Eye contact-Why did/do you dislike it?

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Most people with AS (Aspies, I guess, although I'm not too terribly fond of the term.) seem to have a pretty big disdain for staring people in the eyes. I'm just curious as to what reasons people here have for that dislike. For me, I definitely wouldn't say I had any one singular reason for finding it exceedingly uncomfortable, because there are plenty of reasons to dislike it, like there are plenty of reasons to dislike certain types of people (narcissists, sociopaths, etc.). Here's a few of mine:

It "hurts": Well, I actually wouldn't say it necessarily hurts (just the best word I could come up with.), more than I'd say it always causes a lot of discomfort and stress, psychological and physical (Tremors, stuttering, sometimes headaches). That stress is probably born of the fact that when it comes to dealing with people socially, I suck; I suck like a $1 hooker. Regardless of the reasons as to why it happens, it does, which is arguably just as pertinent.

I'm bad at "Bluffing": When I'm tired, depressed, etc (Which is often; don't have a lot of money to treat my depression, so I'm sort of biding my time, possibly looking for a definitively part time job after a considerable length of unemployment. Probably couldn't handle much more than 20, maybe 25 hours.), I think that shows up in my eyes and is hard to hide (Although I'd say by and large NTs find it easier. I don't think it'd be prudent for me to paint with a broad brush however, as I think ultimately, it's reliant on individual traits and weaknesses and strengths that people are hampered by/play off of for NTs. People can be neurotypical and not be "People people" or have difficulty suppressing negative feeling.) . For as pleasant as I try to be, I know that to some extent, people can see through that and understand that I do have issues, whether it's my social awkwardness, depression, etc, and my eyes are the express route to that understanding, which I do find intimidating, being a person who is private with his feelings in the first place and who does fear some degree of judgment. I believe in the old saying about eyes being the windows to the soul for sure.

Thrown out of the frying pan and into the fire: As a child AND as an adult, I've always found a degree of stress inherent in the whole process of socialization. However, what is a guy to do? Whether it's your mother telling you as a kid to look people in the eyes because that is what expected, or whether it's a born out of the more mature understanding that this is "The way it is" for most of society and that there's no escaping it unless you wish to make a fool of yourself, there is always a degree of pressure on an autistic person to conform to social norms; shake hands, look people in the eyes, sit up straight, chit-chat, etc. To the extent that that is true (And I don't think I'll find much disagreement there.), it's hard to avoid the prospect of trying to be flexible, non-rigid and dishonest to who and what we are, which adds fuel to the fire, given that we're not already not exactly social butterflies. By and large (and again, I don't want to paint with a broad brush here.), AS people are not flexible and we do have a sort of rigidity in how we act, how we interface with the world, what we like, etc. And of course, we don't like being dishonest about interests, our personalities; in essence, ourselves and would love it if we could walk into a place with an air of mutual understanding and respect for our differences, without having to feel like we need to be self-suppressive. Obviously, however, we're aways away from that, though progress is being made a step at a time.


Anyways, I'm going to stop running my mouth (well, fingers....) for now and let other people jump in. Maybe we can have an interesting discussion about difficulties with eye contact and our own subjective reasons for that discomfort. Also, feel free to speculate on why you struggle with other aspects of socializing, as long as we don't allow this train to go too far off track and keep eye contact the main focus of discussion.

Edited for slight rewording.

Well at first it never even occured to me to look anyone in the eyes...it started as something my mom said I was supposed to do, and then I realised I could not seem to even if I tried. Its hard to explain how the discomfort of looking people in the eyes feels but its very unpleasent and prevents me from paying attention to them. If I get to know someone really well I can make eye contact here and there without getting uncomfortable but otherwise its nearly impossible.

I don't know if anyone else has that much of an issue.....maybe some just dislike it but for me its almost unbearable and sometimes impossible.

If people don't see my face, then I can't send them unintentional signals. Or at least that's the way it should work. So whenever I'm talking to people that know me, I try my absolute hardest to make sure they don't see my face. But whenever I'm around people I don't know, I force myself to look at their face just so I don't appear to be any weirder than I already am.

I didn't have any trouble giving eye contact to people whom I felt comfortable with. It's the people whom I was scared of, that I had a great deal of making eye contact with. The more mean spirited the person was, the less likely I was to look them in the eye. I'm still like that.

It's not disdain. It's painful - headaches, overload, etc. Pensieve described it as being like "looking into the sun" and that just about covers it for me, too.

