Eye Contact Question- and Trigger Warning

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Hi,
I want to get your opinion on eye contact. I am ticking all the other boxes for aspergers and can't rest til this is resolved (I have been researching for two days straight). Although I can see now that I did have some problems with eye contact in childhood, they were pretty mild and did not attract the attention of adults. I probably made less than usual contact, sometimes stared past people, and occassionally got told 'Don't stare'. But none of this was ever brought to me as an issue. I can remember what my friends eyes looked like in primary school (although I wonder now if I actually stared at them rather than into them because this is what I often do now.)

I grew up in very strongly Christian household and one of the biggest rules was 'be friendly and polite to everyone.' When I was a kid this worked well. I was in a safe setting and generally took the friendly to over-friendly and sometimes confrontational approach. But as my social environment grew more complex I began to get more extreme in my extremes. I remember looking away from my friends and teachers a lot, but on the other hand staring and appearing really confrontational sometimes. Although no one said outright, it might have factored into why I was so rejected/bullied.

As an adult it's pretty much the same except more extreme. I love to stare at stranger but look away when they look at me. I like staring at my best friends but only like occassional eye contact, (with my love interest it is slightly more), and when I am giving a psychic reading I like to stare right into them for a long time, or when I am launching an attack on someone's injustice, I like to stare them down.) So, although I do think my eye contact is pretty non-normal now (I can fake it well but it tires me out), it wasn't sufficiently abnormal to begin with to be picked up on. The extremes were there but not obvious enough I guess. And again, I was good at following the all-out rule of being friendly.

I would put my eye contact issues on the mild end of the aspergers for these reasons, except that the consequences HAVEN'T BEEN MILD. In addition to my unusual eye contact possibly contributing to countless social rejection during adolescence,, the penny has just dropped that this is probably one of the main reasons I have been subject to so many predations by men over the years, beginning when I was around 13/14.

I was generalizing the rule that if you meet anyone, you smile, make eye contact, make conversation, and this in my mind still included that creepy guy you meet at the playground. No one told me otherwise. SO in other words, as the social environment got more complex, that simple rule of smile, make eye contact, be friendly was no longer appropriate but no one told me otherwise and with my brain there was no way to pick up on this.

I think then, that eye contact has had a pretty major impact on my life, but just because it wasn't obvious enough to pick up in childhood mean that I would qualify for a diagnosis of NOS rather than Aspergers? I feel that this would be incredibly stupid, given that all my other traits are strongly Aspergian and that eye contact problems have actually affected my life in a more subtle, yet equally devastating way. I'd like people's opinion to this and hopefully I can find some answers.

I can't give any advice, or make any judgement on what you described. I'm the opposite, I don't make eye contact at all, unless forced (thanks a lot k-12 education system). For me, I can't concentrate or many times even form a thought when there's eye contact involved. Also, eye contact is overrated it's almost an exclusively western phenomena, many African and Asian cultures view eye contact as a negative social interaction-- so don't worry too much about it.

Thanks Aristophanes. I like that- don't worry too much about it. I wonder these days if my friends will still be my friends if I stop forcing myself to make eye contact. Probably not a good idea.