Reasons why you don't like eye contact

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The ones of you who don't like to make eye contact, try to put your reasons into words.

I personally don't like it because:

- First of all, it's just not a thing that comes naturally. I never had the urge to look into anyone's eyes, it's just not a thing that I do.

- Eye contact is so "exhausting" that it makes me forget everything else, and I can't follow or memorize conversations properly anymore.

- It feels a bit like "soul rape". Like someone is staring directly into my brain. Very unnatural and unpleasant.

To me it feels extremely awkward and unnatural, almost to what an NT female would think of someone staring at their breasts. As well, my mind usually goes completely blank and I can get overwhelmed with emotions when I look people in the eye if I don't know them. I even start to stutter a bit which makes me come across a having low intelligence while the opposite is true.

It's rather ironic how we did an exercise a work where we had to stand inches from another person and not break eye contact no matter what. I was one of the few who could do it successfully.

I never understood the need for it. People can hear me just fine, and I can hear them without having to look into their eyes. I've no interest in looking people in the eyes just because it's some unspoken social rule. I also suffer from a strong "look away" instinct if my eyes accidentally meet someone else's.

It does not come naturally to me, and I had to learn to do it. Since it's not natural, it can actually distract me from whatever the topic of discussion is, in order that I pay attention to my eye contact with the other person or people with whom I'm talking. It's not easy, and often I wind up giving them a blank stare for too long, and they think I'm on drugs, etc. When the other person or people force their eye contact on me, it actually stops up my whole thinking process.

When I'm discussing something serious, I will excuse myself and explain my situation about eye contact (assuming the person or people don't already know me), and then I'll dismiss the eye contact thing while I make my case.

Charles

It makes me uncomfortable and I never saw the point in it. I can hear them just fine. Only way I am actually looking at their faces is if I am having a hard time hearing them and I am looking at their mouths or if they are deaf so they need to see my lips so they can read them. But you don't need to look at their eyes still when you look at them. Plus it has felt like prickley branches when I would look at eyes.

Largely because it does not feel natural to me. It distracts me from what me and the person are trying to talk about because I have to consciously try to make eye contact, or to make it 'correctly'.

I think for me avoiding eye contact is a form of hiding from the other person. I know that "if I don't see it, it doesn't exist" doesn't really work but that's what it feels like, I avoid looking at someone and unconsciously hope he/she stops focusing on me. Also I just feel stupid staring at someone when I can't think of a single thing to say so my eyes skitter away.

Since it doesn't come to me naturally I've had to learn it and make a habit of it. Amusingly enough I've been complimented on it occasionally.

It feels really awkward and uncomfortable. I don't see why I need too look at people in the eye especially because if I do all I can think about is looking away which distracts me from what they are actually saying.

For me it just feels extremely unnatural. As soon as I look into someone's eyes my mind just goes completely blank. I'm no longer listening to what they're saying and all I'm thinking about is the facial expressions I'm making to try and look like I'm a normal person who's actually engaged in what they're talking about.

I find I perform better at the actual talking side of conversation when I don't have to look people in the eye, because then I can actually think about what I want to say.

Because I need to concentrate visually onto something less complicated while simultaneously listening to something which needs more processing and more attention. Of course, I trained myself to make eye contact as good as I can but if I feel comfortable I will concentrate on something else with my eyes. It gives me more space and time to think about my thoughts, what I'm saying and what other people are saying to me.

-I feel exposed
-I feel like the person can read my emotions
-I feel like the person is judging me
-I feel like the person is judging my looks
-sometimes it can be intimidating looking into the eyes of certain people
-I feel trapped
-it's awkward and it doesn't feel natural

Eye contact comes naturally when I'm talking to anyone, whether it's someone I know or just the cashier at the check-out in a supermarket. But eye contact with strangers who I needn't talk to is like one of the most hardest things to do, because:-

-I'm afraid I might be intimidating them if I find myself staring at them too long
-I'm afraid I might look silly if I try to make unnatural eye contact, where my eyes go all over the place and I look all nervous
-I seem to have a fear of meeting a stranger's eye because then a voice comes into my head saying ''what if he/she's just looking at me because he/she thinks I look weird?'' when rationally they are just looking because it's a natural thing what people do
-I then feel afraid that if I DON'T look at their eyes, they might look at me even more, expecting me to look at them
-All in all, I just find making eye contact with random strangers feels awkward

-It makes me feel extremely uncomfortable
-It distracts me from the conversation...I cannot really listen and make eye contact, I seem to perceive that as two totally different tasks so I can really only focus on one or the other.
-It doesn't come naturally
-Some people think I have a weird stare and to them it can mean 'weird stare=time bomb waiting to explode' so then I get treated like a freak.

Everything LostGirl1986 said applies to me.

-I feel exposed
-I feel like the person can read my emotions
-I feel like the person is judging me
-I feel like the person is judging my looks
-sometimes it can be intimidating looking into the eyes of certain people
-I feel trapped
-it's awkward and it doesn't feel natural

In addition it feels confrontational, it feels rude to stare at people, and I also process the conversation better if I watch their lips, and no, I'm not deaf, but I absorb input better visually than by sound.

I realize it bugs other people when we don't do much eye contact because they may feel we really aren't listening if we aren't eye ball to eye ball, but if we really don't want to listen we can walk away or pick up something to read, etc. As long as we are there listening with our ears, we are participating in the conversation.

Also, being criticised for not making eye contact tends to make me want to avoid that person.

I just can't think if I'm also looking someone in the eyes. Brain freeze, mind goes blank. I think what happens is that it's too much information to process, so my brain re-allocates computing power to process the incoming information at the expense of other activities (such as actually using my brain).

Looking into people's eye's, for me, is like staring directly at the sun.

As somebody else wrote, above, it is like "soul rape". Well put.