up your social cues, if they are known to be confusing.

I have the same problem. They also seem to look at the other person more. I'm really not that ugly.

this happens to me if i am not really 'there' mentally. if i actively try to be a part of the group, i get my fair share of attention, but i have to 'show' that i want that, if i disconnect, i get left alone.
this was a great realisation on my part, and something i have trained on, as actively disconnecting can make me pretty much invisible; a great skill to have if you just want to be left alone when going from A to B, this state also allows me to pass trough dense crowds with minimal touching, for some reason people will step aside from me without looking or talking to me.

i have had friends of mine comment at that, they started just behind me "you are tall, you make a path", yet the people i move past will step back into place as soon as i pass, needing the next person in line to make his own path. more often then not, i have to wait for the rest of the group to catch up to me, almost as if i move trough the people itself like a ghost.

They rarely call me on my name. If they do, they would go down a list of people names before they call me. I was beginning to get paranoid thinking I might have schizoid personality and they are going through the list of names of personalities that I might have. My name is so unique, how can they get it wrong.

People stare at me a lot, then I realized it's because I have a staring problem.
I wish I had this issue...

I see irony in this thread. Now we know how it feels to NTs when we don't give them eye contact and now some aspies are offended people aren't giving them it?

It doesn't bother me when someone doesn't look at me.

I'm not exactly jealous or offended. Just playing the same game as everyone else and wondering what's going wrong.

To me, the most important point (and there are many great side discussions that can come from this) is that the MOST uncomfortable feeling is when you know something must be wrong, but not what it is, and that panicky feeling that comes from trying to second-guess ourselves.

I have a serious anxiety disorder that was caused by this exact type of thing. This is serious, I believe, even if it seems like kinda a little thing by itself.

Either I could be shunned by society and feel okay about that; like that cute guy who can walk through crowds like a ghost

Or, I could tackle the problem bullheadedly head-on. Hard to ask someone "understanding" yet real enough, but many NT's if they can overcome their natural reluctance to discuss it, will be able to tell you pretty much exactly what they found off-putting about you. This'll probably hurt your feelings to some extent, but any very specific advice is valuable.

At least, then it's not anxiety curdled inside your belly, but at least out there and practical and something you can practice on?

Your not alone in this that's for sure. I'm the same exact way. I know I'm not ugly, but when I'm socializing, people tend to keep their eyes more on my friends than on me. It gets me really upset and jealous actually because I don't understand why people won't look at me or talk to me first. I'm a good person and definitely not ugly. I've come to the conclusion that its probably more of a confidence issue. We base how we feel about ourselves off of what other people think about us. So, because we don't feel that great about ourselves , we feel the need to get other peoples opinion and it don't matter if its from words, body language, eye contact, or facial expressions. The only way to not feel like you do is to love yourself and be confident because people are attracted to confidence...its contagious. There are times when I get confidence boosters and people look and talk to me more when I feel confident. Then I have a lot of down days because Im so worried about whay other people think, but I know it doesn't matter what people think. Its a process to heal. I'm getting there. Just learn to fully love yourself and you will see changes I promise.

Lol you should really look up my topic by the way. I think its called ´people avoid eyecontact with me´

Wow - this happens a lot to me as well. In fact, today, I wanted to get a question in on the tail end of a conversation while I was at coffee with my immediate workmate and someone else we bumped into on the way downstairs. While we were down there the other two were talking quite heavily and I was trying to chime in. Unfortunately for me they hardly made eye contact with me and when I tried to get a word in I had to attempt, like, 4 times before it was even heard!

I felt like Milton from Office Space....excusemehaveyouseenmystapler