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Nichard
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19 Aug 2015, 2:43 pm

I don't have any problems making eye contact, but sometimes it infuriates me like nothing else. If someone makes eye contact with me and doesn't say anything, I don't know what it means. Outside of a conversation it feels threatening, like I'm being singled out and attacked. I yell at my siblings for looking at me too much when we're in the same room. I've shouted at my mother for making eye contact with me across the dinner table. I can't work with people in the same room as me and I don't feel safe around other people, even my family.
Does anyone else have this problem?



0_equals_true
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19 Aug 2015, 3:19 pm

Well it make sense because eye contact in animals is often associated threat or aggression. However in humans there are subtle variations of eye contact which could give mixed signals.

I suggest you are more sensitive to the actual eye contact than you may think. Also it is not someone else's fault, they can't totally avoid it and are programmed to do it.

Prolonged eye contact is actual rare even amongst "typicals", it is a a bit of a myth that you maintain eye contact, the reality is people acknowledge with eye contacts and the eye move away and back at intervals.

Predators and dominant animals stare through or beyond the the prey. A confident lion can even look causally to the side if they see you as no opponent, they are basically are saying :"I don't even have to look at you, even though I'm lying down, if you move you are are mince meat anyway". Lovers look directly at the eye for longer than normal. In a threat situation an animal may stare directly at an animal but this becuase they are stunned and may have to react. Few other situations involve prolonged eye gaze.

I used to have big problem with eye contact. I did a series of exercises to help desensitise the effects of it. If you sit opposite someone with your eyes closed, then the look at you and you open your eyes in your own time, and shut them when you have had enough. You can build that and get nearer together. I seem to remember also the use sunglasses on the other person.

I tend not to look directly in people's eyes but at their brow, but the effects of people looking in my eyes is less.



Aspie202
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19 Aug 2015, 3:22 pm

Me too. Eye contact is just weird for me somehow.


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19 Aug 2015, 4:26 pm

I completely agree. Eye contact, as Luke Jackson put it, "feels like [you're] looking into the face of an alien". And its nuances are horrifying in their complexity.


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Aspie202
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19 Aug 2015, 4:37 pm

I don't know if this helps you with eye contact, but I usually do better if someone is wearing shades.


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Nichard
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19 Aug 2015, 4:53 pm

Thank you for your responses. Sunglasses do help since I can not see their eyes. I can tolerate my girlfriend making eye contact most of the time, but I can't tolerate my mother or brother, people I've known longer and trust more.
I know a lot of people find it uncomfortable, but I don't think it's supposed to make me angry. :/



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20 Aug 2015, 4:37 am

It annoys me too.

I don't even find it hard, I just see little point to it.

Yes, it's a sign they are paying attention to you, but people just seem to expect it too much.



Sophiemarie95
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26 Aug 2015, 2:54 pm

When I was getting diagnosed the man asked me if I had a problem with eye contact because I can't hold a gaze for more than a second before darting away

The only people I can make eye contact with are some family and partner otherwise no way



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05 Sep 2015, 9:42 pm

Sophiemarie95 wrote:
When I was getting diagnosed the man asked me if I had a problem with eye contact because I can't hold a gaze for more than a second before darting away

The only people I can make eye contact with are some family and partner otherwise no way


Well I'd say don't worry because even those of us who can do it don't like it.

In conversations I find when thinking about something I will break contact and sort of 'stare into the distance', or if thinking about what they are saying deeply I won't be making eye contact but still show non-verbal signs that I am thinking.

This isn't due to lack of social skills but personal choice. It still comes across as a little odd to others, all I can think is 'this is absolutely ridiculous!'



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06 Sep 2015, 3:50 am

Eye contact is a form of "staring" which has an obvious negative-overtone to it when worded in that way.