I never really paid attention to my eye contact, although I was generally aware I didn't bother with it very often. When I was trying to prove to myself I wasn't autistic I spent a lot of time trying to make eye contact and discovered that I had no idea how long I should hold it, and I hated the sensation.

I just don't like acknowledging people and eye contact suggests that I may be doing so.

I seem to have a converse problem with eye contact. Namely, when I look at others, they get creeped out *amazingly* quickly (2 seconds or less seems typical). I'm not aware of, I dunno, deliberately making googly-eyes at somebody, but that tends to be the sort of reaction I get. I often only notice I've done this as I notice someone startle, glare back or fidget until I look away just a little.

My lack of eye-contact started off as the result of confusing social cues. I did not want to look at people who communicated very heavily with their eyes because it was difficult for me to understand. Later on, after I'd been around enough people, and learned that avoiding them meant less failure/pain... lack-of-eye-contact became the product of shyness and social anxiety.
Now, I've managed to work through a portion of the anxiety and fear, but I still come up against the incomprehensible nature of a lot of non-verbal human communication, including eye-contact. Full circle, in a way.

For me, eye contact contains too much information, that I am not able to properly process. This purely intellectual/perceptual trait then gets compounded by all the social implications that it carries with it.

I wonder if my eye contact habits are typical of that of an aspie.

I never disliked it. I just didn't know that I was "supposed" to do it.

Well...initially I made very good eye contact. Creepy-good eye contact. I was told that they only way to show that you are actively listen is to look at the speaker. Eye contact has never been natural for me, so when I followed that rule, I unnerved my classmates. I stared. They didn't like it. And it did not really help me be a more effective listener. It screwed me up inside, so I stopped looking at all. That is when I realized that eye contact made me uncomfortable, because prior to that I always did it because it was a rule.

Looking directly at people makes me feel embarrassed. Nervous. I get lost when I look into a person's eyes. I stop listening and just...stare. Feel their eyes locked with mine...look at the pattern in the irises. The words stop coming in and I either become absorbed in the look of their eyes or I feel creepy all over.

I was watching House Hunters International and there was a lady who worked as a singer on a cruise ship trying to buy a house on St John and I noticed her manner and how she talked to people. She had this big smile on her face most the time and always maintained eye contact. She exuded confidence and friendliness.
I thought it would be neat if I could pull that persona off, but it wouldn't be easy. Maybe that's the way a successful person acts in order to make it?
She did make good eye contact, so I guess that's important, but she also did things with her eyes, like use them to create energy. It's difficult to explain. She had this charisma about her and it was due to what she did with her eyes.
I don't know why I am not this way. Maybe I lack confidence and worry it will bring too much confrontation into my life? People might misinterpret it as being ready for a fight and I might get into more scrapes this way, so I try not to look at people because of this.

For me, it is slightly uncomfortable to look into people's eyes because it feels like their "souls" are shining out of them at me. That probably sounds weird...

When I was younger I used to think that making direct eye contact was weird and that no one made direct contact, and didn't understand why my parents kept telling me to look people in the eyes. Even as I realised that your supposed to look people in the eye, I had a hard time looking people in the eyes as it felt weird and uncomfortable. Recently, I've been working out alot and getting into shape, and my confidence has boosted way up, so I've been looking people in the eye more. However, people find my eye contact uncomfortable and uneasy, many people, including my mom, have said it feels like I'm staring right through them or that I'm like a robot. I actually destroyed chances at friendship because of my unpleasant stare.


One of the things I learn about eye contact is that NTs aren't just staring into each other's eyes when they make eye contact, but they are communicating non verbally and using a unique langauge, let's call it "occular speak", that many auties and Aspies simply don't understand. Really socially skilled and extroverted NTs can learn alot about a person with just occular speak alone, no words or actions necessary. When a NT looks into an aspies/auties eyes, they might as well be looking into the eyes of a blind man or deaf mute. Because we don't communicate occulary(is that a word?), they can't read us, and that is very unnerving to a NT, particularly a very extroverted one.

Not all auties and aspies are this way, many also know a little bit of occular speak, but not enough to communicate efficiently. This auties that know a little bit of occular speak are often manipulated and abused by the more ill-willed NTs. After all, many aspies suck at lying,deception,manipulation and communication in general, so no wonder we don't like looking people in the eye, we just don't want them to read us and prey on our insecurities. So the reason auties don't look people in the eye is to protect ourselves from harm.

I didn't know about occular speak. It sounds really interesting.